Tom Long Long từ Hatip Köyü, 57400 Hatip Köyü/Ayancık/Sinop, Thổ Nhĩ Kỳ từ Hatip Köyü, 57400 Hatip Köyü/Ayancık/Sinop, Thổ Nhĩ Kỳ

This was a quick read and a decent mystery. There were a few twists and turns I was not expecting. Not the best book but still entertaining.

This was not my favorite of the Harry Potters because Harry is SO annoyingly melodramatic and stupid. Plus, the ending made me sad. Also, Dolores Umbridge makes me incredibly pissed off.

engaging. real. horse love. made me cry a couple times.

This is the second of three books in Del Rey's collection of Howard's original Conan stories. The first book in this set, The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, would be a better place to start for anyone new to reading Conan, I think the shorter stories are more accessible in terms of getting into the character. In The People of the Black Circle, Conan attempts to use a princess as a bargaining chip for the return of his captured lieutenants, but then he's drawn into her quest for revenge. I really enjoyed the confrontation at the end, though some scenes in the middle seem to lag. The Hour of the Dragon is Howard's only novel-length Conan piece, it's about Conan's attempt to reclaim the throne of Aquilona from the minions of an ancient wizard. I especially loved Conan's escape from captivity and a bold rescue that happened a bit later. It's gritty and entertaining, but Conan has a lot of near-misses with his goal that make it read like the serial it was first published as, so the story benefits from giving it a little space every few chapters. A Witch Shall Be Born is about a doppelganger queen who causes havoc in a small country. The only flaw in her plan to rule is that her ally left Conan in the desert to die rather than killing him outright. Seriously, it's like some villains are just asking to die horribly. Conan's role as a bandit chief was fantastic, though I wish that the fight at the end of this one had been more drawn out. The essay about the creation of these stories was really interesting, but I barely skimmed the rest of the book's content. Reading an author's unfinished drafts always weirds me out, it seems too much like snooping through his diary or something.

3.5/4.0 Ah. Heinlein. No character is recognizable as a real person. The economic philosophy is childishly superficial. Gender relations are even worse. And it's a pretty darn fantastic book. Huh.