Book Review - The City of Brass

The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

For a first novel by S.A. Chakraborty, this is a fantastic first entry to a trilogy. City of Brass has a wonderful world set around it. The middle eastern and Islamic setting is wonderfully done. It was exotic and new for a fantasy setting, but grounded in our own world, all while not making me feel like it was too alien to me.

I was enthralled by the context of the deserts, the flying carpets, the Ifrit and more. I was perplexed though with the Djinn culture. At times it seemed wonderfully magical and exotic, at other times a bit too human. The call outs early on in the book to the morning prayers specially stuck out to me, mainly because we never did get a better understanding of what the Djinn religion was, why it mattered, or why Ali was considered devout. These things were all mentioned several times, but never explored, so they felt like they didn't really need to be there. Ali just as easily could have been chaste (which is alluded to) because he was the second born (again alluded to) as it had to due with his religious devotion. I felt Chakraborty, danced around the edges of all of these topics as justifications, but didn't explore any of them deep enough to have them mean anything.

Chakraborty's characters overall I felt were pretty compelling, especially the king and the rest of the actors in the political court. The writing there to show how adept the king was at managing the political balance and teetering civil war was well done. Overall the supporting cast was fantastic.

I had issues with the main three characters though. Nahri, Ali and Dara all frustrated me on how one dimensional their characters seemed to be, especially in light of more dynamic supporting characters around them who seemed to have more depth in their motivations and political acuity. All three main characters were "extremes", so harsh in their views and convictions that I felt them to be unbelievable. Nahri especially had several passages where her self-doubt and self-depreciation came to the point where I said "enough already, I get it". I understand the character has an internal struggle that she is dealing with, but Chakraborty kept driving the point home again and again that it began to detract from the overall story.

The middle section was slow, mostly because of the aforementioned main characters issues I mentioned above. It felt even slower because none of them seemed to really grow or move at all. Nahri still doubted everything she was doing, Ali was still stubborn with his convictions, despite evidence against them and Dara was still an egotistical, angry, zealot, despite several attempts by the story to show interjections of them all breaking those molds. All three inevitably fell back, with almost no change or growth.

The last arc of the book was nicely written. Pieces were set in motion for the upcoming sequel and there were several instances of surprise that genuinely put a smile on my face. Chakraborty did a delightful job in writing suspenseful action sequences and I am genuinely looking forward to the next book. I just hope I can read less of Nahri asking "What? I don't understand." about the events in the world happening around her. A bit less denial and more self-determination would be nice.

View all my reviews

My Year in Books - 2017

My Goodreads year in books is out. This is always fun to look at to see what I read this past year. Let's take a quick look. I found that I had a lot of trouble trying to read books this year, mostly due to time. The majority of whatI have read this year was either in audiobook form, or it was a comic book. 

Looking at my list I believe only Render, Children of Hurin, Cold and the Castle of Wolfenbach were actually "read" books. 

Music Listening: MP3 - Pittsburgh Symphony Brass - A Christmas Concert

It is Christmas time and that calls for some Christmas music. Normally, I am not a huge fan of Christmas music. Let me take that back. I am normally not a fan of "sung" Christmas music. I'm not quite sure why, but I find the lyrics in almost all Christmas songs to be too sappy. I do love some great orchestral Christmas music though and I have found an excellent album from the Pittsburgh Symphony Brass called "A Christmas Concert". 

It is an excellent arrangement of traditional Christmas songs and the brass ensemble really makes many of the songs shine. Unfortunately this one seems a bit hard to find online. It doesn't appear to be on iTunes, but it is on Amazon music. 

You can find a playlist of the tracks on Youtube though.


YouTube has become my go to destination to watch shows

Youtube has become my go to location for watching evening TV. Not Netflix. Not Amazon Prime. Youtube. 

I still receive a surprised look from people when I tell them that I do not have cable TV, but the truth is, I don'y really "watch" very much TV. More often than not, I will be playing some video games. When I do actually sit-down to watch something, I am typically too tired to really focus my attention on a show that is 45+ minutes. My ideal show tends to be something that I can play in the background and half watch. 

That is where YouTube fills that niche perfectly. Videos that range from 5-10 minutes long are ideal. I might be willing to hang in there for a 25 minute episode of something if it captures my attention for a long enough time.  Subscriptions are the best thing that YouTube has ever implemented, because I can roll through my subscription list through an evening and watch two things or twenty-five, and hey, if I don't see something tonight, it will still be in the exact location tomorrow. 

So let's take a look at some of my favorite channels. 

Read more »

Book Review - Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War

Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book should have been called "Plymouth: A Story of Courage, Community, and War.

This was a well written narrative that chronicles the pilgrims, and their founding of the Plymouth colony through the first generation of settlers and King Phillp's War. This was an interesting interpretation of that moment in history. The story was written with enough intrigue and character development to keep you going through what amounts to be a very detailed description of the events. It is apparent that the English settlers did an excellent job of keeping diaries and other records of their struggles and trials.

It is important to note though that these accounts are largely from one perspective, and the book acknowledges that while even going so far as to try and provide logically explained reasons or alternatives to some actions.

Overall, a great read, especially if you are looking for an in-depth (sometimes too much so) description of the first decades of Plymouth and New England.


View all my reviews

Music Listening: AAC - Liam Gallagher - As You Were

Oasis is (was), hands down, my favorite rock band. Its ironic that I like them as much as I do considering I really do not like the Beatles at all. Oasis is as close as you are going to get to a Beatles sounding band without being an actual cover band. For those of you out there who are Oasis fans, you are well acquainted with the long standing feud between the Gallagher brothers. They are in short assholes and they are assholes to each other. Liam, the lead singer, developed an almost historic reputation for his antics and the journey that was Oasis came to an end around 2008.

All of the band member's have experimented with projects for the past decade, but we not have before us Liam's first solo album. I have always been able to enjoy his and Oasis' music without having to like the member's personally. I don't need to be friends with them, so what they do with their personal antics are of no concern to me. 

This album is pretty much exactly what you expect it to be. It sounds like Oasis, and for me that is just find. Some good, solid brit rock is always welcome. The opening track "Wall of Glass" is a great sounding song that captures that glimmer of Oasis and Liam. That quintessential Oasis guitar riff is featured right there while the track opens. 

The rest of the album is good, but doesn't really present any truly memorable songs. If you are an Oasis fan, like me, then you will probably love this album. It is good to have fresh album in my library with this sound. For everyone else out there, I would say check it out. It is sort of like how the new U2 albums are. When you listen to them they are all solid albums and well produced, but not necessarily "memorable". 

My New Favorite iOS App - Momento

https://momentoapp.com

This past week I have come across a new favorite app, that is now sitting on my iPhone. Momento was featured this past week with several apps in one of Apple's daily lists. Momento caught my as a private journaling app that has a really clean interface and the ability to automatically import content from your social media. 

I like the idea of a private journaling app at lot to just capture quick things throughout my day. The added benefit of the social integration makes that even easier because my Facebook, Instagram, etc. posts can automatically find their way into the app, which makes it ideal for weekend and vacation adventures. 

What is particularly cool about the social media import though is that it will actually bring in content that you are tagged in from someone else. If a family member tags you in a photo and posts it on Facebook, it will capture that automatically. Even cooler still, is that it is smart enough to see all of those tags across different social networks and identify those people or places. So you can then go in and find your spouse for example , and find everything, going back years with photos and posts with her. 

Another great feature for just looking back on your journal is the "One this day" feature on their calendar. You click on it and you can see every entry for that day/date going back years. It is sort of cool, but also freaky that Facebook has content back to 2008.

This app has filled two holes for me. I was a big fan of Flavors.me, which was a personal landing page website that aggregated all of your social media into one place. It was a great tool that really should have a replacement online. This doesn't replace that for a public profile, but offers a lot of the same features for private use. 

The other app it replaces is Foodspotting. I loved Foodspotting and it was my goto app for taking my food photos. Unfortunately it hasn't really been updated in years and while Instagram and Foursquare can serve that purpose for public usage, having something for private food tracking that can tag people and places is nice to have. Evernote Food unfortunately never got a replacement app. 

So I would highly recommend people check this out if they are looking for a great app to have a quick and small personal journal.  It is also a very affordable app to ranging from free to about $4 depending upon what you want to do with it. 

October 2017 - Videogaming (Gone Home)

I finished playing the game Gone Home last night and I have to now recommend this game for everyone to play. It is one of the most emotionally impacting video games I have ever played and also perfect for a rainy, overcast October. 

The game is extremely simple and only takes a couple of hours to play. You find yourself in the front porch of your family's new house. There is a storm raging outside and there appears to be no one home. Over the course of the next couple of hours you will progress through the house to find diary chapters form your sister along with notes about your Uncle who used to live in the house. 

I won't spoil the magic of these passages, but the game has a beautiful atmosphere and perfectly told story. There are moments where your own imagination will get the better of you, but you should just keep going forward for the story. This won't "scare you", I promise. 

https://gonehome.game

Music Listening: AAC - The Destiny 2 Soundtrack

I have finally found a game that has broken by addiction to Overwatch (more on that later), and with that game came a soundtrack that almost broke my addiction to the Skyrim Soundtrack. 

Destiny 2 released this past week and with it came a beautiful soundtrack that includes 44 tracks of beautiful and haunting orchestral music. The music here is simply gorgeous, and while it does feature several tracks with repeating melodic themes, it really does capture the melancholy mood of the game. The highlight of the soundtrack is the song "Journey", which is performed by the Kronos Quartet. The song comes in the story at a time when your character is broken, both physically a mentally. As a  player you find yourself in the wilderness, exposed and vulnerable to death and perhaps even hollowed out by the loss of the "light". 

The track is simply beautiful and Bungie did a fantastic job of settling the rest of the ambience of the game into the background to let the music shine in your time of desperation. You can find that track below

If you are in any way a fan of orchestral film or game soundtracks then this is a must buy. It is ranking up there as one of my top favorites and I have been listening to it on repeat all week long.