Review of Soul Music by Terry Pratchett

Soul Music by Terry Pratchett is the story of a young musician named Imp who journeys from his small mountain town to the big city of Ankh-Morpork hoping to make it big. He meets up with a couple other musicians and they form a band but they have little success. When Imp's harp is accidentally destroyed, his band mates purchase a strange looking guitar for him from a mysterious music shop. Imp seems to have no trouble learning to play this new instrument and it seems to cast a spell upon him, his band mates, and everyone who hears his music and he becomes an instant celebrity. Unfortunately there are those that are not a fan of this new music and will go to great lengths to put a stop to it.

This book was pretty funny, and as always I loved Pratchett's use of humorous imagery and phrasing as well as the hilarious footnotes. I also loved all of the music related puns throughout the book. I'd definitely recommend this book to fans of Terry Pratchett and the Discworld series.

Review of Troubling a Star by Madeleine L'Engle

Troubling a Star by Madeleine L'Engle is the last book in the Austin Family series. In this story Vicky Austin is granted a very generous gift from a friend of the family to take a trip to Antarctica. Vicky is very excited about this trip until she receives some anonymous warnings from someone who would prefer her to not go on the trip. She disregards the warnings and goes on the trip anyway and finds herself in the middle of an international conspiracy and her life is put in danger by those who think she knows more than she actually does. This was an ok read, but it was a bit tedious in places. I think I actually enjoyed the descriptions of scenery and the characters interactions with the wildlife than I did the actual plot of the story. One thing I didn't like that much was the use of a flash forward scene at the beginning of each chapter. In general this is a literary device that I don't enjoy and find that it just makes the story harder to follow.

I don't think it's strictly necessary to read any of the other books in the series before reading this book, but I would recommend reading the rest of the series first, plus The Arm of the Starfish, if you'd like some background information on the characters and previous events in their lives. I would recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of The Austin Family series or of the author, but I'm not sure how much someone not familiar with the series would get out of this book.

Review of The Unadulterated Cat by Terry Pratchett

The Unadulterated Cat by Terry Pratchett is an amusing commentary on the behavior of cats and how the author feels that some cats are more real than others and gives a comprehensive guide on how to tell a real cat from an unreal one along with some hypothetical musings. This was a fun quick read and I especially enjoyed all of the references to Schrodinger's cat. I also thought it was hilarious that some of the "real" cats that the author seemed to be describing seemed very much like the cat Greebo from his Discworld series. This is a must read for cat lovers and you might even enjoy it even if you're not a cat person like me, but are still exposed to cats enough to be familiar with their behavior.

Review of Prince Lestat by Anne Rice

Prince Lestat by Anne Rice is the newest book in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles series. In this story there is a mysterious disembodied voice that plagues Lestat and numerous vampires around the world. At first the voice is just harmless and taunting, but soon it gains the ability to manipulate the more weak minded vampires into doing its bidding. The book recounts the stories of the different vampires that have been affected by this voice and how they must all come together to put a stop to it. I did enjoy this book for the most part even if some of the turns of events it was quite obvious what was going to happen beforehand. It was quite verbose and drawn out, but not nearly as tedious as some of Anne Rice's other books.

This book provided a nice recap of the events from many of the previous books from the series which was a good refresher for people already familiar with those books eliminating the need to read them again before reading this book. It's probably not strictly necessary to read the previous books before reading this book if you've never read them before, but you will get the most out of this book if you have read them. I would recommend reading the majority of the series before starting this book. The only books that can probably be skipped are Merrick, Blackwood Farm, and Blood Canticle because those are crossover books with the Mayfair Witches trilogy and there is no mention of the Mayfair Witches in this book. You also probably don't need to read Vittorio the Vampire either because that book was a completely standalone novel and the protagonist of that book does not make an appearance in this one. I'd definitely recommend this book to anyone who is a fan of the Vampire Chronicles.