Some documents contain paragraphs which are wrapped often at the 80 character mark to help with formatting and readability. This is sometimes accomplished using forced line breaks which can be quite annoying especially when you want to reverse it as I did earlier today. Rather than messing with regex and weird edge cases, use Vim which provides a lovely solution! Here it be:
The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan is the first book in the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series for "young adults". Even though I do not fall in the aforementioned demographic, I decided to give it a whirl as I've heard mention of this novel on the Interwebz. Well, after a breezy read, my recommendation is to not bother. While it might make for good reading for young adults, I expect that it will fare pretty poorly in the hands of anybody above the age of say, eighteen.
While it is the fifth book of the Earthsea cycle by Ursula K. Le Guin, "The Other Wind" is more like a direct sequel to "Tehanu", the previous book in the series. Compared to the other books, this one has many more characters and attempts to create "grand" fantasy. IMHO, it fails in this respect. It also loses the key element that underpins this series, its serene atmosphere.
While I found its denouement interesting and fulfilling, I was on the whole quite disappointed with its flow and characters.
Tehanu is the fourth book in the Earthsea cycle by Ursula K. Le Guin. Written almost a couple of decades later when the author was nearing 60, it has a more mature, feminine feel to it. The central character is Tenar (from book 2) who has now grown old, and her relationship with everyone and everything around her. It's a slow-paced but measured read which is for a good portion of the first half, almost like a side-story. Things pick up once Ged makes his entry.
A good read if you like the Earthsea universe. However, it is not standard fantasy fare.
As book three of the Earthsea cycle by Ursula K. Le Guin, this one had some living up to do and it does. The story takes place a few decades after its prequel and involves another quest by Ged along with a passenger, a young prince, as they investigate the reason why magic is being drained from Earthsea. The atmosphere is just as harmonious as the other books in the series and the imagination, magnificent. There are a few areas that do not flow very smoothly. But, by and large, this is an excellent read.
This is the sequel to The Wizard of Earthsea and while a little underwhelming, is a nice read. The protagonist from the first book does play an important part in this book. However, he does not appear until half-way through and primarily plays the role of a mentor-like supporting figure to the central character, a young girl brainwashed by religion.
I wish the Miyazakis had made this book into a movie rather than some shambolic hodge-podge combination of the lot.
While I'm a big fan of Terry Pratchett (based on the book that I've read thus far), Mort, for all its hype, was a tad underwhelming. There were occasional moments of utter brilliance. But they were largely overshadowed by bouts of dull mediocrity. I really did not dig the character of Cutwell and the plot itself was a little too haphazard.
If anything could be called a seminal work, it would be Alfred Bester's "The Stars, My Destination". Published in book form in 1956 and written well before that, it's an intriguing read after all this time. While the flow and logic can be a little stuttered in spots, allowing for the age of the novel, the leaps in imagination are singularly amazing.
Read this before you die :) I would rate this only three stars lower if it had been written today.
The Wise Man's Fear is the sequel to Patrick Rothfuss' enjoyable The Name of the Wind, and it's a good 'un. While the flaws notes in the first book are still present in this work, the plot and flow are far smoother. But what makes the difference in book two is the level of imagination which, in some places, is absolutely riveting. The world of the Fae and the Ademre is just the kind of thing I like to soak my brain in.
Hunter × Hunter is a rather underrated action/adventure/fantasy anime (based on a manga) that I have just finished watching in its entirety. While the general premise of the story is not anything terribly creative, the fantasy elements of the story, especially Nen, are very imaginative and interesting.
