Kyle Erickson
This book is about an undercover cop who is trying to bust alligator poachers.
Some of it was very interesting, but then it would get bogged down a little with extrenous details. The middle especially could have been trimmed a little.
The cop tried to understand why the poachers were doing what they were doing which threw in some good morality questions.
I think this series is fun and light but I am perhaps over it by this point, which is unpopular. Or maybe I wasn't in the mood for it.
We follow a girl named Antsy this time, who can find things others have lost. Of course, people look to take advantage of that. And then there are dinosaurs! So that was neat.
There was nothing I didn't like about this, but I mostly just found it kinda fine. If you already like the series, I'm sure you'll enjoy it.
An massive improvement to me over Age of Ash, which I think was very well written but I really didn't like the character we were following. This book takes place across the same time period, but due to my disinterest in AoA and the time it's been since I've tried it, I didn't catch a single reference to the first book. So it works perfectly well on its own.
Abraham is excellent at making realistic characters and having all their decisions make sense. He is great with dialogue. My failure to connect here is mostly with the plot, which I didn't think gripped me at all until the last third. I will definitely read the third one and will probably do a full series reread before tackling it when it comes out.
Unsure what my final rating for this will be but it's close to a five star for sure. My “issue” with it, if it can be called that, is that I really don't like the naming conventions/amount of names thrown at you in this book. While that is normally fine, the fact that my brain just refuses to log most of them into long term memory (especially because the audiobook will pronounce the name in ways I didn't anticipate, like with a silent C to begin a name, causing me to at first assume they are a new character) means that I definitely didn't grasp a decent chunk of what the hell was happening in this book. There are entire characters who I know I saw their names many times in the book but I am unsure what role they played. A reread would really clear this up, now that I know what and who to focus on.
Other than that, damn. The prose is so memerizing and Bakker has such thought provoking or evocative word choices. The characters I did latch on to I found really interesting in unconventional ways and Bakker threw me for loops constantly. The set up for what's going on is nuts and some of the scenes were just me going like WTF WTF WTF. I also think he writes good dialogue, although I do think it falls into that Malazan trap of everyone is a bit too philosophical. I can forgive it. There were times where the prose made it very hard for me to picture the scene, like I would reread several times and still have no idea how to picture what was happening, but that could be a skill issue.
I don't think the book was as depraved as people act like it is
This book was surprisingly excellent! The writing was beautiful and the dialogue was great. The world and magic was enchanting. LOVED all the magical creatures. Honestly it's length works against it, in my opinion, because expanding out some of the conflicts would have been great. But I think she was very intentional with how long she made it.
My only issue is how much the second half focused on romance. It was still well done but for how short the book is, I would have liked a little more focus on the mother/son dynamic.
Still an excellent book that holds up very well.
9/10
Surprised people didn't make me read this years ago. It has the town-building and character writing of Stephen King, the aesthetic of A song of Ice and Fire (HotD is based on this civil war), the historical detail of Bernard Cornwell, and the brutality and emotions of all three.
The journey this book takes you on is grand and by the time I reached the end, I was kinda awed at how much happened while also in the individual moments feeling like I was right there in the middle of each minor and major conflict. Each of these major characters felt very real and well drawn and the things that happened to them were visceral. The last quarter had me surprisingly emotional at multiple times, and I was constantly gripped to the page.
The book is not without flaws, though. It has some of the worst “man writing women” tendencies that I've ever seen. The few female characters are well written (Aliena is my favorite character) but by all that is holy, Ken Follett never saw a scene he couldn't add a rape to and then failed to do so. There are a lot of sexual assaults in this book and most are extremely gratuitous (did you know the bad guy is BAD?!?!) and even the one that is “relevant” is so over the top brutal. Even taking the assaults out of the equation, the sex scenes are cringy and the constant talking about boobs and nipples felt so juvenile. It clearly didn't ruin the book for me but so often I was just rolling my eyes at these scenes. Literally the third to last page is a man considering how his wife's boobs have morphed throughout the years. Relax, Ken, relax.
But besides that, I don't have any complaints with this book. I definitely understand why it's considered one of the greatest historical fiction novels and based on my experience, I'd agree.
Look, is this short story high art? No. Is it one of Sanderson's best? Definitely not.
But it was a hoot. It might be the funniest overall story I have ever read from Sanderson, but only because it's so ridiculous that you have to laugh. A detective in the future that yearns for the days of the 1930s so he talks as if he's in that era. Just goofy, amusing fun that you can read in one sitting.
Retroactively makes me likes Frugal Wizard even less, because Sanderson wrote this story 20 years ago and it was more impactful
What a perplexing King novel. There are parts of this book I find absolutely brilliant and it is marred by so many things I'm unsure how I feel about it or outright dislike.
I think I've settled on it being the most “King” book out of all of his books. It has all of his strengths; town-building and small town secrets buried deep, compelling characters, great slow burn horror, dialogue that feels like real people, really good prose about emotional topics, the plot was usually engaging and the tension and atmosphere was top tier!
....but it also has all of his weaknesses; unnecessary detours, a ridiculous amount of horniness, a child that acts way too old for their actual age, villains that go from “scary with how powerful/bad they are” to “laughably cartoonish” (sometimes they do not do this, in which case it's a strength), a really really uncomfortable scene that went too far into the graphic nature of it than was necessary, an older guy getting involved with a much younger woman in a ridiculous way, his Quentin Tarantino-esque love for saying racial slurs over and over again to get across just how BAD a villain is.
I've seen a fair amount of people have this as one of their least favorite King novels and I do find that a bit confusing; this book has a lot of good, and some great. And I can understand having some of the not great stuff bother you more. But definitely not one of his weaker books.
I like neuroscience, linguistics, and Steven Pinker, but I have apparently reached my limit. This is the dullest book I have ever read on my own time. I think the exact moment my brain melted forever was when Pinker spent several paragraphs explaining that actually, chicken can mean an animal or a food, because depending on the context, you could be talking about the bird known as a chicken OR a food in which you eat that is comprised of that bird and -
SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP
Anyways I DNF'd
This short story about mushrooms (and absolutely nothing else) was excellent, however the author should really learn the proper dimensions of mushrooms before writing about them. - for legal reasons, this is a joke
This story was extremely thought provoking and emotional, and I feel like the layers of it and the consumerism and commodification of art could be discussed and reassessed many times over. Or we could all go and look for our own dragons.
This was a very good follow up! I liked it more than book one, the magic and lore kicked it up a notch, the villain was more interesting and engaging, and I actually rooted for Gormflaith this time! (I mean, I did last time too, but against my will).
My cons for this series remain the same, however. Several first person POVs is just hard for me, and I still don't think the two main POVs sound different enough from each other, which can make it hard for me to ground myself. This was much better in this one, though, due to being more familiar with their various supporting cast. And I still find Fodla to be very passive. She spends most of this novel having others once again make decisions for her...I suppose that makes it better when she actually DOES make decisions, but following such a passive character can be frustrating for me.
An entertaining book but my issue is that the main character feels like any of the main characters from the previous first person trilogy from KJ parker I've read. Zany and sardonic and arrogant. If you had told me this was the same person form 16 Ways to Defend a Walled City I would believe you.
And unfortunately, it's just not a character type I like that much. This voice was maybe a bit better than that trilogy, but I still struggled with it.
Although, I did audio for this one and I think the narrator, while technically good, is mismatched for this book. So I will try the second one physically and see if that helps.
I was already pretty sure I was over this series, but it's been two years and they're short so I gave it a chance. Alas, I just didn't really care about anybody or anything in this novella. It might have been good, but 7 books into a series I want some sort of forward momentum or characters to care about besides a sassy AI-bot and I have never gotten that. But it's good to know for sure that this series is not really my thing any longer.
6/10
Kinda disappointing. I imagine someone waiting 8 years for this sequel and I'm just appalled. Half the book is people preparing for duels I found pretty uninteresting, and the character dynamics in this one are just...static? I'm not sure how to describe it. The cats are also much less charming. In general, the whole book just felt half-assed to me, which is a huge shame. The last 20% or so was really good, though.
Okay, so truly a mixed bag here. What I liked, I really liked. What I didn't like felt very mishandled.
What I did like: look, this concept is great and a lot of fun. It has emotional weight and it immediately captures your attention. The ATMOSPHERE of this novella is, for better or worse, exactly its own thing and you're either in for it or you aren't. A “last Samurai” style story with a black woman who has two swords named Fuck Around and Fuck Out. The voice of the novella is very unique and I can say sincerely I've never read anything like it. The action scenes were also really fun. I realized relatively early on what the “gist” of the central idea was going to be, and I was immediately excited. It centers on grief, trauma, mental illness and survivor's guilt and for the first half of the novella, I was totally in. However...
What I didn't like: as a minor thing, I was fine with most of the anachronisms (because that's part of the point) but some just didn't make any sense. Having Sistah talk a certain way or have a certain attitude and stuff is fine, but things like “she's the type of girl who would drag you out of the club” just...what? Why would clubs exist in this world? Like I get that it's supposed to just be instantly relatable to a certain audience but I value things making internal sense over audience easement and lines like this are just silly. But this isn't a big deal overall.
What I really didn't like was the resolution and the heavy handed-ness. Sistah has been dealing with A Thing for years. And then, randomly, she decides to handle it. And the way she handles it....is very brief. I actually really like the way she handles it, if there were more scenes leading up to. But it was not earned. There was no reason for this catharsis to happen, it was like Sistah realized she was 80% into her own novella so it was time to handle things. It was very clunky. There was also a demon that went on an over the top, ridiculously hamfisted rant that lasted for 1.5 pages. If this rant was a paragraph or two, it would have been excellent. Sometimes less is more. And this general ham-fistedness made some of the thematic elements exhausting. Like, women deal with a lot of shit. Yep. Women are tired. Yep. Women are tired of shitty men. Totally. But can you find a way to say it without, idk, literally saying it every page? It was just too on the nose.
Overall I do recommend this novella, it's a short enjoyable read that you probably haven't seen anything like before. And if you can get past that it is TELLING YOU SOMETHING, you will probably like it more than I did.
This isn't one of Tchaikovsky's best, but it doesn't feel like any of his others that I've read and that continues to impress me. It's a mix of the Martian (guy alone on a planet) mixed with Project Hail Mary (guy was part of a mission to save humanity based on a big discovery) combined with Tchaikovsky's signature imagination and has more sardonic humor than Tchaikovsky usually has.
8/10
Really enjoyed this book. I liked all the POVs, but especially Grimm and Bridget. And of course my dear friend Rowl, the star of the show here. In general the cats are just so good and amusing. The plot felt a bit basic until nearer the end, but I liked the political set up and the worldbuilding a lot. Not my favorite Butcher by any means, but consistently enjoyable.
Honestly, this is extremely impressive.
I remember the first couple stories I wrote as a child. One was a guy getting ready for a battle. One was post apocalyptic and the guy found an apple. They weren't much, but little Kyle was proud of himself.
I would love to get paid for the things I wrote when I was a child. Free money really. Props to Andy.
Oh, The Egg is really good though
