Review: Fallen Ruler with my head in the cloud
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 17, 2013
When I read Veiled Mist, also by Eleanor T Beaty, I fell in love with the characters. I loved how they were developed, and the story line. After reading Fallen Ruler, I think what drew me most to the book was the creation of Planet Ray and the Rayans inhabiting it.I tried something different this time too.It actually wasn't so much that I felt the need to try to expand how I write or review things, but that's what it ended up doing.It was sort of fate, or perhaps destiny if you will, that I ended up reading this book while I was house/cat sitting for some very good friends.You see, I have been avoiding the clouds. Which may or may not be a lot like Tsaen/Lya avoiding the clouds and destiny.Probably because I like he who takes photos cloud's better.I have avoided the use of Kindle's cloud reader and Google docs for one good reason. I didn't have a REASON for it to be useful. I do most of my writing at home, and I'm close to thousands of Gigabytes of storage from any given room. For a description of the computing type clouds and how they work go here.Seriously.Until...I had to house sit, and had to take only a laptop with me. (You know since I dropped my wonderful Android in the tub. :S). So a) I have no reader, and b) I have way less storage than I'm accustomed to. I still really wanted to read the book and finish my review, so I decided to try the Kindle Cloud reader, as the laptop runs Mint for an operating system and Kindle for PC doesn't work on the Linux platform.Turns out, it worked pretty well, and because I was making notes and highlighting as I went, the writing was a little easier and my memory didn't have to recall quite so much. Usually when I work at home I have two displays and I can easily type as I read and still look at both windows.You see, if I hadn't caved and used the Kindle Cloud reader because I'm sort of anti-cloud/sci-fi conspiracy prone, I wouldn't have been able to share with you a few of my favorite parts of the book.Here then, are the reasons I loved the world creation Beaty brought to the planet Ray and the beings that inhabit it.What follows is a series of quotes that while reading I felt the urge to remember and share with you as great examples of world and character building. Worlds have rules, and norms just like our very own earth which is why it can be such fun as a writer to create new ones, with new rules.He read their character through their auras. The aura held all the data from a person's entire life. By the black dots next to the pilot's left shoulder, Kunga knew he had killed twenty-five people. Fallen Ruler (Kindle Locations 529-530).The Calwens' and Oticians' emotions showed in their eyes. Anger produced yellow streaks in the pupils while deceit produced red. In Wonuke's eyes those colors jumped out. So far Harr hadn't been able to develop a potion to mask those telltale signs without provoking serious side effects. Emotional control was the only alternative, which Wonuke seemed to have less of with each passing day. Fallen Ruler (Kindle Locations 1476-1478)."That would make for a very awkward situation. How to explain that? You could tell the entire planet that their ruler, who they consider to be a very wise and enlightened being, has a strong case of amnesia and now calls herself Lya." Fallen Ruler (Kindle Locations 1713-1715).Those are just three of my favorites, and one last thing.I really want her (Andrea) to be nasty, much like the author pointed out in her guest blog on my site earlier today, but like many of the other readers, I find myself more concerned than anything else for Andrea. I identified with Lya, and I think I would have wanted very badly to go back and help Andrea too.I really enjoyed reading Fallen Ruler, and while it's aimed at a slightly younger audience than myself, I enjoyed it quite a lot. I can see exactly why young adults would enjoy it. In fact, there's a perfect example of why they will:Her father arrived after nine. Lya was in the kitchen eating a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and playing Brick Breaker on her cell to get her mind off the waiting. She was being out-witted by the game's lifeless blocks. Fallen Ruler (Kindle Locations 417-419).While Beaty created a new world, there was also an Earth, and culturally relevent references to draw in the readers. There's a character for everyone to identify with in the book, and if I was a little older, I would have been Grandma Nee. I have an old soul, and she was my favorite character by far.