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Stephen King's Dark Tower: The Long Road Home

Stephen King, Peter David, Robin Furth, Richard Isanove

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 12 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

It's Hard To Be The King 3 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Shortly after graduating high school (too many years ago to admit to), I read my first Stephen King novel called Firestarter about young Ms. Charlie McGee. Shortly after, I decided to take on King's 800+ page epic called The Stand (updated in the 90s to 1100+ pages!)....After those two novels I was hooked on anything King...couldn't wait for his next release.

In 1982 King brought back the main antagonist (albeit under a different name) of The Stand for the beginning of what turned into an awesome seven-part series called The Dark Tower. In 2007 we were treated with a new beginning to The Dark Tower series, a prequel, a graphic novel called The Gunslinger Born. Hence, I could not wait for The Long Road Home...this second installment of the spinoff comic book Dark Tower series.

King again worked closely with Marvel, his personal assistant of several years (Robin Furth) and an experienced comic book writer (Peter David) in order to deliver this second adaptation of his work. The Long Road Home is a bit more Robin Furth and Peter David than was The Gunslinger Born. In other words, any King fan(atic) knows King's signature style and typical prose. And that style and prose was clear as day in The Gunslinger Born. But in The Long Road Home, it just seemed a bit less King and a bit more Furth and David. This is not really a bad thing. It's just that King has that magic that makes you a dedicated reader; that magic is kind of MIA in The Long Road Home.

Don't get me wrong. I thoroughly enjoyed The Long Road Home. But don't expect a Stephen King novel. Sure, King had oversight, and Furth and David are good...but they are not The King.

The story picks up with Roland Deschain and friends Alain and Bert as they make their way home from their first assignment by The Elders that was played out in The Gunslinger Born. It's a cool adventure, but I'd be more interested if from here Furth, David and King took the actual Dark Tower novels and converted them into graphic novels for an amazing, image-filled, refreshing re-read. After all...it's been 25 years since I read the first Dark Tower novel, and the way my memory has been working lately, a graphic novel adaptation would be like reading it for the first time. Do ya kennit?

Regardless, whether you've ever read a comic book, graphic novel, Dark Tower or Stephen King story for that matter, The Gunslinger Born and The Long Road Home are great escapes into a world that goes on forever. I highly recommend reading them in the order that they were released.

Editorial Review:

It's the return of the best-selling comic book series, inspired by Stephen King's epic The Dark Tower! Gunslinger Roland Deschain has seen the death of his lover Susan Delgado. And the Big Coffin Hunters who burned her at the stake are now in pursuit of Roland and his ka-tet Cuthbert and Alain. The friends are forced to flee into the desert with the deadly posse in hot pursuit... .and Roland is in a coma! Don't miss the next chapter in the saga of the Gunslinger whose quest for the Dark Tower will shake the foundation of reality itself! Collects Dark Tower: The Long Road Home #1-5.

Batman: The Long Halloween

Jeph Loeb, Bob Kane

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 133 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

It's refreshing when you find a Batman story that both is epic and successfully explores the core of a resolutely explored character. Taking as its catalyst a sub-plot from the seminal Batman: Year One, the story revolves around murders occurring on national holidays, the victims connected to Mob boss "The Roman." Dubbed "Holiday," the killer uses an untraceable handgun and leaves small trinkets at the scene. Plenty of suspects are available, but the truth is something the Dark Knight never suspected. This series scores two major coups: it brilliantly portrays the transfer of Gotham rule to the supervillains and charts the horrific transformation of Harvey Dent from hardened D.A. to the psychotic Two-Face. Both orbit around the sharply portrayed relationship between Dent, Commissioner Gordon, and Batman: a triumvirate of radically different perceptions of Justice. It is always great to see the formative incarnation of Batman, drenched in noir here.Jeph Loeb's writing is keenly aware that Batman is a detective, and Tim Sale portrays a Gotham that is a fertile breeding ground for corruption and madness. Here, Batman is coming to terms with the potent image he projects and the madness it attracts. There are many fine Batman stories, but the ones that capture the spirit with extreme clarity are few. On this alone, The Long Halloween comes highly recommended. Masterfully executed, this is an excellent chance to revisit the world of Batman as fresh as in the summer of 1939. --Danny Graydon

Moving Targets and Other Tales of Valdemar (Valdemar Novels)

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Editorial Review:

Sixteen original stories—set in mercedes lackey’s valdemar universe

Includes a new novella by Mercedes Lackey!

Today’s hottest fantasy authors visit Mercedes Lackey’s bestselling world of Valdemar, adding their own special touches to the ancient land where Heralds “Chosen” from all walks of life by magical horse-like Companions patrol their ancient kingdom, dispensing justice, facing adversaries, and protecting their monarch from whatever threatens. Travel with Tanya Huff, Mickey Zucker Reichert, Fiona Patton, Judith Tarr, Rosemary Edghill, and others in these exciting, all-new stories.

Foundation (Valdemar: Collegium Chronicles, Book 1)

Mercedes Lackey

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 28 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

companions are back 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 4 people found this review helpful.

I was so happy to find a new valdemar series I read all the others and really missed the companions they are so sweet in the books.I'm hooked on this new series and can't wait for book 2 to see what happens next.I really felt sad for mags but things are getting much better for him with his new friends.

Love Lackey! 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I love all of her books. They always take that little moment of free time and turn it into an adventure.

Lia Christians

Fantastic start to a trilogy 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I really enjoyed this book with a different time setting and characters I did not know. Mags takes ignorance of the world and gains a completely new outlook. I especially enjoyed the problems that were being faced in Haven with the numbers of new Chosen coming to the city. Everything in Valdemar is not always joy and happiness.
I hope that the sudden ending leads to another book following Mags and Dallen quickly as I had a difficult time putting the book down even when finished.

Editorial Review:

The long-awaited brand new novel in the bestselling Valdemar series.

In this chronicle of the early history of Valdemar, Mercedes Lackey’s bestselling world, a thirteenyear- old orphan named Magpie escapes a life of slavery in the gem mines when he is chosen by one of the magical Companion horses of Valdemar to be trained as a Herald. Thrust into the center of a legend in the making, Magpie discovers talents he never knew he had—and witnesses the founding of the great Heralds’ Collegium.

Batman: Dark Victory

Jeph Loeb

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 58 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Great Robin Origin 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

I enjoy this book more than The Long Halloween which where this book picks off. It is really not a continuation per-se but another murder mystery very similar to Holiday killer in The Long Halloween but just picks up the story where it left off. What made this book more interesting was the origin of Robin which is a lot more interesting than Harvey Dent's backstory and arguably more interesting than Bruce Wayne's history! In this book, Robin actually makes himself useful as he would have to in order to convince Batman to take him in as a partner. There are some new, refreshing villains in this book such as Penguin and Mr Freeze! A better read than the previous book in my opinion.

A Worthy Long Halloween Followup 4 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Dark Victory expands upon The Long Halloween, and has a story interesting enough to please fans of Loeb's original Batman-mob story. Robin isn't played heavily, which is a good thing for me, but any Batman fans should pick this up.

Wonderful Seller! In perfect condition! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

It was just what my husband wanted, in perfect condition and half the price of the trendy comic stores! I am extremely happy!

Out of the Silent Planet (Space Trilogy, Book One)

C.S. Lewis

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 161 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Clever sci-fi AND a compelling allegory! 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Elwin Ransom, an Oxford don and an ardent philologist, is enjoying a solitary cross country ramble on his vacation when he encounters Professor Devine, a long-time acquaintance from his student days at Oxford, and Weston, a somewhat distracted and grumpy, reclusive individual. Weston is, in fact, a physicist who has secretly built a space craft in which he and Devine plan to return to Mars (Malacandra, in the native Martian populace's language) with nefarious ideas of plunder and planetary domination. As part of their plan, they drug and kidnap Ransom to take him along as a sacrificial peace offering to the native population.

On the face of it, a beautifully written Out of the Silent Planet has a simple classic sci-fi plot and can certainly be enjoyed at this level. But virtually every reader will recognize that Lewis' work probes far more deeply than that. His strongly held Christian beliefs, never far from that surface plot, are apparent in his criticism of human prejudice and greed. It is also clear that he holds extremely strong views against notions of eugenics and the then universally held belief in the natural supremacy of western white civilization as compared, for example, to aboriginal populations elsewhere in the world. Even though his allegorical tale goes so far as to include a version of angels and an archangel, the story never becomes preachy, odious or whiny.

Astute long-time readers of science fiction are always on the alert for errors of scientific fact. So Lewis may be mildly criticized for making a fundamental error in how gravity would work aboard a space craft but this certainly detracts in no way from the quality of his story. To the contrary, I thought he earned top marks and high praise for crafting, for example, a startlingly accurate description of the appearance of the sky in the transition zone from atmosphere to space at extremely high altitudes (at a time, of course, when space travel was at best a twinkle in scientists' eyes). I also noted a single quite astonishing comment that seemed to predict Einstein's work on cosmology, travel at light speed and relativity ... "But if the movement were faster still ... in the end, the moving thing would be in all places at once." His brief exposition on linguistics and the possibility of a universal syntactical structure of languages was also fascinating without being distracting or pedantic.

For fans of soft sci-fi, Out of the Silent Planet will provide a smorgasbord of delights - alien characters and personalities, philosophy, ethics, survival in a potentially hostile environment and descriptions of alien flora and fauna that are near poetic in their beauty and majesty. I'm looking forward to reading the next novels in his masterwork trilogy, "Voyage to Venus" and "That Hideous Strength".

Highly recommended.

Paul Weiss

Editorial Review:

The first book in C. S. Lewis's acclaimed Space Trilogy, which continues with Perelandra and That Hideous Strength, Out of the Silent Planet begins the adventures of the remarkable Dr. Ransom. Here, that estimable man is abducted by a megalomaniacal physicist and his accomplice and taken via spaceship to the red planet of Malacandra. The two men are in need of a human sacrifice, and Dr. Ransom would seem to fit the bill. Once on the planet, however, Ransom eludes his captors, risking his life and his chances of returning to Earth, becoming a stranger in a land that is enchanting in its difference from Earth and instructive in its similarity. First published in 1943, Out of the Silent Planet remains a mysterious and suspenseful tour de force.

Scarlet (The King Raven, Book 2)

Stephen R. Lawhead

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 33 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

After losing everything he owns, forester Will Scarlet embarks on a search for none other than King Raven, whose exploits have already become legendary. After fulfilling his quest--and proving himself a skilled and loyal companion--Will joins the heroic archer and his men.

Now, however, Will is in prison for a crime he did not commit. His sentence is death by hanging--unless he delivers King Raven and his band of cohorts.

That, of course, he will never do.

Wales is slowly falling under the control of the invading Normans, and King William the Red has given his ruthless barons control of the land. In desperation, the people turn to King Raven and his men for justice and survival in the face of the ever-growing onslaught.

From deep in the forest they form a daring plan for deliverance, knowing that failure means death for them all.

Scarlet continues Stephen R. Lawhead's riveting saga that began with the novel Hood, which relocated the legend of Robin Hood to the Welsh countryside and its dark forests. Steeped in Celtic mythology and the political intrigue of medival Britain, Lawhead's trilogy conjures up an ancient past and holds a mirror to contemporary realities. Prepare for an epic tale that dares to shatter everything you thought you knew about Robin Hood.

Perelandra (Space Trilogy, Book 2)

C.S. Lewis

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 90 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

The best of the series 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy is easily one of the best series I've ever read, and while each volume is so strong that it's difficult to choose the best, Perelandra, the second book, builds well on the foundation laid by Out of the Silent Planet and, in the end, outshines the final book, That Hideous Strength.

The story begins as Lewis, writing himself into his own story, arrives in the English countryside to visit his old friend Dr. Ransom, with whom he has been corresponding about Ransom's strange journey to Mars, chronicled in the first book of the series. When Lewis arrives, Ransom reveals that the eldils--angelic creatures bound to different planets--of Mars have continuously visited him since his return to Earth, and that he is to leave on another journey that very night. Boxed up in an otherworldly, coffin-like capsule, Ransom is whisked away and doesn't return for over a year. When he does, he narrates his story through Lewis.

Perelandra is the actual name of what we call the planet Venus, and when Ransom crashes through the dense, cloudy atmosphere he finds himself in a world of nothing but ocean, where floating islands of matted plants drift along, providing a place for rest and sleep. There, he meets the Queen of Venus, a green-skinned, naked woman apparently innocent of all knowledge except that told directly to her by Maleldil, or God. She knows the animals and their names, that her husband, the King, is somewhere on the same planet, and that Maleldil has forbidden them both to spend the night on solid land.

Ransom decides that he has been brought to a new Eden, but for what purpose? His question is answered when a familiar-looking spaceship lands on Perelandra and Dr. Weston, the Nietzschean nemesis of Out of the Silent Planet, rows ashore. Weston soon plays host to a devilish tempter and Ransom's duty becomes clear--he must prevent this Eden's fall.

Perelandra is a tour de force for C.S. Lewis. All of his skills are on display and sharply focused--the beautifully-drawn world, the deep resonance of his message and theme, and even the wry, good-natured humor that underlies so much of his work. And the work is far deeper than most scientific or theological fiction--parallels to his own works, such as The Screwtape Letters, and works like Paradise Lost and The Divine Comedy abound. Those to Paradise Lost are perhaps the most pointed, as Lewis dethrones Milton's concept of a high, stately Satan and replaces it with the far more likely childish, vindictive devil that inhabits Weston.

The Space Trilogy is very loosely constructed, which means that any one of the books can be read as either part of the series or as stand-alone entertainment. It may not be necessary to read Out of the Silent Planet prior to this novel, but I'd recommend it and, if you choose not to, you'll want to once you've finished Perelandra. You won't be disappointed.

Highly recommended.

Editorial Review:

The second book in C. S. Lewis's acclaimed Space Trilogy, which also includes Out of the Silent Planet and That Hideous Strength, Perelandra continues the adventures of the extraordinary Dr. Ransom. Pitted against the most destructive of human weaknesses, temptation, the great man must battle evil on a new planet -- Perelandra -- when it is invaded by a dark force. Will Perelandra succumb to this malevolent being, who strives to create a new world order and who must destroy an old and beautiful civilization to do so? Or will it throw off the yoke of corruption and achieve a spiritual perfection as yet unknown to man? The outcome of Dr. Ransom's mighty struggle alone will determine the fate of this peace-loving planet.

That Hideous Strength (Space Trilogy, Book 3)

C.S. Lewis

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 89 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Probably Lewis's worst. 1 out of 5 stars.
2 of 9 people found this review helpful.

Firstly let me say I'm an atheist; I find all religious beliefs to be rather silly.

However this book (even more than its predecessors) is awful. It's not so much about Lewis's religious beliefs as about his politics and personal life; the whole thing is a huge compendium of Blimpish Tory ranting against anything vaguely liberal in Britain post-1945. Far and away Lewis's worst and most infuriating book. It is also embarrassingly, offensively, sexist ("Write no more books, have children instead").
There is quite a lot of messed up sexism in the whole trilogy, even more so than Lewis's work in general. It seems to (mainly) boil down to a lot of the "essentialist male = closer to God" nonsense and monarchy-worship (Lewis was an ardent monarchist and distrusted democracy, as shown in this and other books).
It seems to me that Lewis (to paraphrase Patricia Schroder) was scared by the whole notion of a woman who has a brain and a uterus.

Lewis must have been going through a pretty bad time personally during and right after the war, to write such a bizarre, mean-spirited, book. Perhaps it's more about Lewis's own doubts, and his reaction to the general loss of religious faith caused by the war, as the book seems to be written to bolster his *own* faith.

Also the book is downright illogical in it's perception of god (e.g. the Merlin character's pronouncements against Jane for using birth control; obviously Lewis's god couldn't cope with a diaphragm.......). If this is God's will, that we be governed by the apparent mentality of a sulky child, then indeed it is a toss-up which side is good and which evil

Editorial Review:

The final book in C. S. Lewis's acclaimed Space Trilogy, which includes Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra, That Hideous Strength concludes the adventures of the matchless Dr. Ransom. The dark forces that were repulsed in Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra are massed for an assault on the planet Earth itself. Word is on the wind that the mighty wizard Merlin has come back to the land of the living after many centuries, holding the key to ultimate power for that force which can find him and bend him to its will. A sinister technocratic organization is gaining power throughout Europe with a plan to "recondition" society, and it is up to Ransom and his friends to squelch this threat by applying age-old wisdom to a new universe dominated by science. The two groups struggle to a climactic resolution that brings the Space Trilogy to a magnificent, crashing close.

Reserved for the Cat (Elemental Masters, Book 5)

Mercedes Lackey

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 25 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

reservations about the cat 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This was a good concept but I felt that the writing let it down. When characters are young or feline it is too easy to write in the genre of a children"s book rather than hitting that adult market. I enjoyed but at times was annoyed

How Can A Book Full of Mystery and Magic be BORING? 2 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

I have enjoyed many of Lackey's works including "The Black Swan" and "The Five Hundred Kingdoms" series. Thus, I had high hopes for this book that blends fairy tales, ballet and magic for what *should* be an entertaining book. But alas, it is not.

The heroine is barely likeable. The other characters are half finished sketches that leave gaping plot holes, with one introduced late in the book, ending up as absolutely nothing. There is a threadbare romance (mostly some glares from the male side of the coin, and some remarks and thoughts from other characters "anticipating" some kind of flying sparks) but that's left hanging before it even begins. The ending is just slapped on. After a hundred pages or so of build up, its just dashed together from a completely different direction. Those who really should know the identity of Thomas are completely left in the dark. There are too many dead ends and cardboard characters.

And its a shame, because the basic outline of the story is a good one, the setting is a rich, interesting and an unconventional one (for fantasy anyway) that holds a multitude of promises, all which are dashed and broken by the quickly wrapped up ending.

It was like the author had some good ideas, didn't really know what to do with them, and then was rushed to finish the book to meet the deadline. That would explain away the plot holes, inconsistancies and other nagging problems. And finally... the book is just not interesting enough to read. I did finish it personally but have no interest in ever going back to it.

Editorial Review:

Based loosely on the tale of Puss in Boots, Reserved for the Cat takes place in 1910 in an alternate London. A young dancer, penniless and desperate, is sure she is going mad when a cat begins talking to her mind-to-mind. But her feline guide, actually an Elemental Earth Spirit, helps her to impersonate a famous Russian ballerina and achieve the success she’s been dreaming of. Unfortunately she also attracts the attention of another Elemental Spirit—a far more threatening one—and the young dancer must once again turn to her mysteriously powerful four-legged furry friend.