Tuesday 11 June 2013

Mini Reviews-The Age of Satan and The Wasp Factory

So I sometimes read shorter books or just don't have the things to say about a book. Here, small reviews. For books that aren't for little people/  

Title: The Age of Satan (Pantheon series)
 Author: James Lovegrove
Published:  February 2013 by Solaris
Warnings: suicide, rape, violence. Very not for children.
Source: publisher
Review: Guy  Lucas, throughout his life has had multiple run-ins with Satan. There’s theistic Satanists at his school. After a Ouija board session, his girlfriend kills herself. Later, he finds another group of theistic Satanists who try and drag  him into their cult. Then he meets Petra.
I didn’t really know what I was getting into with this. I just saw that it was an offshoot of a series mixing modernish day settings with panthenons and religions of old, and I thought, yeah, go for it.
Guy, I didn’t really relate to. He was a good enough character to make the journey with, but I didn’t really enjoy him. He did develop a bit, after meeting Petra. Throughout, most of the characters blended in to one another, aside from Petra, who was by far my favourite character. Her view on philosophy is essentially the same as mine, and she’s also cool.
The pacing was ok, just touching on important events in Guy’s life. The writing was descriptive in all places, even in places where you probably didn’t want one. 
 The end bit seemed a bit rushed, with a timejump from pre-Thatcher to present day. The summary of what happened was more a setup to another book, not really an ending.
Overall:  Strength 3.5, more a 3, to an interesting novella. I will give the main series a try.


Title: The Wasp Factory
 Author: Iain M Banks (RIP)
Published:  February 1984 by Macmillan
Warnings: murders, gore, squick, animal cruelty
Source: bought
Review: Frank is a killer, but he’s stopped on people now. He now just uses his Wasp Factory, a device which makes the wasp die in whatever way it happens to, and kills other things like seagulls. Here he is, relatively happily, and his brother Eric breaks out of an insane asylum, and starts making his way home and Frank must deal with secrets surrounding his family and himself.
Anne recommended this to me and I really was looking forwards to reading it. When I started it, I was intrigued. I soon found myself not really caring about Frank, mainly because of the way he acted towards everyone else. The book went slowly, I’m not sure whether it was because of the plot or the writing, but both were hard to get through. The last few chapters just came out of nowhere, turning my view on my head and leaving me really confused.
It did deal with interesting topics, ie death, identity and who you are, in a frank, brutal way.  
Overall:  Strength 2 tea to a story that I just didn’t get the point or plot of.

Links: Amazon | Goodreads

1 comment:

  1. The Age of Satan has a kid-ish cover, so it's a bit interesting that it's not at all for kids. Even if you couldn't connect with Guy, at least you were able to connect with Petra. I love meeting literary characters that share a lot of the same views as you. =)

    I'm sorry The Wasp Factory wasn't a very sucessful read for you, Nina. I really, really dislike slow books, so I'd definitely have to pass on that one.

    Lovely mini-reviews, Nina! <3

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for taking time to read this!
Comments are much loved.
Nina xxx

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger... Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...