The first book i read was called Plague by David Orme. It is from the Shades series. The basic idea of the book is that an apprentice of an apothocary named Henry Harper. His masters name is John Coulter who was already affected by the plague and so he cannot be affected again. Henry's dad dies because of the plague. His mother and brother leave for his uncles house in the country as it isnt affected by the plague. Henry then organises a burial for his father. When the men come for the body they notice Henry, they lock all the doors and windows and paint a red cross on his door meaning quarantine. Henry then fakes his death in order to escape. He crosses the bridge and makes a run for his uncles house, he begins to fall ill feeling extremely hot and begins to lose control of his body. He hides underneath a rock and notices he has black spots under his arms, the plague.
The second book i read was called the Rainmaker by John Grisham. It is from the Pengiun Readers series. The basic overveiw of this book is that Rudy Baylor is a law school student who is just about to start his last test. Unfortunatly he gets fired from his job before he even got a chance to get into court, but before he left he was able to get one case. Dot and Bud Black ask Rudy to help with there fight against a major insurence company. There son Donny Ray is dying due to leukeamia and his claim for insurence is rejected. He then gets a job with one of the least respected lawyer in the business but hey its a job. When he begins to sue the company he gets stuck against the best lawyers in town and a bias judge, but due to the fact that the judge dies and the new judge hates big business Rudy is given a winnable chance.
I liked the storyline in The Rainmaker it kept me intrigued and it had a few plot twists. The good thing about this book is the way that the court case is written about as you could actually believe that it was real because of the way it was written. The Plague was good because it had a really believable storyline but it was considerably short and left you wondering what happens at the end.
I dont believe that the Rainmaker could be improved that much although if it had a bit more detail in the actual story then it would have been better. The Plague as i have already said needed to be longer as when you get to the end you are left wondering what happens next and a whole lot of other questions arise.
After reading these short stories I realised that they were not as good as a novel only because a novel has a lot more detail while a short story leaves you wondering what happens next. Also a novel ties off all the loose ends when it finishes in a short story some questions are never answered. I wouldnt select from these short stories again only because after I finished the books I read the Greenstone Grail and realised how much better it was but that was only one book.
1 comment:
Hi James. Do you realise that the version of Rainmeker that you read is anabridged version? So if you really enjoyed it but wanted to read it with a lot more detail, you could seek out the novel. The Penguin Readers are done in this way to allow people to experience difficult/longer texts in a more accesible fashion. I think that this is particularly good for some of the classics that are hard to follow because of the language; y9ou can read the abridged version first, so that when you read the original you at least know where it is going.
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