Get Lost in Literature

"'Destiny’ is the state of perfect mechanical causation in which everything is the consequence of everything else. If choice is an illusion, what’s life? Consciousness without volition."  Joe Spork has walked the straight and narrow his whole life, following in the footsteps of his grandfather, working as a clockwork repairman. He's been trying to hide from the legacy left to him by his father, Matthew, who lived his life at the head of organized crime; Joe doesn't want to be his father's son. But when a friend brings in a strange mechanical book for Joe to repair, strangers start taking an interest in the horologist. And when that mechanical book triggers a hive of mechanical bees to take flight, someone frames Joe for terrorism, making him flee from the life he's lived to the life he tried to hide from. Ever hear the expression "show, don't tell," with regards to writing? This book was fabulous, in that respect. Nick Harkaway does...

Evan Burl and the Falling (Vol. 1-4) by Justin Blaney “Not all who dream are asleep.” Evan Burl lives at Daemanhur Castle under the supervision of his evil Uncle Mazol. Evan finds a magical book belonging to Mazol and steals it; he believes Mazol has been using this book to communicate with the man he believes to be his father…His father sends a letter through the book insisting that Evan will grow to be the most powerful and evil Sapient (wizard) that the world has ever seen; that Evan should be destroyed before he can suffer a Falling and change the world for the worse. Determined to prove the letter wrong, Evan dedicates himself to two things: 1. refusing to use Sapience and 2. protecting the Roslings. The Roslings are 12 little girls who are sent to Daemanhur through the sky inside of caskets -- who aren’t allowed to eat, who can’t get sick, and who can’t die -- and are forced into slavery. When the seemingly impervious Roslings start to fall ill and die, Evan is forc...

Palimpsest is an enchanted city, beyond our own waking world, ruled over by the impetuous Casimira, Queen of the Insects. It's a place where war veterans become chimeras, where the dead are buried in bamboo, and where trains pulse with life. Four people -- Oleg the Locksmith, November the Beekeeper, Ludovico the Bookbinder, and Sei the Train Enthusiast -- are about to earn their passports to Palimpsest, through the magic of a one night stand. Those who've been to Palimpsest return with a tattoo: a map of the place they've been. The only way to get in is by having sex with someone who has been there. But Palimpsest isn't a fairy-world. It isn't a place for those who are happy and content. This is a place where the sad and the troubled, escape to. Oleg is mentally ill; he's in love with the ghost of his dead sister. November, is OCD and alone, caretaker to her beehives. Ludovico is madly in love with his wife, but she's been cheating on him and now she...

The Map of Time (Trilogía Victoriana #1) by Félix J. Palma, translated by Nick Caistor Overall, I thought this book was spectacular. This is a long, heavy book, not for light reading…More likely to be read during a snowstorm where you cannot leave your house or turn on the tv, but no less brilliant for its length. The one vice I found, was that the author takes time to speak to the reader. Although it isn't an unusual tactic, and in some books it is even necessary, in a book written with an omniscient narrator I don't feel the dialogue between narrator and reader added anything… Because he only interrupted the flow to remind the reader that he knew everything… Which the reader already knew due to the story being written in third person. Although I should note the interruptions were comical enough that they didn't detract anything either. Book One was by far my favorite of the collection. It sucks you right into the story by introducing a main character who is deter...

I don't even know where to begin, except to say the following; While this isn't the worst book I've ever read, it was bad enough that I can't believe I spent money on it. My first and biggest complaint is the lack of attention to detail. This is science fiction; this story is based on a society no one has ever seen before, based on a landscape tortured by a steam engine take over. Where is the detail? And not just with the settings, with the people as well... Who are these people, what makes them individuals? Some of the characters suffer from "the clacks" a disease that turns humans into machines...What do their mechanical parts look like? What exactly are Mamma Engine and Grandfather clock and where did they come from? The author relies too heavily on metaphors; at some point he needed to stop telling us what things were "like" and tell us what things were. My second complaint is grammar flubs. Did an editor really approve some of these mis...