Reviews and Comments

Light, fun, humorous murder mystery with unique and compelling characters. Its charm is enhanced by its British-ness for this American reader, but it's the poignant handling of aging and end-of-life living that make it something extraordinary.

Two chapters in and still not quite sure. A bit meandering, and a bit more physics than I tend to want, but I just reached the first big idea and hope there are more to come.

Solid band-of-misfits adventure with good fantasy elements, interesting characters, and compelling world-building. But it's always a little disappointing getting to the end of a book and discovering it's just the first half of a story.

A well-paced and surprisingly emotional and affecting story that touches on serious themes (like classism, refugees, person-hood, belonging) but not in a heavy-handed way. Fun and well-written, and a solid example of sci fi working both as a good story and as contemporary commentary.

An unusual, well-executed narrative structure creates a mysterious and foreboding story. Short and suspenseful and worth reading.

"Philosophy, though unable to to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while diminishing our feeling of certainty as to what things are, it greatly increases knowledge of what they may be; it removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never travelled into the region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familiar things in an unfamiliar aspect."

A lovely, lucid, short introduction to some key questions at the heart of philosophy.

A complex and subtle story with many innovative plot elements and world details that often feels like its been intentionally written to be hard to follow. A worthwhile and satisfying read, due in part to its length.

A story-driven history of the analytics movement in soccer/football. O'Hanlon brings personal knowledge of the game and experience writing about the sport to the book, and the result is an engaging overview of soccer and its complicated relationship with math. Not too technical, but technical enough to know exactly where to look if you want to learn more about how analysts are trying to quantify a seemingly unquantifiable game.

A solid, fun, page-turning sci fi mystery. If you go looking for plot holes and scientific shortcomings you'll undoubtedly find them, but I enjoyed the book enough not to go looking.

A beautiful, engrossing, haunting story. The innocence of the narrator and her vivid coming of age stories drift toward unsettling resolutions that reveal themselves slowly. But like the characters in the book, we knew what was coming all along.

The aging luxury hotel moving through space provides a clever hospitality-industry backdrop for enjoyable character development stories. A political mystery story line attempts to pull them altogether, but doesn't deliver as much as I hoped.

An incredible and innovative book full of wisdom, humor, purpose, and the kind of writing that makes you feel like the author is sitting by your side telling you the story. I was sad for it to come to an end. So it goes.

A readable mix of familiar Sci Fi and Adventure elements that are done better elsewhere. The set-up is compelling and there are some well-conceived and executed story lines, but the most "alien" part of story didn't come together for me: It didn't mesh well with the other story-lines and made things drag a bit at the end. I wasn't initially interested in reading more, but now a few months later, and seeing that this is an early work from the author, I might take a chance on the sequel.

Incredible story of WWII-era espionage centered on the notorious double-agent Kim Philby, who spent 30 years as one of the most influential spies in both British and American intelligence all the while working directly for the Soviets. The real-life spy stories are exciting and well-told, and in them it's easy to see the origins of fiction like James Bond and "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy". There is a parallel story about the danger of the "old boy" network, where authority, influence, and trust is given based on social standing, and maintaining appearances is often more important than doing what's right.

I enjoyed this overall, but perhaps not as intended. It's a vivid portrayal of a kind of person I've often known but never quite understood: the classically trained musician who seems imprisoned and tortured by music while professing to love it. It's several sad stories told well — of lifelong performance anxiety, of inhibiting perfectionism, of being an outsider — but perhaps the saddest story is that of the person who might be happy if they could understand just one thing, yet you know they never will. I never bought in to the "time" theme, and the attempts to weave physics in were strained, but I found much to learn from and admire here.