The Dark Tower III: The Waste Lands

Stephen King

Book 3 of The Dark Tower Series

In this installment, our three gunslingers are making their way along the beam in their journey to get to the Tower. Along they way, they pick up Jake again (who was lost in book 1), and encounter more dying technology from the previous world, before it moved on. I really like the mixture of western and sci-fi that is developing here. This is really a significant exploration and quest novel, a dusty-dirty us-vs-them save-the-town hero story, and simultaneously a commentary on technology, an eerie look at what a technological world gasping for life could look like. My sense is that a full review will require a full reading of the entire series.

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The Prey of Gods

Nicky Drayden

In many ways, this is the South African version of Neil Gaiman's American Gods. Only better... for me, at least. In addition to magical realism, with gods and demigods breaking into modern society, Drayden adds a cyberpunk flavor and puts it all together in a way that makes me look closely at South African culture. Loved this. The story follows a series of characters that, obviously, will all connect in the end. We have a couple of teens, a politician, a young township girl, a pop-diva, a nail-salon worker. But these characters are also drag queens, drug users, hackers, demigods and demons and afflicted with MS. Add in the AI helper bots ("Alphies"), who have their own perspective/observations on the story and this really gets fun. We get to think about purpose, friendship, the difference between fear, anger, love, praise and belief, the afterlife and integrity. Drayden's writing is easy and light, resulting in an almost trivial feel to the book. Is this really making me think about all these things? Definitely should be on your read list.
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