Book Banter #1: Digital or Printed?

What's this? A new feature for you! I decided that every now and again I wanted a feature to discuss bookish things in more detail. They may be bookish habits, peeves, weird stuff or just a little bit of news I might be excited about.. maybe even a culmination of everything. I'm not sure yet, but I'm going to try!

First up, the big debate. Are ereaders or books better?

I love my Kindle. I really do. It's great to take on holiday because I can fit it into my hand luggage and it takes up hardly any space. As the kind of girl who would take it to work with me to read in my lunch-break, this is an immeasurable bonus. I tried taking a Game of Thrones book with me once, and I honestly could not make it fit into my bag. So it's eco-friendly with no paper-usage, which also makes it purse-friendly (although used paperbacks are waaayy cheaper on Amazon if they're old, literally going for pennies), oh, and the delivery is super-fast!

On the eReader (this, again is based on Kindle), you can change the font size, you can look up words in the dictionary, you put it against something and read with one hand, thus allowing you to eat and read at the same time. You never lose your place in a book and you can store so many books on it that there are no worries about trying to guess how many books you'll need for that flight. One more thing, you can read a dirty book, and unless some weirdo is reading it over your shoulder without consulting you, no-one need ever know you're doing it in public. Your secret erotica fandom is in safe hands.

However, books came first, and in my opinion they should never go away. Sometimes the simple smell of paper and the flicking through of pages is all I need to get myself into the reading-zone. Flicking backwards and forwards is effortless, and sometimes you just want to cheat that ending to know everyone turns out OK. It's bad, but we've all done it (and instantly regretted it).

In terms of books versus the ereader, your books don't need a device to be read on, you don't need to turn anything on, charge anything up or connect to the internet to receive and read your book. You can see exactly how far you've got to go in a book and you can see how far you've come. I don't know if it's just me or not, but I feel a real sense of achievement in finishing a large book, but never in finishing a large ebook.

The one biggest pull for me is book covers. There are some beautiful designs out there and it seems a waste to hide them all away into a singular page inside one book. I love to view all of my covers sticking out from my bookshelf, I love to show people some of the gorgeous artwork, the beautiful dresses, the fonts, the colours, everything that went into that cover. A great deal of time is spent on these and it feels like a shame not to display them.

Both are about equally as robust. Electronics break just as often as books fall apart at the seams, and essentially, they both do the same job. I can't pretend that I err on either side. I love the Kindle because I can get all my books on there so effortlessly, but I love my books for their sheer beauty and their tactile nature. I don't ever want to have to choose.

Do you like your ereader better or do you prefer your paperbacks? Do you have anything to add?

Kyra_x

The Glass Books of the Dreameaters - G.W. Dahlquist

Miss Temple is just a high-class woman making her way in Victorian-era London, but when her fiancee Roger suddenly severs their engagement, she takes it upon herself to find out exactly why. The story starts off a little slow, but soon it turns into a complex and thrilling plot which is full of intrigue, and all of it links back to Roger and the mysterious glass books in the title.

Phew! What a read! The book lasts for a marathon-like 800(ish) pages, switching between the viewpoints of our three protagonists; Miss Temple, Dr Svenson (a German officer initially trying to keep a wayward Prince out of trouble) and Cardinal Chang (a mercenary hired to kill an influential man, only to find him already dead). These three unsuspecting heroes eventually team up and together take a stand against the group whose sinister 'process' seems to have stolen people's souls, including Roger's.

As you can already fathom, there are a lot of characters to get your head around in this book. Not only are you trying to piece together which members of the Cabal are really in charge, but which ones the protagonists have each encountered and who has allegiances to whom. The result is that it takes a long time to fully grasp what on earth is happening and it can create confusion when names or situations are mentioned but you cannot place them.

The idea of inadvertent heroes facing off against an evil group isn't all that new. In fact, the general story is quite reminiscent of Nick Harkaway's Angelmaker, yet another steampunk novel, but the complexity of the plot and the idea of the indigo clay and its' properties were  impressive. A few questions remain as to how the glass and the alchemical equipment works during the processes and how the clay is made into glass and gas. Maybe the next two books will offer better explanations and descriptions of both of these aspects.

As for the characters, they are extremely well drawn; each of the cabal members have their own reasons for acting as they do and how they choose their alliances. Even some characters that seem harmless throughout have secret agendas. Out heroes also each have interesting back-stories, some more in depth than others, and they go through differing character arcs. Miss Temple, being someone who is not used to action or adventure, let alone wielding weapons against strong enemies, goes through the biggest transformation and yet somehow retains the sense of self that we see in the first chapter.

The writing style is very like most Victorian books, where every element of what happens is described in detail and the plot moves slowly and steadily. Some of you may find this a bit demanding and even slightly dull. I felt I needed events to move more quickly to keep my attention up.

Expect a lot of action, and lot of things going on at the same time and a fair amount of confusion in places. Also, as a disclaimer, this book is also quite provocative and some may feel uncomfortable reading those parts in public. All in all, the book is a good one, a long adventure and an excellent idea, though you may find yourself drifting off if you are reading to late at night. Despite the fact that the book could have done with some editing, I am looking forward to reading the next two books in the series (pictured below).

7 out of 10.

Image from gaskella.wordpress

This book is available as a serial on your kindle, but I would recommend buying the whole book as you can then flick through to parts you can't recall properly. It is a little bit daunting, but it is much easier to keep the plot in your mind this way.

Thank you to Penguin for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

The Twyning - Terence Blacker

Kindle is a wonderful thing, made even more wonderful by the introduction of the Kindle Daily Deal. That was where I found this book and proceeded to buy it for 99p.

What a premise. A war is looming. On one side, Doctor Henry Ross-Gibbon, an MP and a band of willing followers, on the other, the rat Kingdom. Efren is a ratling born to the Court of Tasting, but his life takes a wild turn when he is witness to the murder of the rat king at the hands of the Doctor. Soon, he finds himself in the middle of a political struggle, and then in the middle of a war. To make things more complicated, he finds that not all humans are the enemy, and becomes torn between love and loyalty.

First off, you're all asking, what on earth is a Twyning? Well, some of you may find this gross. It is a load of rats, about 20 or more, all joined up by the tails to form one big seething mass. Told you.

Anyway...

The book has two first person viewpoints, that of Efren the rat, and that of Dogboy, a homeless thirteen-year-old who lives in a rubbish tip. It is at first difficult to see how the two could link together, but trust me, they do. The chapters alternate between the two voices, meaning that you get each of their story a bit at a time. This is good as you get to see, piece by piece, how their lives will cross over. Efren is possibly the more interesting of the two, simply because he is a rat. There are so many elements to him that make him an excellent character. Not least that he isn't even a normal rat. The way his emotions are shaped; they're just like ours, only he thinks differently. Loyalty to the Kingdom and his King is a forefront of his thoughts. He is a truly selfless character, but he can come across as a little bit cold. The inclusion of Dogboy's voice means that we have something to associate with. His thoughts are like our own. We understand him perfectly.

There are a lot of very clever aspects of the story. The first is how the Kingdom of the rats has been thought through. We thought they were mindless beasts, but in this book they communicate in their minds, they have a Court system that allows the Kingdom to run smoothly and they have a kind of religion in that they worship the Twyning. The second is that the backstories of the children, Dogboy and Caz (a little girl who Dogboy lives with), are very interesting. Caz's particularly fits in with the events of the story, and there are some peculiar things about both of them that will give the reader a surprise or two.

As the story progresses, it drags you in. Your emotions become entwined with that of the young boy and the rat, of all the trouble that they get into. When the war finally starts, you truly feel for all the rats dying, you believe that the doctor is the enemy, even though your human brain is still telling you that rats are vermin. This book is packed with excitement and interest. It can be a little gory at times, just to warn you, but don't let that stop you. It is well worth reading.

Money well spent? I think so. The climax was good, but I wanted the war to end with a bit more of a punch. I wanted something to happen that would really shock me, like some of the events earlier in the book such as the pits and the rescue.

Still, it deserves a good, sturdy 9 out of 10. I would read any of Terence Blacker's books on the merit of this one alone.

Image from www.terenceblacker.com.

The Prince: A Selection Novella - Kiera Cass

'Before thirty-five girls were chosen to compete in the Selection...
Before Aspen broke America's heart...
There was another girl in Prince Maxon's life...'

For those of you who have read and loved The Selection, this short story will give you all the extra details you wanted to know. This time we have Prince Maxons viewpoint as he goes through the Selection process.

Judging from the above description of the Novella, I assumed that this would be set much before any of the events that happened in the first book. You would be forgiven for thinking the same. However, that isn't true. Instead, the book is set a couple of weeks before the names are called out and ends just after the Prince has met the girls. More of a midquel than a prequel. Therefore the description, for me, was not a very good one. However, the actual story was genius. It not only delves into the Princes mind, but also that of his parents. It tells you exactly what happened when it came to the selection process and all about this other girl.

That's enough spoilers for you. As it's only a short story, this will only be a short review. An enjoyable, quick, light read that gets you thinking about the first book all over again. It even has a excerpt from the next book, The Elite, for you to dive into. As if you weren't excited enough already about its release. The book is only out on Kindle I'm afraid, but if you have a Kindle, go ahead and pick it up for 99p (or the equivalent of that in whichever country you're in). It's certainly worth it.

Four out of five. And look out for The Elite, out on the 23rd of April.

Image from http://d.gr-assets.com

Haven't read The Selection? Check out my review here.