Jedi by Knight

A general guide for ratings:

5/5–I would buy this
4/5–I will re-read this
3/5–I might read this again
2/5–I have no interest in reading this again
1/5–I couldn’t finish this

Scoundrels (Timothy Zahn) 4/5–This book must have been fun to write–it was sure fun to read!  No Jedi here; this is a Star Wars heist novel featuring some old friends and some great new faces.  It did take a while to read, because the plot is fairly intricate, and Zahn wastes no words on extraneous details, all leading up to a great twist at the end.  My only issue is that this story retcons (again!!) Lando’s Ep V line “You’ve got a lot of guts coming here, after what you pulled.”  I guess I prefer to think of it as really well-written fan fiction…which, let’s face it, is how I should be thinking of all Star Wars novels from here on, since the new movies will make the EU story lines obsolete. 😦

Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card) 3.5/5–Thought I should get around to reading this before the movie comes out…yet I was hearing Harrison Ford in my head the whole time.  Hey, I thought it worked.  Anyways, this book is a classic for a reason–well-written and thought-provoking.  But it wasn’t exactly a light read, and the ending makes it impossible for it to stand on its own.  Its use of ethnic and racial slurs, while purposeful, was distracting.

Cold Days (Jim Butcher) 5/5–The latest installment in the Dresden Files doesn’t disappoint.  Butcher never gives his characters an easy way out of their predicaments, so there’s never a dull moment.  The overarching plot line of the series gets some major development, and the characters continue to change (in realistic ways) as well.  I’m really looking forward to what comes next.

Side Jobs (Jim Butcher) 5/5–A great collection of short stories for when you need a quick Dresden Files fix.  Make sure you note where the stories fall in the timeline, or you will get spoilers for books you haven’t read.

Wednesdays in the Tower (Jessica Day George) 3.5/5–Not bad for a sequel, but this book seemed to lack the whimsy of its predecessor, Tuesdays at the Castle–I had to go back and re-read Tuesdays to make sure it was actually as good as I remembered (it is!). Wednesdays is more complicated but less fun.  The idea seems great (a pet griffin! learning the castle’s secrets!) but Pogue was dull, Lilah was AWOL, and the bad guy was obvious.  The ending does suggest that we will have more books in this series, which I am not sorry about.