A review of Harry Potter 2

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

JK Rowling

“‘There is a plot, Harry Potter. A plot to make most terrible things happen at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry this year.'”

Harry Potter’s summer has included the worst birthday ever, doomy warnings from a house-elf called Dobby, and rescue from the Dursleys by his friend Ron Weasley in a magical flying car! Back at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for his second year, Harry hears strange whispers echo through empty corridors – and then the attacks start. Students are found as though turned to stone … Dobby’s sinister predictions seem to be coming true.

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The Chamber of Secrets continues from the events in The Philosopher’s Stone and delves deeper into the magical world of Hogwarts. We get to know more about Harry and his friends, and meet some new characters, some friendly and others not, all interesting.

Once again J K Rowling has brought to life a magical world I would love to be a part of. The characters feel and act like real people, with hopes and fears, strengths and weaknesses, friends and rivals. There is danger for Harry and his friends, and danger leads to injuries, but that’s to the good because it would have made it hard to accept what happens if nobody got hurt.

The writing remains as good as in the first book, and though I know, intellectually, magic doesn’t exist, I really wish it did and that I could do my time at school over again so I could attend Hogwarts.

Mayday – A fun adventure

Mayday (Dirk Pitt #2)

Clive Cussler

Major Dirk Pitt picked up the frantic distress call as he cruised his lumbering amphibious plane over the islands of the Aegean. Brady Air Force base was under fire, its entire force of jets destroyed on the ground . . . by just one First World War bi-plane!

A psychotic ex-Nazi, a bloodthirsty Greek strongman and a beautiful double agent set Pitt on the trail of the warped mastermind behind a devastating sabotage plot. And on that trail, danger and death are never far behind . . .

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The second book in the Dirk Pitt series is as good as the first, with Cussler again showing that he knows how to write a good character. This time you don’t just have Dirt Pitt but also his best friend, Al Giordino, who only appeared briefly in the first book. Giordino is very obviously the light relief against Pitt’s more sensible character, but that isn’t all there is to him, nor does it mean he’s any less well-written.

Every character that Cussler writes, especially the main ones, show a very real personality, showing humour, compassion, strengths and weaknesses as the occasions demand.

The only reason I haven’t rated this book higher is the storyline, which is a little lighter than I would like; it’s well-written, I won’t deny that, but I would have liked more depth.

Pacific Vortex

Clive Cussler

Dirk Pitt, a major in the American air force and director of special projects at Numa is having a quiet day at a secluded Hawaiian beach when he spots something floating in the water. Curiosity gets the better of him and swims out to retrieve it, in doing so he finds himself in the midst of a dangerous mystery – the object he spots is a message capsule from a missing nuclear submarine, and he is drafted in to help find and retrieve the submarine.

Making the job more difficult is the fact that the submarine is not the only vessel to go missing, dozens have disappeared over the years in an area called the Pacific Vortex. Before he can find and recover the submarine, Pitt is going to have to solve the mystery that is the Vortex, which will put him in the middle of a beautiful woman and a dangerous man – is he up to the task.

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This is a short book, compared to later entries in the series, with a less complex plot, but as an introduction to the series and it’s main character, it’s well done and enjoyable. As with many of the books in the Dirk Pitt series, there’s a hint, perhaps more than a hint, of James Bond, both in the character of Pitt and in the other elements of the book, there’s nothing wrong with that, though.

Pitt is a very well constructed character – you learn more about him as the book progresses, which is much better than learning it all at the beginning, and he is someone I’m always keen to read more about. As I said, the story isn’t complex, but it has enough going on to keep the reader interested, and the ending is tragically triumphant, with the bad guy beaten, but at a cost.

What I think makes Cussler’s action adventure series, even this lightweight opener, better than many others is the way the lead character feels; he feels his physical injuries when something happens to him, and that affects what he is able to do later in the; this is in contract to characters like Bond who are half dead in one seen and fighting fit in the next. Pitt also feels the weight of events, his personality stays essentially the same but there are tiny changes that show he is affected by the things he goes through.

Overall this is very enjoyable, and if you haven’t yet gotten into the Dirt Pitt/Numa series, I definitely recommend starting at the beginning.

Pawn Of Prophecy

Pawn Of Prophecy (The Belgariad Book One)

David Eddings

A battle is coming…

…And in that battle shall be decided
the fate of the world

Myths tell of the ancient wars of Gods and men, and a powerful object – the Orb – that ended the bloodshed. As long as it was held by the line of Riva, it would assure the peace.

But a dark force has stolen the Orb, and the prophecies tell of war.

Young farm boy Garion knows nothing of myth or fate. But then the mysterious Old Storyteller visits his aunt, and they embark on a sudden journey. Pursued by evil forces, with only a small band of companions they can trust, Garion begins to doubt all he thought he knew… (Taken from the product page on Amazon)

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I first read this book when I was a teenager, and at the time I really loved it. I still enjoy the book, having just finished it for probably the dozenth time, but no longer feel so strongly about it; I think that having read a number of other fantasy series over the years, with grittier and more realistic storylines, I now find this book to be a little simplistic and more suited to a teen readership.

There are areas in which the book, is really well written – the descriptions of the lands the company travels through are evocative and the histories of those lands and their peoples rich and a real pleasure to read. When it comes to the actual story, though, it falls down a little; as the story develops you learn new things about the characters but nothing that really advances the plot in any way, and though it is not out of the ordinary for the genre for the characters all to be excellent in at least one particular and necessary art, it does become a bit much after a time.

What perplexes me most about this novel is the fact that Pol and Mister Wolf have at least some idea of the future in store for Garion, yet they do nothing to prepare him for it. Most of the time in fact he’s treated as an ignorant inconvenience that is simply in the way.

Overall I like this book, and will almost certainly read it again, but I am not so inclined to recommend it to other fantasy lovers as I once was. My preference now is for books like George R R Martin’s A Song of Fire and Ice series, which are harsher and harder.

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea

Jules Verne

Professor Aronnax, his faithful servant, Conseil, and the Canadian harpooner, Ned Land, begin an extremely hazardous voyage to rid the seas of a little-known and terrifying sea monster. However, the “monster” turns out to be a giant submarine, commanded by the mysterious Captain Nemo, by whom they are soon held captive.

So begins not only one of the great adventure classics by Jules Verne, the ‘Father of Science Fiction’, but also a truly fantastic voyage from the lost city of Atlantis to the South Pole.

Captain Nemo is a fascinating character, and the Nautilus a wonderful sci-fi invention, I would love to travel the seas in it

The book is well written, with nicely described characters that you care about, including Nemo; the places and events in the book are similarly described well, making it easy to imagine yourself there. Despite being well written it can be difficult at times, to adjust to the older style of writing, which tends to be more wordy than that used by modern authors.

I like this book but the overall impression I was left with after reading it is that Jules Verne wanted to impress people with his knowledge of oceanic flora and fauna. The focus on that aspect of the book can get distracting and take you away from the storyline. If you can get past that, you’re probably going to enjoy the book.

A fun adventure

Tonight I watched the first episode of Sky’s new series, Hooten and the Lady, and I’ve got to say I’m glad I did because it was great.

Lady Alexandra travels to the Amazon on behalf of the British museum in search of the camp of Victorian explorer Percy Fawcett, along the way she encounters an American adventurer, Hooten, when they are both captured by  a tribe of locals. After a trial by combat they have to join forces and make a run for it, eventually finding their way to Fawcett’s camp, where they discover a map to El Dorado.

I won’t give away anything more, suffice to say they encounter adventure and danger and get to know each other a little better.

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I really enjoyed this opening episode; there was some nice scenery, beautiful relics, decent characters and good chemistry, all in all it was as much as you could want from the first episode of a new series.

The acting from the two leads, is decent but not great, I don’t expect them to win any awards for it, but they do have good chemistry, which I hope will develop further as the series continues. The writing is on the same level, not award-winning but more than acceptable.

Where this gained some solid points with me is in the location scenes, and in the artifacts, which looked genuine enough in the relatively quick glimpses the audience were given.

Not quite so good is the slightly derivative nature of the characters; there is a mix of Indiana Jones, Lara Croft, and Nathan Drake from the Uncharted games; I even saw a scene that was very reminiscent of one from Romancing the Stone with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner.

Overall I’m going to have to give this  because despite its flaws it is very enjoyable and I’m looking forward to watching the next episode.