I was born blind, so books became my movies. Fantasy and Science fiction, thrillers and spies, and the occasional goodfeel novel or fanfiction from my youth round out my reading record. I don't do nonfiction: I read enough technical stuff at work!
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Clines has it dead-on in the afterword: entertainment and a little bit creeped out is why you read these.
This is one of my favourite books of the year so far. Jack Reacher haunted me from the outset, and the whole thing had great pace, action, and of course plenty of room for more books to fill in the gaps whilst finishing a nice story all its own.
Wow, this was really quite good too! Dead moon took me a bit further afield in time and I had perhaps lost a little of the feeling, but I felt right back at home here. I love how Clines can just drop one of these out every so often and add to the worldlore, and I really hope there are plenty more to come!
I started Dead moon when I got it, but my annoyance about the audio-first thing just kept bugging me and interfering with my enjoyment. That sucked, because on a second attempt ... Woow!
The threshold universe is rather gripping. The horror of it all is scarily appealing. I think 14 is my favourite so far, which would still put Dead moon in third because of the initial excitement of 14. Obviously we've leapfrogged a little, and I don't think I've come across the moon as burial ground explored anywhere to this level before.
Another brilliant instalment true to the form of the whole saga, and I'm looking forward to reading the next one.
You can't really call it science fiction, but Mike blazed that trail with his debut which I loved.
Whilst not quite as grabby for me, this one was still fun and I am very much interested in seeing where he goes next.
So the foreword alone was enough to get my juices flowing. It was a name-drop of epic proportions, throwing around high-octane concepts in coding and linguistics whilst absolutely not being stingy with the philosophy and literature. A weird, yet surprisingly apposite gestalt, as you will see when you get further into the book than the opening chapter. The foreword was also inscribed from Colombo, which rang an Arthur C. Clarke bell in my head for some reason.
I took a little while to settle to the pace of the narrative, perhaps in part because our OC is quite the fast-talker. There’s also a fascinating dichotomy between the overseer’s care for each individual crew member and the speed with which they die, and couple that with the time and tech being further from Sol than I’d planned maybe meant I needed to adjust for a while.
Of course, things start to …
So the foreword alone was enough to get my juices flowing. It was a name-drop of epic proportions, throwing around high-octane concepts in coding and linguistics whilst absolutely not being stingy with the philosophy and literature. A weird, yet surprisingly apposite gestalt, as you will see when you get further into the book than the opening chapter. The foreword was also inscribed from Colombo, which rang an Arthur C. Clarke bell in my head for some reason.
I took a little while to settle to the pace of the narrative, perhaps in part because our OC is quite the fast-talker. There’s also a fascinating dichotomy between the overseer’s care for each individual crew member and the speed with which they die, and couple that with the time and tech being further from Sol than I’d planned maybe meant I needed to adjust for a while.
Of course, things start to happen. The pace picks up, if that’s possible, and you end up with a seemingly impossible pastiche of hauntingly-beautiful poetry, dinosaur-sized megafauna and deadly micromachines. I won’t spoil the end, but I loved Shen, and things start going south rapidly after the poor Replicant gets itself into trouble.
The ending, now that was rather good. I wondered what would happen, which is a nice change of pace from either “all is good, everyone’s fine” or “oh, they’re all dead”. Explosive and climactic in several senses of the word, I must confess to slightly overextending my lunch break because I was on chapter 40 and wanted to know how things would pan out.
So for me, a slow starter, but a proper gripping, thrilling burner of a story when it got going. Bring on more, I say! More!
A friend labeled this the Ready Player One of 2022, an unputdownable thrill-ride. The chapter endings were certainly an adrenaline rush, and even though the plot had a degree of predictability to a seasoned sci-fi reader it was well-told and excitingly handled. I felt that the generic bad guy thing was perhaps a little overdone; there was little characterisation of the muscle and people were very free with weaponry. I also may have missed something, but the jump between the Peter who first wears the VR headset and the one who believes he has children seems to be wider than the story can account for when the memory gap is filled-in.
Nonetheless, niggles aside, an enjoyable and intriguing story and a lovely way to spend a few hours without a doubt.
With a delightful Campbell reference in the title and a very Bill the Galactic hero feel, this was nothing unexpected but also great fun. It's clearit's written as farse and that works well, book 2 is sure to entertain me further someday.
Zorian, a mage in training, only wanted to finish his education in peace. Now he …
Ok, so after finishing the first published arc and knowing there was more, I had no choice, obviously. And despite things piling up on my to-read pile whilst I was ploughing through this, I persisted.
I'm glad I did. It's nice when this sort of work has an end to the story, and although at times a few of the chapters were a little jarring, overall it was well worth reading. Obviously it's not for everyone, but I am very glad I persisted.
I found myself hugely engaged for some reason. Nothing leapt out as brilliant individually but this kept my brain wanting more for some reason I can't quite pin down. Annoyingly I'm sure there's much more already published but not in proper book form, which is ... irritating, to say the least!
On the space station Deep Space 9, Quark's Public House, Café, Gaming Emporium, Holosuite Arcade, …
You don't see comedy done much in the Star Trek universe. Peter David can be very funny, but he has a style all his own and his humour is often based on that.
this was a short work clearly just played for laughs - the "fake" bit referencing In the Pail Moonlight either just a joke in poor taste or an unintended connection on my part. The plot wasn't much to write home about, but it was nice to pick up something set chronologically forward with some familiar faces.
Jason arrives at a kingdom in peril and he's surprised to discover that it's not …
Australia is a nice change of pace, given the profusion of eastern-european and asiatic titles in this genre. I wish I knew the reason my brain gets so hooked on these things. Nothing particularly leapt out at me as brilliant here, but i didn't want to put it down nonetheless.
Alas this didn't capture me the way the opening novel did. To begin with it almost felt like a different series entirely; my brain seemed unable to adjust to the shift in reality as part of the story. It had the feeling, the whole book I mean, of an interlude - and as much as it was an interesting read in its own right and I grew to enjoy the story, I still didn't quite feel like I was reading Sanderson somehow.
I enjoyed this from start to finish, great child-friendly entertainment. Dotty's very own trolley problem is perhaps my highlight, although much of the young interaction is gold. A guaranteed enjoyable read with my daughter, perhaps just as she herself starts high school.
They were humanity's hope - the first young people selected to leave Earth for study …
Predictable in outline, but a solid genre piece for its time. Had the feel of a magazine work. Enjoyed.
This volume contains five novels (Wasp, Sinister Barrier, Sentinels from Space, Next of Kin, and …
Wasp is one of my all-time favourites, but I'd not read the original version before. What a delight!
Call him dead I new by a different name, but was still my second favourite of the collection.
I also felt as if I'd read the start of Next of Kin before but certainly didn't remember much beyond the opener. Withal, I am most satisfied with this delightful collection.
