Nomad Scry

I am not sure if I have ever read a book with more twists and double crosses. I'm still not certain what a pair of characters were actually up to and I am perfectly fine with that.

I almost want to dismiss this one as a Beginner's Guide to Rough Sex with an Older Gentleman.

I giggled through at least half of the book. Sadly, my ten year old most merely amused by it.

I don't know enough to understand the events described. Eventually I may learn enough to return.

I -listened- to this. And it isn't formatted for that, at all.

I don't particularly think that the first few sections were PI, though the bit about the early settlers thinking the AmerInds were actually white under the dirt was interesting. I'll have to see if I can't corroborate that factoid.

However, as the author gets closer and closer to the now, he gets more reactionary and less ... calm? His “clearing of the air” about the Reagan legacy was a bit confusing to me. I thought it well accepted that there was increased government spending and decreased government revenue during Reagan's time in office, but, since that is what Woods claims to have actually happened. I'm confused.

Also, I'll have to ask my more conservative friends about their opinions on the Clinton scandals. I don't recall anyone being really upset about it, more a little disgusted, a little disappointed. Woods seems to have been personally angered about not only Clinton, but also the LBJ and JFK extramarital affairs.

(2 stars if I'd read it, only 1 star because I listened.)

I have a painful gut reaction to many sitcoms. I can feel when a bad setup is coming, when someone is doing something stupid and from that something supposedly funny will come. Except, I don't find it funny. And it makes my gut hurt.

That's how I felt from the first page of 50 Shades. My gut hurt from how stupid the characters were acting and how stupid everything was going to follow from their actions.

There is something about fan fiction that is palpable. And the stench of it is painfully obvious here. Anastsia is supposedly clumsy (like Bella) but then she's dancing and cooking in one scene early on. Gyrating with knives is not exactly the behavior of a clutz. (Seriously, experience speaking here.) Grey is a cold-blooded controlling stalker, just like the Twilight “hero.” Ugh.

I mean, I really enjoy retellings of old fairy tales. I enjoy the story when Marvel reboots their universe (as they do every few years.) But this re-imagination of Twilight does a piss poor job of it. It takes out the possibility of magic that the supernatural characters permit. It makes the innocent heroine utterly ridiculous by ramping her age up to 21, while having her act like a tweenager. And then Grey has such a sick and sad back story that it just makes his entire rational pathetic. He's no hero, he's no Romeo, he's just a sick and twisted man who passes his abuse on to others. Hence his great attration to the virginal Anastasia.

As for the sex, let's just say that erotica isn't my cup of tea. I've read enough to know. And what I've read was much better than this. MUCH! The scenes are neither well-written, nor well-imagined. Blah.

Finally, I never ever ever ever ever want to hear about your inner goddess. This book RUINED the entire concept for me. If she's talking to you or dancing at you or what-not... keep it to yourself. And stay the fuck away from me. Even if I had liked something else about the book, this particular detail would have made me hate the book.

I didn't expect to really like this one. But then I “unintentionally” listened to half the book in one sitting. Ha! I put the audio on while I was driving with my 8 year old - the next day she asked if I could put the story back on.

I really only had the one point where I wished the story went a different direction, but that'd be spoilers, so...

Weird. I'm not sure if Brazile is a reliable narrator in her own story. What she had to say doesn't quite line up with anything I saw reported and sometimes not even with her own implications.

I was quite enjoying the story up until it stopped. Just ended. After enjoying two actual complete stories, I was a bit miffed at only finding half a story here.

Okay, quite a bit miffed. I actually double checked to make sure I hadn't accidentally missed part of the book somehow. I hadn't. Not cool, Caine, not cool at all.

This is an advertisement for TM as an MLM. Very very disappointing. There is zero usable information here.

I'm reluctant to rate this one. There were some rather confusing typos and word omissions in the version I read, and the overall story failed to grab my interest. That said, I think that the story was well told, and if I can get an updated file, I'll share the story with my son. I think he may appreciate it a lot more than I did.

Dirty, rough, visceral, and very memorable. I wasn't expecting Miriam to stay on my mind for so long after I finished reading. She's inside me now. And that's worrisome.

If it weren't for the really wonderful narration, I doubt I'd have finished this one. There are really two main problems I had with the story. One is that the main character never really does anything. She just gets buffered about by whoever happens to be closest at the moment. The other problem is that every time the author introduced a really awesome concept to the world, she would later on downplay or negate it. I do not read a fantasy novel to find out magic isn't real. Really, I already knew that.

2 stars for the story.
5 stars for the narration.

No offense, Mr narrator, but your voice was almost enough to make me quit as soon as you started mumbling sounds.

I'm glad I didn't though. The majority of the story is read by the other narrator (wonderful) and gets more compelling as it goes.

Very clear and very informative, until I got to the Keynesian section and then I was just bottled by margins and other jargon. I think the author made a case against Keynesian economics at the end, but I'm not sure I understood correctly.

Despite that, this book provided the essential background information that I wanted, and I'd recommend it to any other jack of all trades interested in a smidgen of economics.

Horror just isn't my thing. I think Rossi did a good job of telling a Clive Barker-esque tale that was disturbing and creepy and wonderful, but when I express my dissatisfaction with the way the ending wrapped up... I think it has less to do with the quality of the story told and more to do with the kind stories that I enjoy. Because I really didn't like the ending. It left me annoyed.That said, I was definitely reminded of [b:Weaveworld 52640 Weaveworld Clive Barker http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31XY3DV297L.SL75.jpg 942564] (Barker) and [b:Shade of the Tree 15471 Shade of the Tree Piers Anthony http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1166672987s/15471.jpg 17339] (Anthony), both of which I enjoyed.

For the most part, I was bored or annoyed with the characters, the story, and the writing style. I like Conway “Spud “ Costigan and dislike all the others. I missed the neat scientific ideas from the earlier book and found the magical nonsense mind science for the lens to be a dissapointment.

For some reason the 80's style of EXTREME was just tiring this time around, unlike last time when it reached Flash Gordon heights of silliness. I will continue the series, but only for the historical perspective.

Mlaw mlaw mlaw. Mouth noise repeating endlessly. I'm legitimately interested in the topic, but I can't handle the invented word play crap. I quit less than halfway through because I don't think the author actually hand anything interesting to say after the phrase “wheel”. Just a whole lotta mouth noises with no meaning.

The first section pretty much ruined this one for me. It had that overly preachy feel that I can barely tolerate. After the “magic” happened, the story was a whole lot more fun. Especially if you don't mind mixing a big dash of fantasy in your science fiction story.

Overall, I enjoyed reading Glass House quite a bit. I will be reading the sequel, despite Caine's horrendous cliff hangering.

Many of the suggestions provided are utterly out of reach of lower middle class families.

Considering that this is actually the first written part of the Lensman series, I shouldn't have been as surprised at the diminished story here. It just doesn't make as much sense internally, and the characters are even less interesting (which is saying something considering how much I disliked some of the characters in the prior two books.) On the other hand, I did enjoy finding out how the magic Lens was going to make the wearers even more powerful. If I learned anything from Anita Blake, it's that a progression of power is a fun read. (Until it isn't.)

As I understand it, early science fiction tended to be heavily plot driven and very light on the characterizations. Triplanetary seems to take that a bit further and is heavy on action scenes, technophilia, and ultimate descriptors. The characters are overblown to the point of being amusing but the ideas in here... very very nifty.

I primarily chose to read this because I think that “Doc” Smith is one of the classic early sf writers, and I'll continue to read the series for that reason alone. If I were to find out that Triplanetary was written yesterday, I wouldn't bother reading further.

I think everyone should read this book and think about the various situations and theories detailed. I probably am less confident about how functional a UBI would be after reading this book.

Lots of fun. I have a special soft spot for finding ancient weapons that do a surpassing amount of damage, and Veil of Shadows hits that button for me.