DWD's Reviews

This one is tricky to review When reviewing a piece of children's literature, especially a piece by a world-famous author and one that was originally created, not for the general public but to console his young son on the loss of a beloved toy, how can you be fair? Do you let the reputation of the author boost the score? Do you judge this book by the standard of his other books? J.R.R. Tolkien Since I have two small children, I decided to judge Roverandom by comparing it to the other children books that I have been reading lately. By that standard, Roverandom comes off as a solid 3 star book. There is little character development - the emphasis is on a fast-moving plot and plenty of inside family references that are covered in the introduction. This is not a prequel to The Hobbit , but it is a quick, fun read with lots of emphasis on fantasy. This book can be found on Amazon.com here:  The Pocket Roverandom I rate this one 3 stars out of 5. Reviewed on Novemb

Wow! Was this book bad! This is one of those humorous fantasy books, in which everything is sweetly parodied and lots of puns are thrown in, etc. A Prince in search of a princess finds a castle in which all of the inhabitants are asleep due to the spell of a fairy godmother (as in Disney's Sleeping Beauty ), including the girl of his dreams. However, he needs to wake up 3 princes before he wakes up his love so he enlists the help of his tomboy cousin (a princess) and his boyhood friend, who happens to be a newly graduated wizard and they all go back to the castle for adventure, treasure and love. Along the way, Rumpelstiltskin (yes, that one) gets involved. My review: This book was so irritating that I got to page 85 and called it quits. The author seems to be more bent on being cute than she is on advancing the story (which had gone nearly nowhere in the last 25-30 pages I did read). I was afraid that if I read it any longer, I would somehow be sucked in and trapped like

Not so hot I was feeling the need to read something different, so as I walked past the new books section at the library I saw a Conan book. I've never read Conan, but one of my friends is a giant fan, so I picked it up. Poul Anderson (1926-2001) The plot was pretty simple (hero gets even with sworn enemies who have wronged him in many ways, along the way he gets to use a magical weapon and fulfill some prophecy), but it was entertaining enough, especially in the middle. The ending was way too abrupt (he completes all of the above parenthetical accomplishments in 35 pages) and the language was too clunky. I realize its a style thing, but it's like Mr. Anderson sat in front of his typewriter with a thesaurus and looked for the more macho version of each verb used to describe Conan's behavior. He never throws anything, he heaves it. He always cleaves skulls, rather than splits them. I got tired of it rather quickly. I rate this book 2 stars out of 5. Reviewed on Aug