Book Review: Pyramids by Terry Pratchett and The Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan

Hey all! Snow was a little better than yesterday, but not much new to report. Another day of skiing/snowboarding, spa'ing and sauna'ing - you know, the usual... Today was our last day of our ski pass; tomorrow we'll be hitting Rotorua. Jess and Claire are booked in for massages at the hot springs, Dean will probably go swimming in the thermal pools and I'm going to go recover our passports (Jess left them on the Hobbiton bus) and then (hopefully) go Zorbing! Anyhow, because today has been a pretty slow news day, I give you a book review update.

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Given I've been doing a fair bit of travelling lately - a gig in Sydney and Canberra each weekend before flying over to New Zealand - I've had a bit more time to get stuck into the books I had started. I've just about tied up my new year's resolution to read a book each month; these two make it 11 so far this year.

Admittedly, I find Terry Pratchett novels to be easy reads - they're usually all around the same length and they flow along well, stuck together by clever witticisms - which usually means I can knock one over fairly quickly. On the other hand though, Robert Jordan's novels are the definition of epics; this one I've been working my way through was well over 30 hours in audiobook format.

Anyway, onto the quasi-review/plot synopsis.

Pyramids - Terry Pratchett

Image Credit: Amazon, available in a number of formats.

Young Prince Teppic of the Old Kingdom - a civilisation obsessed with pyramids, rituals and multitudes of animal-headed deities - is sent away to Anhk-Morpork to be trained by the Assassins Guild. On the death of his father, King Teppycimon XXVII, he is compelled to return to his kingdom - with some new ideas in his head on running the place, of course. This is not taken well by Dios, the king's first adviser and high priest. Contains camels with doctorate level mathematics prowess, assassins, Death, beliefs coming to life, the walking dead and axiom destruction testing.

The Shadow Rising - Robert Jordan

Image Credit: Amazon

Beginning after taking The Stone of Tear, Rand Al'Thor - the Dragon Reborn - must travel into The Waste to prove himself as He Who Comes With The Dawn to the People of the Dragon. Egwene, Nyaneve and Elaine continue to hunt the thirteen sisters of the black adja, and scratch the surface of The Dream World. Perrin and Loyal return to Emond's Field to find it overrun with Children of the Light and Trollocs, and unite the Two Rivers folk to fight back. Meanwhile, Min is caught up in an uprising in the White Tower of Tar Valon.

New Zealand update #2 - Shredding Mt Ruhapehu

Greetings all! Today and yesterday were spent skiing and snowboarding Mount Ruapehu. Yesterday, the weather was beautiful and clear - a perfect day for it. Today, not so much.

While Jess and Claire were getting a ski lesson, Dean and I made our way progressively further up the mountain with each run. Most of the runs on the Turoa side are Blue/Intermediate level, which were pretty enjoyable. That is, until Dean had a massive stack, half-tumbling and half-flying off the edge of a run - barely skimming a rock with his back on the way down. He's not too badly hurt, but he twisted his ankle coming out of the skis and his left shin is a bit swollen. He got himself checked out at the medical clinic straight after and they've given him a clean bill of health, but it's too painful to ski on with the swelling. So that's pretty much finished Dean's hopes of skiing while we're here.

After Dean's incident, Jess and I tackled the whole mountain as the last run of the day. We took the High Noon Express chairlift to the top (2,322m elevation) and made our way down. The view from the top was amazing:

We finished up yesterday in the spa, relaxing our very sore muscles, preparing to hit the slopes again today.

Today's weather was not great for it. Visibility was poor and gusty winds made it near impossible to get a nice, clean run. On the bright side though, the weather had deterred a lot of people, so the snow was in pretty good condition. Fingers crossed tomorrow is clear again!

New Zealand update #1 - Hobbiton

This post comes from beautiful, but not very sunny, New Zealand. We spent this morning hoping to ski but weren't lucky today; hopefully tomorrow's weather will be more conducive to skiing/snowboarding. Not to be discouraged, we made the drive from Whakapapa ski fields to the quaint town of Matamata - the home of Hobbiton.

The tour took us around a number of hobbit holes including Bag End of course, the Party Field and the homely Green Dragon Inn. Excuse my fat finger in the photo below.

The oak tree atop the home of the Bagginses is completely fake, it is made of plastics and had leaves imported and wired to it. Jess found a couple that had fallen off, which we were encouraged to keep as souvenirs.

The tour ended with a complimentary drink at the Green Dragon Inn, which offered a number of themed beverages including a Sackville Cider, an Ale, a Ginger Beer and a Stout. The stout was only available from the Green Dragon; there is nowhere else in the world where you can get one. Can you guess what I ordered?

Despite the disappointing start, I think we made the most of the day. As I write this, we're all heading back to base at Ohakune - some more spa'ing and saunaing is in order!