Consider Phlebas is perhaps one of the lesser-known, but nevertheless the first, of the revelationary …
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4 stars
Several people have sung the praises of Banks' novels featuring The Culture (a post-scarcity, pan-galactic society based where individual liberty is paramount) so I expected to be blown away by this, the first novel in the series. Instead, I found it merely very good, containing interesting characters and story that kept me turning pages in spite of being a little episodic. One welcome technique is that, for a novel that introduces The Culture, the main character hates them, allowing the reader to see many points of view about them and drawing their own conclusions.
Jack Vance is one of the most remarkable talents to ever grace the world of …
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4 stars
This collection of four books, sharing the same setting, appears on the famous-in-certain-circles "Appendix N": the "inspirational and educational reading" section of one of the early D&D rulebooks. (In fact, D&D's technique of spells needing to be memorised each day, then being forgotten when they are cast is known a "Vancian magic", after the author of this book). Vance mostly obliterates the line between antagonist and protagonist, so if you like to root for the main characters when you read, this probably isn't your book. Pretty much all the characters are selfish and, at best, kind of dickish, but still fascinating. Likewise, if you are looking for strong, or even slightly two-dimensional female characters, look elsewhere, as there are none to be found here.returnreturnThe collection contains four books, written over wide timespan. The first of these, a collection of stories from 1950 clearly stands above the others, featuring a chain …
This collection of four books, sharing the same setting, appears on the famous-in-certain-circles "Appendix N": the "inspirational and educational reading" section of one of the early D&D rulebooks. (In fact, D&D's technique of spells needing to be memorised each day, then being forgotten when they are cast is known a "Vancian magic", after the author of this book). Vance mostly obliterates the line between antagonist and protagonist, so if you like to root for the main characters when you read, this probably isn't your book. Pretty much all the characters are selfish and, at best, kind of dickish, but still fascinating. Likewise, if you are looking for strong, or even slightly two-dimensional female characters, look elsewhere, as there are none to be found here.returnreturnThe collection contains four books, written over wide timespan. The first of these, a collection of stories from 1950 clearly stands above the others, featuring a chain of characters, where a secondary character in one story becomes the main character of the next. The last (1984), also episodic, features the same cabal of characters and also shines. The center pair, which follow a single scumbag's misadventures, still entertain, but less strongly than the others.returnreturnAll the characters in the last days of the earth speak in stylised language, which will have you saying things like "I do not care to listen; obloquy injures my self-esteem and I am skeptical of praise" for weeks after reading (though, I confess using my Kindle's dictionary lookup feature a lot while reading this one). This style, particularly the dialogue, make this book a delightful read, even when (especially when) all the characters are out to sabotage each other.
Andrew Wrangles has a decision to make. His best friend Sothum, a philosophical and financial …
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4 stars
This is not the kind of book I usually read, but a will that gives you a choice of $10 million or the contents of a sealed envelope? Who can resist that? I enjoyed the ride, as well as the craft went into it. Even some interesting bits about applied encryption, sort of.
Childhood's End is a 1953 science fiction novel by British author Arthur C. Clarke. The …
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4 stars
A cable TV show I caught, mostly at random, prompted me to read this for the first time. Like a lot of Clarke's stuff, it is thought-provoking in a slightly unsatisfying way, and somewhat depressing. Time well spent, though. Occasionally, the sensibilities of 1953 (when it was written) come thundering through, but it holds up pretty well for the most part.
For Gaius Octavian, life has been one long struggle. Battling ancient foes, forging new alliances, …
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4 stars
This is the last of six books that, according to the author, were started on a bet. Someone bet him he couldn't make a decent story based on the Lost Roman Legion and Pokemon. Turns out he could. You might take the fact that I read all six of these books under two months as an indication that I enjoyed them immensely. Very fun fantasy. Good characters, good dialog, great fantasy ideas (and, if you want to know how to tell a story with a trad rpg-like escalating power curve, this is it).
For a thousand years, the people of Alera have united against the aggressive and threatening …
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4 stars
A refreshing bit of fantasy that totally sucked me in from the author of the Dresden Files series. The way magic is handled is totally brilliant and well realized. While there are clear protagonists and antagonists, all have believable points of view and motivation, so there is conflict without clear-cut good vs. evil. The whole thing left me wanting to run a role-playing game in this world, but not really seeing which system to use for it (Anima Prime comes close, but can't do some of what happens in the books). I'm already reading the second one.
When a twelve-year-old evil genius tries to restore his family fortune by capturing a fairy …
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4 stars
I'm very late to the party on this series, but good things come to those who wait. There seems to be some disagreement about whether this is supposed to be a series for kids or not, but whatever; it's fun either way. This is the type of book where you see the movie it would make in your head, and try to cast each character as you encounter them (the actual movie is on hold, apparently). Not all that deep, but what do you expect from a "Die Hard with faries" story.
