Christian’s Subsection of the Internet

With Balance this series is back to its best. The book is varied, a lot is happening, but it’s easy to keep track of, characters are having to make hard choices which seem plausible based on how they’ve been built up so far in the series, and nothing feels too predictable. Of course, there are tendencies toward clichés now and then, and dialogue especially can feel a little exposition’y in an action-film kind of way, but that’s part of the package with these books. Balance was exactly what I expect and want from these books - a whole lot of easy, relaxing, exciting, fun.

It’s always interesting reading classics you hope you will like. The potential for disappointment is very much there - but The Importance of Being Earnest very much lived up to my expectations. It’s effortlessly funny, and just on the right side of absurd. A nice definition of the genre “farce”, if anyone were to need one. It’s a very quick, very fun read.

There’s a lot of stuff packed into this part of the story, and, as such, it felt a bit more… varied than many of the other books. This book, perhaps most of the five I’ve read so far, justifies splitting the story into the 6 + 1 books this edition splits them into. There’s a nice balance here between action, character-development, drama, and suspense. There isn’t much to say beyond that. There is probably nothing original about the Lord of the Rings that can be written that hasn’t already been written, and read, by anyone who cares. You probably really like this story, or you don’t. I do. It’s not the most riveting or accessible story I’ve read, but it maintains a cosy fairytale feeling, and it really does drag you into the universe of the story.

I rather enjoyed Revival. It’s nothing too special or spectacular, but a solid story keeping a pleasing casual pace and nerve that was perfect for a weekend read. It’s the kind of book where I’d recommend not reading the synopsis, and knowing as little as possible about the story before reading. Not because the book would be ruined, but because coming in blind adds a little extra suspense around what’s going to happen. And a little extra suspense never hurts. It’s a book which touches upon questions about life, existence, and death without going too deep into any of it - using many serious subjects as relatively light plot-devices to drive forward a more-than-decent little story which does the job of providing some light entertainment through a few days. This isn’t a book that will stick with me, but it’s a book that I enjoyed quite a bit while I had it around.

It seems that most of the discussion around Utopia is “What is this actually?” Is it a genuine vision of the perfect world? A work of Satire? A joke? To me it reads like a very interesting thought-experiment. I think it’s quite clear that the ideal world that is being described is in no way ideal. If anything, the island of Utopia seems more like a prison island designed to maximise output than like an ideal community. However, it’s a very interesting thought-experiment with a lot of interesting ideas. Some might be genuinely good, others are presented in a way which makes it very evident (at least when read today) why they would never work in reality. In any case, it was very interesting to read the origins of the phrase Utopia - and, if what was written hear was meant (or, perhaps more likely, taken) seriously, it’s also interesting to see how times have changed.