Karl's Reading List

Published by Egmont UK Limited/Electric Monkey: London, UK: 2012 (2009). First published by HarperTeen: New York, USA, 2008. Book 1 in the 'Gone' series. Followed by 'Hunger.' I borrowed this book from a family member knowing nothing about it except that some of my students like it. I soon learned it was seen as a combination of Stephen King meets Lord of the Flies - neither of which are my usual jam (he says, having literally just finished reading a different book by the author of Lord of the Flies ). Yeah, it is like that. Particularly Stephen King's Under the Dome, which I know from the mini-series of the same name. Plus, it also has similarities to Lost (which I loved) and X-Men (some of which I enjoy). So, anyway... The basic premise of Gone  is that all of a sudden everyone fifteen and older who lives in or near the town of Perdido Beach mysteriously disappears, and the remaining children discover that they are now trapped by a mysterious barrier that has a ...

Published by Bantam Books: New York, 1996 (1995). This is the first ever 'Expanded Universe' Star Wars novel I've ever read, and is part of what is now considered the 'Legends' universe (aka, all of this was considered Star Wars canon until Disney took over Lucasfilm and decided to reboot everything). This makes Children of the Jedi an interesting read. It is apparent while reading that many of the characters referenced have turned up in other novels previously (novels I have not read). It is apparent that characters we know from the movies, such as Luke, Leia and Han, have also had numerous other adventures that likely feature in other novels I have not read. And yet I also know that according to current 'canon' none of these stories actually happened (I know, I know, all of this is fiction and none of this happened, but its still confusing...). So... its like reading some sort of complicated fan-fiction. It's also a very weird novel. Luke gets trapped ...

Published by Huia Publishers: Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand, 2018. This is a new book in the English department, another by an up-and-coming new Maori author, and whoo boy it ramps up quickly! At the end of the first chapter a bus full of highschool students crashes in the New Zealand bush. Most die. A few chapters later one student needs his leg operated on by another student. A few chapters later another student turns murderous. Somewhere in the midst of all this the survivors begin getting nose-bleeds and seeing visions. Eventually a spaceship and a sinister corporation are introduced. It's so much and it all just keeps escalating! The book is a page-turner, helped by the amount of plot and the very short chapters (the shortest chapter is made up of a single line of text), and I can imagine students really enjoying it for its realistic New Zealand teens (well, before they turn murderous), its fast pace, and even its occasional romantic subplots (which do at times get a bit mo...

Published by Corgi Books/Random House Children's Books: London, 2011 (2001). Surprisingly, this is only the second Terry Pratchett novel I have ever reviewed on this blog. I say surprising because I have enjoyed Pratchett's works, particularly his the novels set in the satirical fantasy world of  Discworld  for years. This book is the first one written by Pratchett to be aimed at a slightly younger audience than the 'main' Discworld books, and bases the plot around a parody of the Pied Piper story. Maurice is a talking cat, given the power of speech (and intelligence) around the same time and in the same location as a group of rats he now works with. The rats received their intelligence after eating rubbish left outside the Unseen University (a wizarding school). How Maurice received his intelligence is left a mystery for much of the book - but will be fairly obvious if you think about it. Now Maurice and the rats, with the help of a 'stupid-looking kid' who pl...

Originally published 1896. Audiobook released by LibriVox 06-02-2014. Narrated by Bob Neufeld. Well, it seems that audiobooks  have  been  easier to get  through lately! This classic science fiction novel is a fairly dark story, telling of Edward Prendick, a shipwrecked survivor who ends up stranded on the titular island where Dr Moreau is experimenting on animals, turning them into humanoid beings through a combination of extreme surgery/vivisection and hypnosis. The creatures are able to talk and reason (to a degree) and consider themselves humans, living by a series of strict laws to try and keep them from reverting to their instinctive animal behaviour. As time goes on, however, it seems that all of the animals will indeed inevitably lose their 'humanity.'  Wells seems to naturally gravitate towards the darker elements of humanity in his work, and this is no exception. Moreau - who is, to be fair, treated with some degree of horror by Prendick - sees himself...

Published by Puffin Books: Great Britain, 1982. First published 1971. I remember reading this book in my later years of primary school and quite enjoying it. I also remember it had a fairly melancholic tone to it for a children's book. Having re-read it now I can confirm that both of those sentiments still hold true. The fact that the author of this book also wrote Z For Zachariah, a classic Young Adult novel that I also remember enjoying as a youth and that also has a melancholic tone, is not a surprise. Mrs Frisby is a mother of four children, one of whom is sick. She is a widow, her husband having died a year earlier. She is also a field-mouse. O'Brien anthropomorphizes all of the animals in this book to some degree and never really explains to what extent this is the case. The animals are all 'normal' animals (with the exception of the rats and some particular mice, as I will explain), yet they also carry things, have homes with (to some degree) furniture, and even ...

Published in a omnibus edition as "The Circle Trilogy" : " Black "; " Red "; " White ", by Thomas Nelson: Nashville, Tennessee, 2004. The novel Red opens fifteen years after the events of Black , at least as far as one of the worlds protagonist Thomas Hunter lives in is concerned. In the other world - our world - only half an hour has passed, which is of benefit considering the gun currently pointed at his sleeping head... Red keeps up the action-packed pace of its predecessor, along with continuing its Narnia-like allegorical allusions in the 'other' world. Whereas the first novel dealt in metaphors about creation and the fall, this one takes a little longer to figure out, with a few twists and turns keeping me guessing before things finally clicked into place. When they do click into place, Dekker still manages to offer a few surprises and alterations to the familiar biblical stories which both make the reader ponder upon hi...

Published by Scholastic Ltd: London, UK, 2009 (2008). Book One in the 'Hunger Games' series: ' The Hunger Games '; ' Catching Fire '; ' Mockingjay '. As far as book-to-film adaptations go, the film version of The Hunger Games is very accurate. A few minor things are changed - as an example, book Katniss is given her mockingjay pin by a minor character, Madge, whereas movie Katniss is given it by her sister, Prim - but beat by beat the plot unfolds as a fan of the movies would expect. The one advantage the book has over the movie (which is a normal advantage) is that the book can go more into Katniss's reasoning, emotions, and even backstory. Jennifer Lawrence did great emoting Katniss on the big screen, but we get a far more internalised Katniss here, pondering whether Peeta is acting or really feeling the way he states, reminiscing about Gale and wondering about her feelings towards him... None of which will make sense to someone that hasn...

Published by Penguin Books: England, 1964. (1955). This classic science fiction novel takes place in a world recovering from some global nuclear disaster (known as The Tribulation), society has reverted back to largely rural societies, and mutations are considered curses, and must be purged - be they plant, or animal, or even human. The mutant humans live predominantly in The Fringes, regions that have greater levels of residual radiation. However, on occasion these mutants are crossing the boundaries into 'normal' human territory. The hero of the story, David Strorm, gradually comes to realise that he has a mutation of his own - telepathy - and must keep that truth hidden from his super-religious father while connecting with an ever growing group of other telepaths. Eventually the truth comes out and David must flee into the Fringes, with the aim of reaching "Sealand", a reference to my own home country that I greatly enjoyed. Works where fundamentalist C...