Calamity by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Steelheart was the first Sanderson book I ever read, and since then, I’ve been hooked. I consider Sanderson to be my favourite author.

Steelheart was an epic book and the plot twists were so good. However, Calamity does not live up to Steelheart or Firefight for that matter. In the previous two books, the plot twists and the reveals at the end were masterful and you’d be beating yourself over not seeing all the clues earlier. In Calamity, I was scratching my head over the lack of clues. Sad to say, I was disappointed when the big reveal came.

Throughout the book, all the way up till the end, I had more questions than answers. Especially when it came to Calamity, the character. What or who is he? What are his motivations really? Where did he come from or where is he going?

SPOILER ALERT
I also consider the whole parallel dimension part of the book to be either underdeveloped or too confusing in its current form. It made for a sweet ending, but again raised too many questions. In fact, it felt a little bit too much of a cop-out.

An added note about cop-outs. Sanderson could have used the protagonist’s sudden gain of Epic powers as a cop-out, but he didn’t. Kudos to him for that.
SPOILERS END HERE

The ending bits of the story weren’t favourable at all. If you were expecting a mind-blowing ending like the first 2 books of this series, sadly, you’d be disappointed.

However, the rest of the book (which is most of it) is still good and has the consistency of all Sanderson books.

Right from the start, I was hooked on the plot. I wanted to know more and get to the ending. The narrative is inherently exciting too. ‘Magic’ system still works well here too.

The characters, whom you’ve been introduced to previously, are all back. Their characterisation is still consistent and character growth is strong with a dose of healthy self-doubt. If you liked the characters previously, they don’t disappoint here. I have to say though, I never really liked the running gag about the protagonist not being able to make metaphors. Wasn’t funny for me.

Well. You’ve come so far as to read the first 2 books, you will want to read the 3rd book whether I recommend it or not.

As a series, I will highly recommend it to anyone who loves sci-fi or mystery novels.

Story/Plot (50%): 3/5
Character Development (25%): 4/5
Writing style (25%): 4/5

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Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Magic realism is a theme I can relate to visually, but to have it in a written form, I thought it was impossible; until I read Anansi Boys. Gaiman has accomplished this feat and has done so with style, creativity, and much imagination.

Anansi Boys follows the story of fat Charlie, a grown man plagued by his upbringing. He blames his sad lot in life on his father. Being constantly pranked by your own father seemed to have that effect on you.

When fat Charlie’s father passes away, it triggers a hilarious chain of events that leads fat Charlie on a trip across the globe. Fat Charlie while trying to seek closure for his father’s death, meets his long-lost brother, who in turn is more trouble than is worth knowing. With the latter causing more problems than fixing them, fat Charlie tries to set things right, only to cause even more problems. The troubles continue to spiral out of control, but that’s what makes the book so interesting.

From start to finish this tale was extremely funny. The wit that Gaiman put into the book is astounding. At the same time, Gaiman puts in a very vague magic system, so much so that it feels like a magic realism painting. At the same time, this magic system and the way the characters solve the problems are not plot-breaking at all. I think this makes this book an excellent study for aspiring writers. In fact, this book was the inspiration for the new book Dragonhearted.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and will recommend it to anyone.

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The Dark Forest by Liu Cixin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Very original and thought out hard sci-fi, with a bit of a whodunit element similar to the previous book.

This book is the 2nd one in a trilogy, and the story in the first book was so gripping that I had to read this one too. Again, it has the same originality of plot and storyline as the first book.

Now that the stage has been set, in the first book, The Dark Forest can freely move on with the story. A doomsday battle is fast approaching and humanity is far from ready. The book explores the political, psychological and moral elements of preparing for such an event. All the while maintaining it’s core of scientific explanations, as all good hard sci-fi books do.

What impressed me in this book was how the subplots tie into the scientific explanations and thought experiments. No plot or explanations were wasted.

Though the character development in the book was pretty weak, I’d say that character development is not the point of the book. Looking past this flaw, the book is great. Plot development is the majority of the book.

The book is sort of divided into two parts. It goes through a lot of ups and downs, and there are many mini-climaxes. However, only at the end does the book go finally into The Dark Forest Theory for which it was named. That bit was fascinating and makes the book worth reading. I haven’t seen it anywhere else. Without spoilers, it’s an explanation for the Fermi Paradox.

I have one personal gripe about this book. The instance where, far into the future, English and Mandarin have merged into one seamless language. I suspect that Liu has never heard of Singlish before. The merging of the two languages is already here. I speak it, in all it’s crude forms. I’m pretty sure it is unintelligible to pure English and Mandarin speakers.

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The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Hard as sci-fi, with a bit of a whodunit element. I can see why this won a Hugo. First of, this is a very difficult read. If you have no interest in or understanding of physics, you will be totally thrown off. Liu really did his writer’s research for this one. At some points, I was confused as to whether some explanations were real science or made-up science.

I find the book to be highly creative and imaginative. The book makes you look at humanity, science, and politics from an overarching perspective as few other books do. I find the overall plot and certain scenes (the three-body game scenes) to be creative.

A lot of people have praised it for putting an Asian perspective on sci-fi. However, as an Asian myself, I don’t feel like this is so. The characters aren’t particularly well-developed. And if you just change the names of the characters to some other culture’s names, you probably won’t detect any ‘Asian perspectives’.

The book is slightly slow to start but gets engrossing very quickly. The climax and conclusion were pretty boring, but everything coming before it was interesting. As it is the first book in a trilogy, I’m guessing that it’s only really setting that stage for the next two books.

If Mark Zuckerberg recommends it, you know it’s worth checking out.

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The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Stormlight Archives, Book 1, The Way of Kings, sets up the series nicely. Totally unlike A Song of Ice and Fire, which feels like a thousand page long introduction to Game of Thrones.

The setting and magic system in this book is pretty unique for a fantasy book. The world is buffeted by constant storms and the seasons seem to come and go randomly. Accordingly the plant and animal life have adapted to weather the constant storms. Humans, though seemingly live in a middle-age type era, have also adapted their way of life to this harsh world. As you can guess from the title, the storms are a source of magic in this fantasy realm. Sanderson is known for creating balanced yet fantastical magic systems in books. This new storm-based magic system intrigues me. Not only because it’s unique, but also because the magic system is purposely vague and misunderstood. The characters don’t seem to understand it themselves. It feels like a mystery to guess what the magic system really is.

Oh, and the storms aren’t the only source of magic in this book. Hint, hint.

The Way of Kings has a few protagonists, who’s lives (you bet) will intertwine as the various subplots (you bet) will cross with each other. The focus of this book is really on Kaladin, a former warrior/surgeon who has fallen from grace and became a slave. Apart from this backstory, his story is about how he deals with his present situation which seems pretty bleak. Meanwhile, the other major characters slowly (but not fully) uncover a plot that could bring the world into turmoil.

Considering the length of the book, it’s pacing is pretty good. You will also get a good sense of the vastness of this make-believe world, and the depth of it. This comes from the side stories of minor characters scattered throughout the world.

Oh, and the plot twists, I loved them all. Yes, multiple plot twists. My only gripe with this was that the plot twists all happened in the closing chapters of the book, one after another, in quick succession. This made the ending chapters the most exciting. But it also made me wonder where the excitement in the middle chapters was. It’s not as fast-paced or as exciting than the Mist-Born series, but still far better than most fantasy epics I’ve seen.

All in all, if you want to get invested in a fantasy novel series, this one is a good pick. It’s just starting up now, so it’ll be a good time to get into it. Reading this book makes me want to continue onto reading the next book.

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Talk Like TED: The 9 Public-Speaking Secrets of the World’s Top Minds by Carmine Gallo
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An advanced level book on public speaking. It’s definitely not for beginners. Those of you who are at an intermediate level and want to progress, then this book is for you.

However, for those of you already at an advanced level, you will realise you can’t learn much from this book. Not only because you probably already knew these things, but any other good public speaking book will have the same lessons as this book. The core differentiating factor in this book is that it uses TED talks as evidence and examples for its lessons. TED talks that everyone loves.

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Some ideas in the book did strike me as relatively unique in the book:

Firstly, was the idea that every speech is has something to sell. Every TED talk was, at the very least, trying to sell you an idea. Judging by how many people claim their worldview changed because of one TED talk or another, I’d say this is true. Therefore as a speaker, you need to think of what you are trying to sell, whether you like selling or not.

Secondly, was the statistic that the most popular TED talks comprised of 65% pathos (emotional connection) as compared with 25% logos (logical argument) and 10% ethos (speaker’s character). I think everyone knows emotional connection with the audience is important. But now we know how important it actually is.

The book’s recommendation to achieve high emotional connection with the audience is via storytelling. People who know me will know I’m already an advocate for visual storytelling. So it comes as no surprise why I like this lesson so much.

Other tips like speaking with passion, using humour, new & surprising information, extraordinary statistics in your speech are similarly covered in other books.

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Just offhandedly, if you want to take your speaking to the next level, then I can recommend this to you. It is good enough.

However, if you really want to “Talk Like TED”, then just reading this book is not enough. Only through effort and practice will you be able to reach the masterful TED level of public speaking.

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The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As it says in the title, this book is about habits. How habits can affect your life and what you can do about them. How habits can harm you via things like addiction, and how they can help you, via things like craving for exercise.

The book’s information is very useful, as other reviews would have pointed out. However, I find that the information in the book is readily available elsewhere. Habits and their formation are almost common knowledge, and you can find countless articles about them online.

What the book presents that I haven’t seen before are the real-life stories that Duhigg uses to illustrate the power of habits. These also keep the book interesting to read. Better to use stories to teach than to have the reader look at bland facts.

Another point I find totally new is the idea that companies and organisations as a whole can have habits too. Think of it as a collective habit. This is also something I find other reviewers of this book and other writers on the topic of habits miss out on. This idea is potentially very helpful to all businesses but generally seems neglected in comparison.

In detail: An organisation can have habits such as a habit of safety. Such a ‘keystone’ habit can rally other positive habits to form around it. Safety habits can lead to effectiveness habits, which again can lead to productivity habits. Overall, the chain of habits forms the basis of a company’s culture. In the book, Duhigg tells the story of one such company who focused on the habit of safety. Accidents needed to be reported in an efficient manner. This brought safety up, leading to worker confidence and productivity going up too. And, because of the new way accidents had to be reported, it made internal corporate communications more efficient. I think you can see how the starting benefits can lead to other benefits, and this all started on focusing on improving workplace safety.

If you want to know about habits and how to use them to your advantage, you can read this book, but you can also read other materials available online. However, if you are a business owner, you definitely want to read this just for the ‘keystone’ habits and the corporate habits sections of the book.

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Simple Numbers, Straight Talk, Big Profits!: 4 Keys to Unlock Your Business Potential by Greg Crabtree
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Disclaimer: I read this book in the form of a detail book summary via Blinkist

Just like the title says, the book is delivered in the same fashion: direct, practical and very useful.

The book primarily focuses on a business’s account. How you should structure your numbers, what metrics to look out for, and generally how to budget your business are key takeaways in the book. If that’s what you are looking to learn, then this book is for you.

Although I am from the business school, the book gave me new information on how to structure your budget, especially if for startups. I didn’t learn this while at uni, so I’m guessing this advice is the result of experience in the field.

The advice seems pretty simple. But don’t discount it just because. It seems like pretty pragmatic advice to me. The advice in the book may seem insignificant, but if you didn’t know these things, your business might be in trouble.

I would recommend all entrepreneurs read this. It will give you a good grounding in budgeting and finance management for your startup. It’s a pretty quick and straight forward read anyways.

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The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

What I expected from this book:
Girl protagonist, murder mystery, trains.

What I got:
Alcoholism, depression, anxiety disorder, psychopathy, obsessional stalking, one lousy psychotherapist, and a little bit on trains.

This book was painful to read. I liked the climax part, I thought it was well written and executed. That was the only good part about it. Everything else before the climax was bad. Real bad.
The characters are unlikeable. They all are broken people at their core and had no redeeming qualities at all. If the characters didn’t meddle in other people’s affairs, cause so much unnecessary drama, and let the police do their jobs, then the case could be solved. In fact, without all the drama there probably wouldn’t have been a case in the first place.

The characters are probably why it was a pain to read.

There was bad foreshadowing. Usually, the author would put in strong clues and mislead you with red herrings all around. But here, the major piece of the puzzle is only revealed just before the climax. The entire book is one big red herring made up of tiny red herrings sewn together.

The ‘victim’ of the murder had a POV in the book. But what’s the point of her POV if she is just going to keep key information from the reader? Her only job is to give out red herrings.

The book is also, I daresay, unfeminist. Having 3 female POVs doesn’t mean much if all of them are weak in character and men-dependant. Even the lone supporting female character is man-dependant.

The title of the book is misleading. It gives train-related books everywhere a bad name.

Really; don’t read this book. As other reviews have mentioned before:
The real mystery here is why so many people like this book.

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Dragonhearted by Xie Shi Min
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Dragonhearted is the story of a young girl and her adventures, discovering ancient Chinese myths and legends in the modern world. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, this book is the Chinese version of Percy Jackson. That’s the best way to describe it.

The plot is interesting, our young hero Xin has to defeat an ancient evil and starts on her hero’s journey to do so. Better still, retellings of popular (and not so well known) Chinese myths are interwoven into the book. And these myths all have a part to play in the story. It left me excited as to see how everything is connected and how all the stories and plotlines tie up at the end. Best of all, even after the climax is over, Xie slaps you with yet another myth that makes for a great plot twist.

For a children’s book, it is very smart, plot twists and all. It doesn’t try to dumb down the reader. It is also a page turner and will make you want to race through the whole book to absorb all of it. Good thing that this book is short enough to be read in one sitting.

The book does something interesting. Because it is told from the first person view of a young girl, words are purposely misspelled, and thoughts are interjected into the prose, portraying how children think. Definitely, a refreshing way to view things. Although I’m not sure if children will identify with such a literary trick.

I’d recommend this not only to all children aged 10 and above, but to every Chinese person. It doesn’t matter where in the world you live, our traditions and myths are the same. With English literature full of western themes, to find a book that blends Chinese themes together (without blindly copying) is very refreshing indeed.

I do have to say, however, if you weren’t already familiar with Chinese culture and myths, you may need to take this book slower or look up some of these myths online. It was easy for readers like me who have heard all the myths at least once before and who are familiar with the creatures of myth. Still, don’t fret, if you are unfamiliar, then take this as your eye opener into the rich world of Chinese myths and legends.

Disclosure:
I know the author personally.
I was a beta reader.
I am Singaporean Chinese

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