Saturday, December 1, 2012

The Hammer & Hello, I am Back

I haven't posted since September for one simple reason -- I haven't read anything. But I have some new cute excuses for my wanton abandonment of books:




Yes, kittens can apparently be entertaining enough to replace books for a few months. But old friends (like books) always end up coming back and so I did end up finishing one book this month.

Title: The Hammer
Author: K.J. Parker
Genre: Fantasy
Published: 2011
Rating: 8/10

The Hammer is a standalone fantasy novel whose main character is a nobleman's child growing up in exile. What could be more cliche, right? But there's something about the narrative as well as the story itself that sets it aside from countless other fantasy books. For one, the dark tone of the novel immediately makes it clear that the story is not going to be fluffy. There are the continuous incongruencies between the supposed noble state of Gignomai's family and their actual livelihood and behaviour. It's a study of characters who adapt and grow and I ended up enjoying the novel very much. The direction that the novel takes is very different from the typical epic fantasy and I love it when the author can make their point within one tome. There's a grim satisfaction to the ending in this book.

This is the second book I've read by K.J. Parker and I liked it better than The Company. Both share this dark tone and character-oriented plot, but I felt this one was closed out better and had fewer annoying characters. Will definitely be on the lookout for more books by Parker.


3 comments:

  1. Welcome back! Sometimes it's needed to take some time away to recharge the reading batteries and it looks like you had a couple of interesting diversions.

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  2. Hey, welcome back! You are indeed correct, those are some cute distractions. :)

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  3. Thanks! Hopefully catch up on some reading during December holidays, though I have no hope of meeting my reading goal this year unless I start picking up picture books for kids or something :)

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