Books for January

Goblins! by Royce Buckingham

Review

When the local policeman's son, PJ, sees that a smuggler alarm in the mountains nearby has been tripped, he grabs the police car and the station's only inmate, a boy named Sam, who was caught stealing fireworks, and drives up into the mountains. But when they get there, they find no smuggler loot. Annoyed, PJ begins to drive back when he accidentally runs over someone. As they struggle to get the person, who is still alive and breathing, into the back of the police car, they release that the person isn't a person. It's more of a deranged monkey with fangs and serious anger issues. As they try to figure out what to do with the thing, two people arrive who know what it is (a goblin) and offer to take it back where it came from. After driving the people back to the mountains, PJ watches the two disappear down a hole in the ground. Wondering what is down there, Sam follows them. And is captured by a whole kingdom of goblins, which take him to their leader, General Eeew-yuk. Meanwhile, PJ attempts to help the people responsible for keeping the goblins under control find Sam. How will Sam escape from the human-munching, dull-witted goblins? And will PJ have the courage to venture into the goblin city and rescue him?

The Facttracker by Jason Carter Eaton

Review

In the town of Traackerfaxx, where facts are tracked down and sold, a just small enough boy (who is neither too large or too small) longs to visit the facttracker, who lives in a big factory tower in the middle of the town. His parents were knocked down and carried away by a particularly large ball of facts when he was a baby, so now he has no parents and relatively few facts about himself. The Mayor of the village is always asking him to leave his house (a small dog house that the rich Mayor graciously donated) and run errands for him, or feed his bullfrog. But one day he gets to enter the Factory and visit the facttracker, who hasn't been seen for 50 years. The facttracker has just got the factory, after many years, to run on its own, and the just small enough boy is about to find out all the facts about himself and his parents. Unfortunately, he chooses that moment to hang his hat on what he thinks is a hat rack, but turns out to be the factory's self-destruct lever. Booom! And thus enters Ersatz, the facttracker's lie-telling brother, who takes advantage of the situation, and soon is flooding the entire world with lies. Will the just small enough boy be able to save the facttracker, stop the lies, and find out who he is?

Samuel Blink and the Runaway Troll by Matt Haig

Review

In the first book in this series, Samuel Blink and his sister went to live with their aunt in Norway when their parents were killed by some falling logs that fell of the back of a big truck. But while staying there, they discovered that the mysterious forest that their aunt had warned them not to go into was mostly full of mean-spirited monsters under the control of someone called the Changemaker. They defeated the evil Changmaker, rescued their uncle, and the forest returned back to its normal, happy ways. Entirely happy? Well, not entirely. While staying in the forest, Samuel Blink and his sister had met a family of trolls, who only had one eyeball between the four of them. Despite their peculiarity, they were kind and helped them. But now, months after Samuel left the forest, Troll-Mother is at the end of her tether. When the little Troll-Son loses the family eyeball, Troll-Mother decides to send him to the Betterer, a nasty troll who attempts to make himself and other trolls more like humans through cruel punishments. Troll-Son, understandably, doesn't want to be sent to the Betterer, and runs away to Samuel Blink's house. Thus, Troll-Father, Troll-Son's father, Troll-the-Wisest, the stupidest troll in the village, and the Betterer, who hates letting a victim get away, head out to find Troll-Son. Meanwhile, Samuel Blink finds Troll-Son hiding under his bed, and tries to hide him. This wasn't the best time to try to hide a troll, because Magnus Myklebust, his uncle's arch-enemy, is determined to see Uncle Henrik shamed. And because harboring an illegal troll is a punishable offense, he will do his best to bring Troll-Son into the open. Will Samuel be able to stop Mr Myklebust, and put an end to the evil of the Betterer once and for all?

War of the Ancients by Richard A. Knaak

Review

In the War of the Ancients, New York Times best-selling author Richard A. Knaak spins a fantastic tale of heroics, sorcery, betrayal and magic gone wrong. When the wizard Rhonin and his mentor, the dragon-mage Krasus, journey to a strange breach in time and space, they are sucked in and brought back to a time long ago, but a time they know all too well. For they are now in the middle of the lost night-elf empire, which was destroyed after the burning legion, a host of horrors and demons brought into the world by insane elf mages, were defeated. They are now in a time before the arrival of the burning legion, and must experience the horrors and dangers of it firsthand. But there is a new thread in the pattern, now. Will their presence (as they should not be there) alter history? Will what they know happened in the war happen again? Or will the burning legion triumph because of the slight alteration to the time line? As their actions bring them to meddle more and more in history, and the burning legion once again walks the sphere, it seems that the remaining forces of light are being slowly, but surely defeated. And there are other things to worry about, as well. Two young night elf brothers, Malfurion and Illidian, are central to history remaining unchanged. If Malfurion dies, there will be no one to lead the night elves after the defeat of the burning legion. As the burning legion grows in power, and the dark shadow of Sargeras, the burning legion's master, looms as he attempts to enter the world, Rhonin and Krasus know that it is time to act. But will their help be enough to turn the tide of the battle and banish the legion once again?

Ottoline and the Yellow Cat by Chris Riddell

Review

When Ottoline discovers that lapdogs are disappearing all over Big City, she knows that something is amiss. The police admit that they are completely baffled. So clever Ottoline follows up on some clues, and soon finds the stolen dogs, who turn out not to have been stolen at all. They are part of an elaborate crime ring, and are using their positions are lapdogs of the rich to make maps of the rich people's homes. Then the leader of the gang, a sneaky yellow cat, moves in and robs the place. Understandably, this is not making the rich people that happy. Ottoline and her friend Mr Monroe come up with a great plan to catch the yellow cat in the act! This beautifully illustrated book is very funny and cute, and had me laughing out loud a few times!

Sphere by Michael Crichton

Review

When a team of four scientists are called to investigate a strange craft found under the ocean, they have no idea what to expect. Norman, the team's psychologist, thinks it it just another plane crash that he needs to assess. But he is wrong. The navy have found an enormous artificial object that has either crashed or landed in the Pacific ocean. The scientists are taken down to an undersea habitat with some navy personnel to investigate the object. It appears to be a hollow cylinder about the size of a spacecraft. Ted, one of scientists, believes that it is an alien spacecraft. Harry, the mathematician, believes something entirely different but won't say what he thinks. But when they finally manage to get the spaceship open, they find something very strange. It is a spacecraft from America, which is strange enough, but within its hold is something out of this world....

Lamplight by DM Cornish

Review

When Rossamund, an orphan in the Half-Continent, was old enough to take a job, he was sent away to become a Lamplighter, the courageous men who make sure the roads a free of nickers (monsters) and light the lamps along the edges. In the last book, Rossamund attempted to get to his new job, and succeeded, despite being thrown in with some of the nastiest people he could ever hope to meet when he boarded the wrong ship, and nearly being eating by nickers time and time again. Now he has reached his goal, and has discovered that being a lamplighter might not be the career he had imagined. On his first night out on the roads as an apprentice lamplighter, they spot a carriage being attacked by enormous boggles, and he only barely escapes with his life. The craft belonged to Skolds, a group of women who have devoted their lives to fighting monsters. As they rest with the lamplighters, they decide that one of their number, a wit (a wit is a monster-hunter who can destroy opponents with their minds alone) named Threnody, should stay behind and learn to become a lamplighter. Rossamund is assigned to be her partner in the exercises, and soon finds himself shackled to the most despised person around. As the year goes by, Rossamund discovers that not everything at the lamplighter station is what it seems, and that being a lamplighter was more dangerous that he could ever have imagined!

Alien Log by Robert Farrell

Review

The aliens are coming! Yes, it's an old (some would say overused) formula, but Alien Log manages to put the whole alien phenomena into a work of fiction. Because this book is about aliens, which are a hobby of mine (reading about them, not trying to find any), it was a hit. The plot was pretty good, although I thought the author could have gone into a little more detail and done a bit more character development (I guess I'm just spoiled after reading Sphere and Area 51!). Nothing to gripe about too much. However, there were quite a lot of typos and weird line spacings, which leads me to believe that this book was probably self-published or the editor was not very good at spotting typos!

Anyway, on to the plot. In one man's interpretation of the alien conspiracy theory (if you can even consider it a theory!), the government has found the wreckage from several crash sites and is hiding it away so as not to scare the public. But now the aliens seem to be trying to alert the earthlings to something that is going to happen. The key, or at least part of the key, lies in the translation of a strange alien device. This device appears to be a ship's log for the aliens, and thus the scientists deem it the Alien Log.

The Sorcerer of the North by John Flanagan

Review

When Lord Syron, the master of a fief in the north, suddenly falls sick, the Rangers are understandably worried. There are rumors of sorcery, that the illness has come about because Lord Syron's ancestor offended a sorcerer. The Rangers, a group of mysterious men who protect the land, send Will to investigate the problem. In order to be able to gather information from the common folk that he meets, and so as not to alert the sorcerer (if there is one) to his presence, Will is disguised as troubadour. As he stops by the inns on his way to the keep and listens to the people there, the more worried he becomes about his mission. The people in the inns talk of strange lights in the woods, strange noises, and a ghostly knight the size of two houses. When he arrives at the keep, the people seem cagey, the lord is unconscious and hovering close to death, and his son is no leader. There seems to be sorcery afoot. Can Will unravel the plot he is caught up in, discover the meaning of Lord Syron's mystery illness, and stop the Sorcerer of the North?

-- JackW - 04 Jan 2009