Lee Hunts

I just finished reading The Long Walk by the obscure writer Richard Bachman. This is my first novel by the writer. It is also apparently his first novel, though it is not his first published one. He wrote it when he was a freshman in college, and I found the project to be especially impressive given this background. The basic premise of this book is very simple: there is a totalitarian society that has replaced the American government, and it now hosts what is called "The Long Walk," which is a yearly event where one hundred young men compete to win a prize. However, the execution is far more straightforward, but also more brutal, than other dystopian fiction like the Hunger Games. In this game, they have to keep up a pace of 4 miles per hour. If they fall below this pace, they receive a warning; after three warnings, they are then shot and killed. The last one walking is then declared the winner. It is from this decidedly simple premise that a terrifying and brutal story fol...

I just finished reading The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams. This is the first book in his Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series. As described by Mike's Books Reviews, this series is about what happens after happily ever after. King John Prester is a great King that is loved by all. Legends are being sung about his exploits, when he rose to power. But now, he is old and dying, and he has two sons that do not love one another. One is destined to take the throne, while the other is suspected of wanting it for himself. But matters are even more terrifying to behold than that, as an ancient evil seems to be awakening in the north, and humanity is woefully unprepared for what is to come. Amidst all of these machinations is Simon, a lowborn scullion, who is a bare fourteen years of age. He is always lost in his head, fantasizing about romantic adventures, and finding excuses to escape this or that task at hand. But, as you can imagine, he is eventually swept up in an adventure of his own tha...

I just finished reading My Dark Vanessa by Kate Elizabeth Russell. This book is about a fifteen year old girl who goes to a boarding school and is groomed into a relationship with a teacher. The story follows two timelines, one in the past, where you see her as a kid being drawn in slowly by the actions of her teacher, and then the present day, where you see her as a thirty-two year-old woman being forced to come to grips with her past. Was the relationship as she had made it out to be, or was there something else buried underneath that she needs to grapple with? This is a highly psychological novel, and it explores the mentality of victims of SA, especially ones who were groomed from a young age. I think I can provide a different perspective from some of the reviews that I have seen, because I have not read the book that this one is consistently compared to: Lolita by Vladimir Nabikov. I will eventually, after having read this, but as of writing this review, I have no knowledge of tha...

In the A Song of Ice and Fire series, Tyrion is given a thought experiment by Varys, one of the more mysterious characters in the story. Here is the quote: “In a room sit three great men, a king, a priest, and a rich man with his gold. Between them stands a sellsword, a little man of common birth and no great mind. Each of the great ones bids him slay the other two. ‘Do it’ says the king, ‘for I am your lawful ruler.’ ‘Do it’ says the priest, ‘for I command you in the names of the gods.’ ‘Do it’ says the rich man, ‘and all this gold shall be yours.’ So tell me—who lives and who dies?" After Varys leaves, it is immediately suspected that the rich man would be obeyed by Shae, which says something. But Tyrion comes away with a somewhat more nuanced view, saying that it cannot really be answered directly, at least not yet, because there is not enough information, which implies an answer of its own. “All depends on the man with the sword.” But Varys has his own response to that: “[Y]et...