BOOK UPATE - INKPOT'S 25 TO 30

Inkpot has kindly forwarded reviews of her next 5 reads. She's now crossed the 30 book mark - well done, Inkpot!

This is what she says of the stories:


26. A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS
Edgemont, the publisher of Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, ran a competition in UK schools for short stories inspired by the books. These are the 13 winning entries. Some are good, some are not so good, and there is even space at the end to add your own story (well, that’s what I did with the couple of blank pages provided). This is a beautifully produced booklet and a lovely idea for this popular series.

27. THE DREAM ARCHIPELAGO by Christopher Priest
I took this book out of the library after reading an interview with the author in the latest Albedo One. He seemed a nice guy (he thinks using bad language in books is poor writing and Galaxy Quest is one of his favourite films) and he also wrote the book on which The Prestige was based. The Dream Archipelago is a collection of previously published short stories all loosely based around the islands of the title. I felt these stories belonged more to Glimmer Train than to Analog, and had little interest for me. Two stories stood out - one, about a soldier and a writer on the battle front and another rather disgusting account about the consequences of eating forbidden fruit. Other than that, I thought they were very boring and similar to each other.
3/10 Almost Darren Shan

28. BURNT OFFERINGS by Laurell K Hamilton
I wouldn’t want to know Anita Blake. She will kill you, or threaten to kill you, one minute and then fight for your life the next because someone else threatens to kill you and then will kill you the minute she has saved your life. And if you are lucky enough not to be threatened by her for a few hours, then someone else probably will because Anita has a lot of enemies and anyone who associates with her usually ends up tortured or dead. Then there is the way her powers keep on growing until she can do anything and is more powerful than any other creature, and the way she can put you down when pretending to put herself down and don’t get me started on how her dating a vampire is so uncool.
2/10 Darren Shan Wannabe

29. DREAMWEAVER by Louise Lawrence
This book is about two teenagers, Eth and Troy. Troy is travelling on a space ship with three thousand people from Earth to colonise the planet Arbroth. Eth lives on the planet Arbroth, a peaceful pastoral place, and can project her spirit throughout the galaxy while asleep (dreamwalk). The threads of both their lives are wound through the story. As Troy journeys to Arbroth, Eth journeys into adulthood. Some parts of this book, like the Dreamwalk and astral projection, I liked a lot. The rest of it I found very standard fantasy fare passing off as science fiction. How come the people on Arbroth were identical to people from earth apart from having orange eyes? Very simply written with a lot of telling (as opposed to showing) this was average reading.
6/10 The Curates Egg


30. MANGO, THE UNLUCKY MONKEY by Mungo
I started, with come trepidation, Mungo’s second book – Mango, the Unlucky Monkey. Could it be as good as Leaf, In Search of Ramune, his debut novel? Hardly. However, I found it just as good if not better. There were moments where I was laughing out loud; the characters were endearing and the adventure compelling. I look forward to reading his next book in the autumn.
10/10 Shines like the Lucky Diamond.