Book Reviews

[the_wanlorn]

 
Just some reviews of a couple books I've read lately. Nothing to spoilery, I don't think.


The first book I'm counting is The Descent, by Jeff Long. I absolutely love this book.

Humans discover a subterranean world, a hell beneath their feet. They also discover a branch of the Homo genus that is still living and inhabits hell, naming them "hadals". For the most part, the book follows a group of people traveling in this underground world. Some are there to colonize, some are there to discover, and some are there on a search for Satan.

I loved watching the regression from civilized Homo sapien to savage as the group moved further and further away from their own world and more into the world of the hadals. The book is full of wonder full imagination and the effects of a species invading a territory.

The main plot was interrupted every so often for a look at what was going on above-ground as the hadals began to come to the surface to get away from the invaders. Instead of throwing one out of the plot, it added reality to the events inside the pages.

There are a lot of subplots in the story, all of them weaving together to create one awesome genre-crossing book. The writing gets a bit faulty and awkward in some places, but nothing too bad. I highly recommend this book to anyone who likes exploratory stories.



I just-just finished reading A Sound of Thunder, by Ray Bradbury. I thought it was a fairly typical time travel short story; I know that I've read a couple like it. Man goes back in time to hunt dinosaurs, Man alters time, Man is not happy. Nice and predictable.

I had a bit of a problem with the logic they use. I mean, if they're worried about someone changing history by killing some sort of small animal, then I would think that they would worry about the dinosaur falling differently from how it would have fallen and killing some random small animal, thus changing history. But that's just a nit-picky point. I've read the short story a couple times, so clearly I still enjoy it. :-)

I'd recommend this to anyone who likes a good time travel story, but doesn't mind (what are, in my opinion) time travel clichés.


Cross-posted in various forms to: 50bookchallenge, booknerds, bookshelf, reading_society, and the_wanlorn