HomeStieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy Bundle: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest |
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103 of 109 found the following review helpful:
 A Moral Tale? May 25, 2010
By Mike Fazey
Like millions of people worldwide, I was absolutely captivated by these three books and their strange and utterly unconventional anti-heroine, Lisbeth Salander. That Larsson manages to evoke such sympathy for her, despite her anti-social nature and penchant for violence, is quite remarkable. Of course, we might feel differently if not for the monumental injustices she has suffered at the hands of a few corrupt individuals. She is a victim who has responded to her situation by becoming an outsider.
The story is certainly an intricate one, but Larsson manages to lead us through the maze without losing us along the way. In fact, one of the joys of the books is gradually realising that there are yet more levels of complexity to get your head around.
Thrilling as the storyline is, the thing I found most interesting about it was the moral dimension. Corruption in business and in government and the abuse of women are major themes, and Larsson's position on them is crystal clear. However, both Salander herself and the crusading journalist Blomqvist also act outside the law. This gives a certain moral ambiguity to the story. In Salander's case, her illegal acts take place within her own moral code - a code that is internally consistent but at odds with what we would ordinarily consider to be acceptable. In Blomqvist's case, his acts (including turning a blind eye to Salander's computer crimes) are informed by a desire to expose corruption and to achieve justice for Salander.
So, given Salander's understandable antipathy towards the society that has treated her so appallingly, and Blomqvist's laudable social justice objectives, is their own behaviour morally acceptable? Do the ends justify the means? Are the circumstances so extreme that ordinary moral arguments don't apply? These are the questions that remained with me after I'd finished the final book, and still remain.
Ultimately, this is what makes the Millennium Trilogy something more than your average crime thriller and worth investing the time and mental energy to read.
42 of 43 found the following review helpful:
Graphic, Devious, and Enthralling Dec 21, 2011
By Mikey B.
This series was amazingly captivating once one gets beyond the about the first four chapters of the first book. The reader meets Lisbeth and is immediately inclined to dislike her, however, once we become more acquainted with her, we realize that there is more to her than her appearance. I warn those with weak constitutions that this series is very graphic and does treats many social taboos as common place. Upon beginning the first book, it can seem boring and meticulous in it's detail, however, I can't stress this enough...KEEP READING! It keeps getting better and more devious as you continue. There are a few sections of these books that are sexual and violent to the extremes of the terms, however, they have purpose as they act to illustrate certain aspects of the characters and their stories. The mysteries of all three keep one turning the pages to find out what happens next, especially the ending of the second book. Before the complete edition came into being I had to buy each book separately...by the end of the second book It was somewhere around two in the morning and I had to buy the third one and begin reading it before I could allow myself to go to bed. All in all the books are extremely well written and keep you guessing until the very end. My only qualm with the series is the abundance of Swedish jargon that can be confusing at times, especially the currency that is meaningless in the beginning unless one has a complete knowledge of the currency conversions. (more power to you)
66 of 71 found the following review helpful:
 The girl in a bleak world May 25, 2010
By E. A Solinas
"ea_solinas"
Authors who are only published posthumously rarely get the attention they deserve', or any attention at all. Fortunately, such is not the case with the late Stieg Larsson's bestselling Millennium trilogy -- it starts off slow, and soon winds itself into a tight knot of tautly-written thriller and mystery elements. It's raw, bleak, intensely disturbing noir.
In "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo," take-no-prisoners journalist Mikael Blomkvist has just lost his reputation, his savings and his freedom (hello, jail sentence!) after a nasty libel suit from an executive named Wennerström.
Then he's unexpectedly contacted by aged industrialist Henrik Vanger, to discover what happened to the guy's grandniece. He's offering evidence on Wennerström, so Mikael has no choice but to accept -- and as he investigates the sinister Vanger family, he joins forces with Lisbeth Salander, an eccentric, abused computer hacker. And as Mikael unearths the clues to Harriet's disappearance, he also finds some skeletons long kept buried.
"The Girl Who Played With Fire" finds Mikael investigating sex trafficking in his own country, and young girls who are sold into it. Unknown to him, Lisbeth is keeping very close tabs on his work -- especially since she was abused as a child, and now plots revenge on the sex traffickers. But when she's accused of murder and ends up on the run, Mikael must discover what lies at the core of these crimes...
And finally, "The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest" takes place directly after the second book. Lisbeth has been shot in the head, her malevolent father Zalachenko is in the same hospital claiming that she tried to kill him, and some nasty government forces want her locked away, as she was as a child. Her only hope lies in Mikael, who must unravel a government conspiracy formed around the young hacker...
Larsson's books are a unique blend of old and new -- he takes the usual mystery/thriller tropes (locked room mystery, government conspiracies) and enfolds it in a ruthless, blistering look at modern Swedish society and sexual aggression. It's a dark, dangerous, unfair world where the truth is quashed, powerful forces conspire against individuals, and women are treated horribly -- usually shown via the eccentric, punky "girl with the dragon tattoo."
His prose is rather bleak and often quite gritty, and a certain brand of understated passion shines through -- the kind that feels the need to express itself even though it takes place in fiction. And while most of the first book focuses in Mikael, in the second and third Larssen's style splits in half -- one half is the more staid, ordinary perspective of Mikael and others, and the other half is the wild nihilism of Lisbeth ("If death was the black emptiness from which she had just woken up, then death was nothing to worry about. She would hardly notice the difference").
Mikael and Salander make an intriguing odd couple. He starts world-weary and demoralized that he seems to care about nothing, but regains his passion for the truth; the only downside is that he's a bit Marty Stuish, since all women seem to adore him. And Salander is a mass of hurts and quirks -- she's a vibrant, wild genius who lashes out at those who hurt women, and has been constantly tortured by those around her since childhood (even as an adult, she's forced to have a legal guardian).
Take your average thriller/mysteries, smother them in disillusioned, morally-bankrupt noir... and you'll have something like the Millennium Trilogy. A hard read, but worth the journey.
21 of 23 found the following review helpful:
Brilliant, hip, edgy - women portrayed in fiction will never be the same again May 30, 2010
By Silicon Valley Librarian
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy Bundle: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest is the groundbreaking introduction to the atypical and edgy world of Lisbeth Salander, a brilliant 20-something computer hacker, mathematical genius, and fearless force of ethical mayhem.
Salander manifests her skills while undermining a broken-down and corrupt Swedish system which repeatedly sucker-punched both Salander and those she loved, leaving her defenseless. The take-no-prisoners avalanche of Salander's payback catapults Stieg Larsson's series into a majestic and non-linear reading experience.
Other reviewers have covered the storylines of the Salander book trio, but the characterization of Salander is what really breaks the mold of traditional IT intrigue. Think the intellectual edge of Umberto Eco Foucault's Pendulum, the dynamic sensibilities of rocker Pink I'm Not Dead (Platinum Edition), and the tech savvy of Daniel Suarez Daemon, for some sense of where this gritty and unpredictable ride will take you. The first book is tough-going in the level of Swedish political detail, but by the third book you will mourn the untimely loss of Larsson, who died of a massive heart attack in November of 2004.
In the series the intimacy-shy Salander forms a hesitant partnership with Mikael Blomkvist, an idealistic investigative journalist for Millenium, a news magazine which he co-founded. Blomkvist is sued and eventually exonerated over allegations sited in an international conspiracy article which he authored.
Larsson, coincidentally, founded a news magazine entitled Expo and had been subjected to ongoing death threats for exposing European Neo-Nazi's and white supremacists via his Scandinavian magazine. It was rumored that his death was in some way retaliation for his political reporting.
Some of these core themes are woven into the fabric of Larsson's astonishing trilogy. The Swedish movie version of the first novel The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is fairly accurate, but the book still holds the key to the visceral Salander. Don't miss it.
8 of 8 found the following review helpful:
Excellent Bundle for an Addicting Trilogy Dec 29, 2011
By All Things Fiction
If you want a quick way to get up to speed on Stieg Larrson's addicting trilogy, this bundle is the way to read it. At first, it may start off slow, but once you meet the amazingly intriguing girl, the story takes off. It's a crime thriller that keeps you guessing throughout until the very end. Some parts are graphically violent and sexual so be forewarned, but they are used to show the characteristics of certain people. You can't have a crime mystery without criminals can you? Very addicting. These books kept me reading until the early morning and I can't stop. The only other books that has the same style of writing to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo as far as build up, characters and having twists and turns to the end are books by Kailin Gow, but with more romance, James Patterson, and Stephen King. James Patterson writes mystery thrillers, Stephen King writes horror, and Kailin Gow writes young adult fantasy, but they all have that skilled plotting mastery that Stieg Larsson has demonstrated through The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.
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