Warren Ellis’s first novel represents everything Ellis is interested in. All the sci-fi/sex elements he is known for are very much present in this story, even more than anything else he’s written.

That’s both a strength and a flaw. If you’re really interested in those funny stories about weird sex and technology you’ll love this book. Even if you don’t, those stories are amusing to very funny.

I usually enjoy them if taken in small doses, however every other change of scene in this road story has one of those stories, and at a certain point it felt too much for me.

Not that I was disgusted or anything, I just thought there were too many, and the novelty wore off a little bit.

This is not a very long novel, so the plot is fairly simple. The characterization is well done, but at the same time I don’t think I knew these characters too well, therefore I didn’t care for them as much as I would have liked to.

The resolution of the plot was a clever twist, though I cared more about the characters resolution.

I was hoping for this to be as good as his Transmetropolitan, which seemed the closest in terms of themes and characters, and which I loved. Instead I got an entertaining story.

7th Son was the longest podiobook I’ve listened to. This is a trilogy series, but I started listening only when the 3rd book was already started. So I worked my way through the first two books quickly, then caught up with book 3 and listened every episode as soon as it was released.

The different listening frequency really affected my enjoyment of the books. I really liked the first two books, it started very mysteriously, with a great concept of 7 clones. I was hooked immediately, wanting to know more about their past.

During the first two books we learn most of where they came from and the people that were involved, with many interesting and shocking twists. In the meantime we also got a few “action scenes” that ramped up the tension even higher.

However once the 3rd book started, the only mystery left was John Alpha’s plan, so the majority of this last book was more about fast paced action and people being killed. At this time I basically lost the passion for this story. I was still interested in it, but the weekly (sometimes 2-3 weeks) frequency really dampened my interest, and I just wanted to know how it finished. I just wasn’t invested in it anymore.

To make things worse, there a lot protracted final action “scene” which I almost didn’t pay attention to, except to remember who died and who didn’t. Once that was done, I thought we’d either get more surprises (maybe a final twist) or the book would be over. Instead we get a few more chapters of… nothing much. I didn’t really care about the details of the cover story, and although the funerals were nice they could have been shorter.

In hindsight I wish I only started 7th Son after it was all done. I probably would have enjoyed the last book better.

Still, this is a good thriller/mystery novel. JC Hutchins did a very nice job with the production quality of the audio files, and his voices are very well done. I’d recommend this to anyone, now that the story is finished.

After watching the movie adaptation, I obviously went back to the source and listened to the audio version of Stardust written by Neil Gaiman. At the same time I also looked at the illustrated book.

This is a really good fantasy/fairy tale for adults. There are many scary scenes in this book, but it also contained many light hearted scenes. The style in which this is written is very poetic. I usually don’t care much about that style, I am not a literary guy, but in this book it really works.

I think listening to it read by Neil Gaiman made it even better, it just sounds really nice. There are so many characters in this story, all of them memorable. However many of them have a very small role, sometimes they are introduced and never seen again. I do wish that they would either have a bigger role, or just not introduced at all. Their presence wasn’t really needed for the plot.

Another little problem at the end, I though it was weird the way Tristran dealt with his real mother, Gaiman didn’t go into that at all, not even a brief mention.

Other than that, I thought this was a very good story, and the illustrations by Charles Vess were also excellent. His style is the quintessential fantasy art in my mind.

Ever since the end of book 4 I’ve been waiting for things to change dramatically. Instead nothing much happened in books 5 and 6, simply giving us information about the character’s past.

However book 7 definitely delivered on my expectations, making this my favorite book of the series by far. First of all this has the best beginning of a novel, no more of that slow build up or slow catching up with the characters. It starts pretty much with a bang, and continues like that throughout the book.

The search for the horcruxes really brought us some great action scenes, it almost felt like a Mission Impossible story. The ministry, the bank, the capture, etc… Finally lots happening with the 3 main characters at the heart of it.

But it’s not all just action and tension, we also get the usual information about the past, this time about Dumbledore’s past. It was clear that the truth was different from what was published in the Rita Skeeter novel, so the resolution to that thread was expected.

But the main focus of the book is obviously Harry’s journey. I really liked the final revelation about his destiny, though I am not clear on why he didn’t die. But the final duel with Voldemort was very gripping, I couldn’t stop listening to the audio book until I was done.

I thought the explanation of what master of death means was pretty clever (not afraid of death). Severus’ real intentions are finally revealed, and they are pretty much what I suspected. Only I thought that Dumbledore would not be dead.

This is not a perfect book though, I had a few minor problems. Hagrid is a little bit too dumb, which is something that bothered me throughout the books. Dumbledore should not have entrusted him with so many responsibilities. Also it didn’t feel that there were many members of the Order of the Phoenix, which is absurd since they were against an army of Death Eaters. Speaking of which, I thought their infiltration and take over of the Ministry was way too quick. For 2 years they did nothing, and in just a few weeks they’re controlling the whole country. But these are minor problems.

Some bigger problems I found: I still don’t see why Harry couldn’t tell the Order about the Horcruxes, not why Dumbledore didn’t tell Harry everything about his plans. I know this is very typical of fantasy novels, but usually there is a satisfying explanation as to why the hero can’t be told everything. In this case I didn’t find the explanations satisfying.

Also the connection between Harry and Voldemort is too convenient. V should have done something to severe the connection, or suspect that Harry would know about his plans. At the end it was almost as if Harry could go in and out of Voldemort’s mind as he pleased.

Another big problem for me are the Deathly Hallows. In the end they weren’t that important after all, even though they made a big deal about them. Adding the hallows to the horcruxes was a little bit confusing to me.

Such a big battle was obviously going to require many sacrifices, so I am glad that Rowling didn’t back out of that. As much as I was sad about losing some favorite characters, it wouldn’t have been logical not to.

I don’t think the epilogue was necessary, it didn’t add anything to what we knew about the characters and it didn’t answer any dangling questions (I don’t think there were any dangling questions, to Rowling’s credit). It was just a “and they lived happily ever after”.

This final book tied up all loose ends and threads of the series in an excellent way, I really liked it. However the series did not deserve to be that long, and all previous books were not very good. Some parts were excellent, but each book had many problems for me. I still believe Rowling could have written 4-5 excellent books instead of 6 mediocre to ok books, and one great book.

This is the book that contains the biggest surprise of them all. But I’ll get to that later. First let’s talk about the main threads running throughout this book.

SPOILERS FOLLOW!!!

The most interesting to me is Voldemort’s past. Harry and Dumbledore finally spend some time together and work on Voldemort’s past. A lot is revealed about him, culminating in the 7 Horcrux. I am obsessed about these books so I would have no clue what these could be. I will simply enjoy discovering them in the last book.

Another thread is what Malfoy and Snape are up to. I thought he wanted to kill Harry, but that was cleverly scrapped by Rowling when Malfoy didn’t kill Harry on the train to Hogwarts. This mystery was an interesting one, but Dumbledore obviously knew about it, but he didn’t tell Harry. I honestly don’t see any reason why he wouldn’t. He already admitted in book 5 that keeping things from Harry was a mistake.

There is also the titular thread about the half-blood prince. One thing I don’t understand is why nobody thought that Voldemort could be him. Snape was an obvious guess but I never made it.

On a more light-hearted tone, we also get romantic relationships and love potions. I must admit I was convinced that Harry drank a love potion for him to love Ginny. In the end I felt a little uncomfortable about this relationship. But I am glad to see that Ron and Hermione are getting closer.

My biggest problem with this book is the same as the previous one. Voldemort spent an entire year doing… nothing. Again. His only plan was to kill Dumbledore, executed by a kid…

Which brings me to the big finale. As much as I like Dumbledore, I always had a problem with his seemingly infallibility (is that a word?). He seemed to know everything that was going on and to be impossible to stop him. The only thing keeping him from going up to Voldemort and killing him seemed his kindness. So the fact that he died at the end of this book was a total shock and surprise. Could he have been so totally wrong in trusting Snape? It seemed impossible to believe. But I did believe it and kudos to Rowling for that.

However, the more I think about it the more I change my mind. I know that the last book has been out for some time, so people already know. But I think that he is not dead, and that this was all a plan made with Snape. We’ll see how wrong I am.

This is again not totally satisfying, but that ending was very good. Can’t wait to finally read the ending.

After a very dark and promising turn in book 4, I had high expectations for book 5. I think they were somewhat met.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!

This was certainly an even darker book, which in turns meant much less “kiddie”. I was obviously happy about that.

Unlike previous books, not all the story takes place in Hogwarts, which is again a plus for me. Not that I don’t like Hogwarts, but we’ve seen that plenty before, so it was good to have a different scenery.

However, even the school was different this time around. For one thing we see Harry struggle with homework and exams, something that was obviously missing from previous years. I obviously related to that fear of catching up with homework and preparing for exams.

The other very important difference is that the Ministry of Magic was controlling the school with very strict rules. I really hated Umbridge, which means that she was a well developed character. Part of the success of the character is also due to Jim Dale’s excellent rendition, especially her very annoying “uhm, uhm” sound. I liked that story thread, culminating in Dumbledore’s leave. Though if I think about it too much I can’t help but wonder how can anyone so stupid be the Minister of Magic.

But not all is good. I did find Harry very annoying, but not in the good tormented way. Yes, everything happens to him, but he can’t lash out at innocent friends. His temper was out of control for no apparent reason. At one time I even thought that was the influence of Voldemort.

The fact that Voldemort was using Harry was obvious from the beginning. So that wasn’t a big surprise. I also did not find the prophecy interesting at all. Voldemort spent an entire year just to be able to hear that prophecy, which wouldn’t have been much help to him anyway!!

The death of Sirius was a way for Rowling to up the stakes even further, and I will be missing him. I liked that Dumbledore and Voldemort finally fight each other.

The penultimate chapter reveals all there is to know about Harry, his past, the prophecy (he is the chosen one!! How original). Now it seems that there isn’t much else to reveal about his past, or is there?

This is the longest book so far, but I finished it much faster than book 4, which is indicative of how much I enjoyed this.