Reviews and Comments

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📚torstein📚

torstein@bookwyrm.social

Joined 2 years ago

Too little time; sleeping when I should be reading and reading when I should sleep. Mostly English language SF/F, but I occasionally read other fare.

What it means when I rate something: ★★★★★ - This moved me in a way that changed my life. ★★★★☆ - I loved it. ★★★☆☆ - It was OK ★★☆☆☆ - Meh, it was entertaining at least ★☆☆☆☆ - Complete trash (if I dislike something, but it is well written I'd rather not give it any rating. The single star is reserved for the real trash). Addendum: I will not rate badly written stories by obvious first time writers. If you have managed to self publish your first story and people actually read it, I'm not going to piss on your parade. I'll reserve that single star for your next book (or the fifteenth one for that matter).

Note: I have heaps of books imported from another database where the rating used was 1-6 (dice), so some books are rated higher than I would normally. I'll be adjusting stuff as I work my way thru the list of books (once I have fixed the 300 or so books that didn't import automatically :P)

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reviewed Xenozoic by J. G. Jones

J. G. Jones, Mark Schultz: Xenozoic (2021, Flesk Publications)

Forced into hiding by a global ecological cataclysm, humans emerge from their underground warrens half …

Cadillacs and dinosaurs

There is a rumour that Mark Schultz and FLESK is working on a 80 page conclusion to the current storyline, but until then this is probably the ultimate collection of The Xenozoic Tales. Containing the 14 issues of Xenozoic tales and the original story from Death Rattle #8, all in chronologic order, it gives a fascinating insight into Shcultz' development as an artist during Xenozoic Tales almost decade long publication run.

reviewed The Dead Cat Tail Assassins by P. Djèlí Clark

P. Djèlí Clark, P. Djèlí Clark: The Dead Cat Tail Assassins (Hardcover, 2024, Tordotcom)

The Dead Cat Tail Assassins are not cats.

Nor do they have tails.

But they …

Promising, but somewhat wasted potential

Ok, this is very subjective, but I felt a bit let down by this book. I can't help feeling like there is around 10-20 pages worth of text missing. The calm scenes are well written and well described, but pivotal scenes crucial to the story feels like sketches.

As an example; when the action is ramping up, the writing starts to feel rushed and I loose track over how the characters move in relation to each other. One is holding the other, no they are apart, now they are close again, no they are a distance from each other. Somebody is suddenly stabbing someone, something happens, explosion. It is like the author is so excited to write about this cool action sequence that he forgets we can't see the same images he has in his head.

I remember getting the same feeling from some of the writing in A Master …