This trilogy was quite a journey, and for the most part, not what I've come to expect from McKinty as far as story line. When I started the series, I wondered if he'd pull of science fiction, and not being a big science fiction fan, I felt a bit desultory about reading it. None the less, he did, and I enjoyed it. So much so that I read all three back to back in less then a week. I had to know where the next story was going to lead.Since all of the stories are now running together in my head and I can't remember where one starts and one ends, I'll just throw out a generalized summery. Jamie O'Neill and his mom, Anna, inherit an island, (yes, a whole island), with a house and lighthouse, off the Northern Ireland coast. They pack up and move from New York, where life stinks, to start over. Jamie meets his new best bud, Ramsey, (who quickly becomes my favorite character), and they discover an object in a hidden room in the lighthouse that allows them to travel to an unknown planet...Altair. Throughout the 3 books, they go between Earth and Altair saving an alien race from the lord Ksar, (who does a wonderful impression of a soap opera villain by somehow always returning to life). Throw in a girl and a boy becoming a man and you have it.
I know that sounds pretty basic, but throw in McKinty's wit, dialogue, intellect and writing style and it makes for a pretty good read. Not to mention, you're bound to learn something....weather it's vocabulary, (perspicacity comes to mind), convergent evolution, or scientific theories, it's there, and it's there in an interesting way. I might even have to throw a few of them into a blog later.
The next book on my reading list...I'm not sure. Maybe The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson, or a Jack Reacher novel, or maybe Ice Cold by Tess Gerritson...hum...decisions, decisions...
3 comments:
Nice description without giving too much away, Glenna! I've stopped after two, because I didn't really want to race through them. But I have the third and look forward to it.
Yes, they are quite a departure from his crime fiction, isn't it?
I enjoyed getting a view of Carrickfergus from them, and I've said on my own blog, I really like those ice ships.
Oh yeah, the ice ships, how could I forget about those?? Wouldn't want to sleep in one though.
I can't blame you for not wanting to speed through them. I did and by the end of it, my mind was so foggy with random things to look up I couldn't keep track of it. I'm thinking that if they could make a SAT study guide out of the Twilight series, surly they could come up with something from the Lighthouse books with all those random facts...
Indeed.
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