Tonya's Book Blog: May 2022 Reading and Trips

Hi friends,

May was a good month for our family that culminated in a trip to Utah to visit my parents. I re-read some Brandon Sanderson epics and read a few nonfiction books as well.

Let me know what you think of these books and if you have suggestions for further reading.

Cheers,

Tonya

The Final Empire (Mistborn #1) by Brandon Sanderson

Rating: 5 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes,for anyone who likes epic fantasy

Review: I first read these books several years ago, and it’s been long enough that I had forgotten most of the plot points. I picked the series up again because the next installment set on the Mistborn world is due for release this fall, and I wanted a refresher. These were even more enjoyable the second time around because I had a broader experience of the Cosmere --- Sanderson’s interconnected universe of stories --- and was able to make connections to other pieces of his work. Sanderson’s really good at putting a new spin on classic fantasy tropes, and I love what he does with the chosen one trope in this series and the relationship between Kelsier and Vin. Sanderson describes this book as a heist story disguised as epic fantasy, and reading it with that in mind, I could see what he meant. This book is a great introduction to Sanderson’s writing, and a classic piece of epic fantasy.

The Well of Ascension (Mistborn #2) by Brandon Sanderson

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes, for fans of the first

Review: This is the second installment in the initial Mistborn trilogy and differs from the first in tone and pacing quite a bit. Since our heroes were surprisingly successful in their overthrow the empire “heist” from the first book, this one focuses on “What do we do now?” which they hadn’t thought about at all in the first book. As such, this book is more of a political fantasy than the first and the pacing is quite a bit slower. While our fearless crew muddles through some hard-to-learn lessons about leadership and politics, another higher-level apocalyptic threat looms over the story and only begins to be revealed at the end of the book. I really liked seeing Elend and Vin’s relationship develop, and I love how he implicitly trusts her no matter what. The ending is super disappointing and frustrating as Sanderson turns another fantasy trope on its head. Our heroes are just trying to do the right thing but unknowingly play right into the bad guys’ plans.

The Hero of Ages (Mistborn #3) by Brandon Sanderson

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes, for fans of the first two

Review: This is the final installment in the initial Mistborn trilogy, and this one takes on truly epic fantasy proportions as our heroes finally go up against the really big bad. Ruin -- the malevolent deity intent on destroying the world -- finally moves into the forefront of the story, and we realize just how perfectly he’s manipulated our beloved heroes. He’s a truly terrifying bad guy that makes our characters second-guess every choice as they’ve perfectly played into his manipulations in the past. I’m glad that we got more Spook and Sazed in this book. Sanderson did that thing that he sometimes does with secondary characters that you don’t really care about by bringing them more into the spotlight and suddenly making them your favorite character. The ending is, of course, a surprise, and I love that Sanderson again twisted my expectations around so well.

American Moonshot: John F. Kennedy and the Great Space Race by Douglas Brinkley

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes, for those interested in the US space program and/or JFK

Review: I picked up this book hoping to get a high-level understanding of the Apollo program but should have focused more on the subtitle because it focused more on JFK’s role in the space program. It was still a good and worthwhile read, but wasn’t what I was expecting. My current role at work has a heavy component of oversight for NASA’s current efforts to return to the moon for the first time in 50 years, dubbed Artemis to echo Apollo. As such, this book seemed to me to contain some interesting lessons for NASA and the oversight role I play. First, Brinkley heavily emphasized that the Apollo program would not have happened if JFK hadn’t made it a top administration priority. He says, “The answer is that it takes a rare combination of leadership, luck, timing, and public will to pull off something as sensational as Kennedy’s Apollo moonshot. Today there is no rousing historical context akin to the Cold War to light a fire on a bipartisan public works endeavor. Only if a future U.S. president, working closely with Congress, is able to marshal the federal government, private sector, scientific community, and academia to work in unison on a grand effort can it be done.” It seems that one of the main reasons NASA hasn’t been able to return people to the moon or send them to Mars is this lack of prioritization from any administration since Apollo. While the former and current administrations have supported NASA’s Artemis efforts, they are definitely not a top national priority and knowledge of them remains predominantly confined to those in the aerospace industry. Another big takeaway I had from this book was the role of Nazism in early rocket development. The book tells the story of the infamous and maybe reformed (?) Nazi Werner Van Braun who developed the V2 rocket, which played a minor role in World War 2, but a much larger role in future rocket development. The book talks frankly about how the US was willing to overlook Van Braun’s war crimes in light of the newly arisen Cold War and the national security need to develop missiles to counter the sometimes overblown Soviet threat. Van Braun himself pointed this out when he commented that “It seems to be a law of nature that all novel technical inventions that have a future for civilian use start out as weapons.’” Since the book focuses predominantly on JFK’s role in the Apollo program it concludes shortly after his assassination, and provides few details about the remaining years and effort between his death and the Apollo 11 mission. This was kind of disappointing, but there are plenty of other works that detail that story told from different angles and perspectives.

The Hunger of the Gods (Bloodsworn Saga #2) by John Gwynne

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes, but need to read the first one first

Review: This was the second of a promised trilogy of books from Gwynne in a Nordic-inspired epic fantasy world. While this book continued many elements that I liked from the first book including the worldbuilding, tone, and setting for a truly epic fantasy series, there were some areas where I felt the story lacked compared to the first. The biggest issue was pacing. This story added two new point-of-view characters, and while they did add some depth and variety to the story, I felt that one of them really made it drag. I’m looking at you Godvarr, or however you spell it. Every time his point-of-view came up, I groaned a little inside. I really didn’t like being inside his head and felt like the story dragged every time he came on page. I really liked Varg’s and Elvar’s plots but wanted a bit more page time for Orka. It was especially interesting to watch Elvar’s assent to power and see the choices that she made and why. I felt like there wasn’t much progression for Orka, though, beyond what we got in the first book, so hopefully we’ll get more from her in the next book, assuming that she survives her cliffhanger ending. I’ll definitely pick up the third when it comes out next year and hope that Gwynne can wrap up all these plotlines.

How to Prevent the Next Pandemic by Bill Gates

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Recommendation: yes, for those interested in never reliving the pandemic

Review: I’m not a public health professional, and to be honest, neither is Gates, but I thought that his suggestions in this book to prevent the next pandemic made a lot of sense. He suggests, among other things, creating a global network to monitor for new pathogens and outbreaks of older diseases. He talks about how there was a strong correlation between how much a population trusts its government and that government’s ability to effectively respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, but admits that building trust in government is a problem beyond just the COVID-19 pandemic. Gates, thankfully, doesn’t focus too much on all the mistakes that occurred during this pandemic, probably because it’s too soon to be able to do a complete analysis, but his suggestions seem to make sense regardless.The thing that I like about Gates’s writing is his ability to clearly and concisely explain complex topics without overly simplifying or sounding like he’s talking down to his readers, and he does that again in this book. Highly recommend that people everywhere read this book and think about what policies we can start supporting and implementing now to prevent the next pandemic. As he notes in the book while quoting an epidemiologist, “Outbreaks are inevitable, pandemics are not.”

Mommy Corner

Maya has an amazing sense of style.

After no snow in March or April, we got a two-day long mix of rain, sleet, and snow. The results above were only around for about 5 hours one morning, so the girls decided to take advantage of the late season storm.

We went with some friends to my in-law's cabin and set up a few climbing routes on their property. Well, our friend set up the routes. Here's Chloe trying one of them out. It was her first time climbing outdoors, and she wasn't a huge fan as the rock was hard and pokey.

I took a turn on one of the routes too.

The girls like going to King Soopers because they have these cart-cars. While they are very hard to push, they do keep them entertained and prevents them from putting any unauthorized purchases in the cart, seeing what I put in the cart, and running away. All in al, worth it.