about 1 week ago - 1 comment
The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson
After the life-changing events of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, journalist Mikael Blomquist and introverted hacker Lisbeth Salander have gone their separate ways: Mikael back to his magazine, and Lisbeth (and her stolen millions) off to travel the world. Salander has cut off all communication between [...]
about 1 week ago - 1 comment
Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld
The novel is in many ways a familiar YA construction: a hidden Prince, a disguised girl, both people who need to grow up and are being forced to do so in a dangerous situation. The book delights in part because both protagonists are nicely depicted and fun to follow and root for. [...]
about 1 week ago - No comments
Burn Me Deadly: An Eddie LaCrosse Novel by Alex Bledsoe
“Burn Me Deadly” is the second book in a new series by Alex Bledsoe that features private investigator Eddie LaCrosse. Bledsoe takes my two favorite genres, fantasy and detective fiction, and mixes them up with highly entertaining results. In my review of The Sword Edged Blonde, [...]
about 2 weeks ago - No comments
You’ve got a great idea for a book and you’re raring to go. You’re sure it will become a best-seller. You start to fantasize about the great jacket blurbs you’re going to get, and whom you will thank in your Oscar acceptance speech for Best Adapted Screenplay (you resolve to remember to thank both the [...]
about 2 weeks ago - 1 comment
Uglies (Uglies Trilogy, Book 1) by Scott Westerfeld
Uglies is about a post-apocalyptic world where everyone is changed to a pretty when they turn sixteen. The purpose is if you make everyone pretty then nobody can be judged on their appearance alone – everyone is on equal ground. The rest of the world, our present world [...]
about 2 weeks ago - No comments
Nyphron Rising: The Riyria Revelations (Volume 3) by Michael J Sullivan
Nyphron Rising is the third book in Sullivan’s Riyria Revelations following both The Crown Conspiracy and Avempartha. The first novels set the bar rather high and I’m happy to report that Nyphron Rising manages to live up to its predecessors in just about every respect [...]
about 2 weeks ago - 1 comment
Sleepless: A Novel by Charlie Huston
So Sleepless is an apocalyptic crime story plus many other pieces that all add up to literary fiction. Yes, this is a book that is both genre and literary (in spite of having a plot). It is very much a discussion on the human condition – it’s just that most [...]
about 2 weeks ago - No comments
Wings of Creation (The Silver Ship) by Brenda Cooper
Cooper explores what it means to be human by exploring what isn’t and in doing so does more to illuminate the human condition than any bit of “realistic” fiction ever could. However, I felt the story was overlong, dragging in the parts when Cooper pauses to have [...]
about 2 weeks ago - No comments
Veracity by Laura Bynum
I think many of the problems I had with the novel were personal because I’m such a stickler for plausibility. Everyone has their own plausibility tolerance level. Obviously the author found it plausible and so did the many people it takes to get a book published these days, and so might you. [...]
about 2 weeks ago - No comments
Sons of Dorn (Warhammer 40,000 Novels: Imperial Fists) by Chris Roberson
All in all, this is not a novel I can recommend with any sincerity. It starts well enough, though Roberson’s particular brand of prose doesn’t grab me personally, and then really seems to lose the plot with lackluster action scenes and poorly conceived attempts at [...]
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