Bill Wood

This was not an enjoyable book. I read it to preview it for my 8-year old daughter who loves dogs. I found the main character so unlikeable, and the ending so fairy tale, that I felt there wasn't enough redemption to make the slog worth it.

I get that we are supposed to relate to her unfortunate situation as a way to make her sympathetic, but there was little reflection, little growth, just several episodes of her ignoring her conscience, being jealous of her brother when he had a good idea, calling him names, being rude to her mother, and just on and on.

I won't be passing it to my daughter.

This was a very interesting book. While not a barn-burner, and it doesn't pretend to be action-packed, it was an interesting hard-science mystery, with new developments right up through the end of the book. It does make me interested in continuing on to The Gentle Giants of Ganymede. Comparable to 2001 or Rendezvous with Rama or Eon, so it is in good company and well worth the read.

Some of the stories literally brought me to tears.

This book wasn't what I expected, and I appreciated where it went. I thought it was going to basically be a Star Trek book written from the POV of the infamous redshirts. The twist and premise was more clever than that, and that is when the book went from being readable to being enjoyable.

I am finding that Scalzi is a readable author, but “it's not Shakespeare” to quote the book itself. I've read Old Man's War, The Collapsing Empire, and now this, and have enjoyed them all.

My biggest drawback was the way he wrote his dialog.
“Now,” she questioned.
“No,” he said.
“Soon,” she asked.
“Maybe,” he said.
“Okay,” she said.
“You'll know,” he said.
I don't know if that was done on purpose to add to the facetious and parodistic nature of the story, but it was painful at times. Once I noticed it I couldn't stop seeing it, and now it makes me want to look at the other books to see if that was done there, too.

I thought the Codas were quite clever, especially as they were titled First Person, Second Person, and Third Person, and written in those POVs. I almost considered not bothering to read them, but I'm glad I did, and they didn't take long to read.

It won the Hugo. It is a classic. I had expectations. I enjoyed Stranger in a Strange Land. I had seen the movie.

I was underwhelmed. I knew it was different than the movie, but I think what happened was that in transforming it from a YA novel to an adult novel, it kind of landed in a limbo that was less than the sum of its parts.

There was a lot of philosophizing. It is known for that. I didn't take it as preachy, or necessarily as a manifesto of Heinlein's personal beliefs. He explored issues, and that doesn't mean he espouses them.

I was in the Navy for ten years. I felt there was a lot of wink-wink, nod-nod such that when he was overblowing the rah-rah spirit of military he was doing it tongue-in-cheek. There is a kind of eye towards the military that someone who had been in the military, like him, would resonate with.

One of the chapters that resonated the most with me was the one where he was describing being assigned to a Navy ship that had women on it. It is absolutely true the rivalry between branches of the armed services, particularly between Navy and Marines. And there is nobody more rah-rah than Marines, in my experience. So the rivalry felt true. The opinion of the Navy that all other branches are unnecessary because the Navy could take care of it all is shared by many. In real life we always heard a saying that “the Army has more boats than the Navy and the Navy has more planes than the Air Force.”

The other part of that chapter, about the sequestering of the women except for officers, and standing guard to make sure people didn't go forward of the restricted area rang true, also. I've seen many times where military men would code-switch in the presence of women, even though some military women were rougher and cruder than some of the men. There would be less swearing, more deference, and constant guard against fraternization. It is a potent dynamic. I was on submarines, and there were no women. Now they do allow women on submarines and I'd love to talk to someone who has experienced that, especially a woman to get her point of view.

Back to the story, the first half of it was okay because I kind of knew where it was going but not quite. The second part was less enjoyable because I always gloss over when they start using lots of ranks of services I'm not familiar with, and describing platoons and squads and other groupings of personnel that I don't know the difference between.

The mission for “Operation Royalty” was interesting and enjoyable, and the end of the novel was satisfyingly open-ended for there to be a sequel. Perhaps on further reflection or reading, now that I know what to expect, it will increase in my estimation. It did inspire me to pick up Heinlein's Expanded Universe book to read more about the backstory of this story, and I look forward to exploring more of his works.

It was entertaining. I didn't get bored while reading it, but it was just a bit YA for me. Too many silly examples of dialog and writing that jarred me out of immersion, like “That's what she said.”

Not just once, but twice that I remember.

Seriously? I know you want Gideon to be edgy and cool and angsty, but that just didn't work for me.

The world building was interesting. The mystery setting was interesting.

I had a hard time following everyone since they were referred to by many different terms and names.

“Thanks, Palamedes.”
“Sextus was a marvel.”

Those are the same person, referred to in two consecutive sentences, and aren't the only terms used to identify that person. I was reading an ebook and not a physical book, and if I was reading the physical book I'd have been able to easily flip back to the Dramatis Personae to help with that issue.

I bumped this up the TBR because a good friend raved about it as one of his favorites. Perhaps the expectations were too high.

I didn't know what to expect, having watched the movie and only having read the first Foundation book. I didn't expect a set of short stories tied together, but since I had recently read The Martian Chronicles it wasn't unfamiliar.

Here we have the famous introduction of the Three Laws of Robotics, which we've probably all heard. Personally, I loved the exploration of the loopholes, moral implications, and interaction between humans and robots that was present here.

I know some people don't like Dr. Susan Calvin, but I see many signs of Hari Seldon in her. Her ability to extrapolate the laws and predict how robots would act through her expertise in robopsychology was as wonderfully enjoyable as psychohistory. Her similarity to robots in being a cold person who thought more highly of robots than man was very metaphorical. There were parts of the story Liar! that belied this which I didn't really enjoy, and felt the author was portraying this woman a bit stereotypical, and she is the only substantial character that is female. Overall the book is both “of its time” in some ways and way ahead of its time in others.

I enjoyed the story “Speedy” and how they solved their problems. I liked the twists in “Reason” and the ending of “Liar!” and really enjoyed “Little Lost Robot.” “Escape” was a little weird, but I loved “Evidence.”

I'll probably continue my exploration of Asimov through the Foundation series before exploring more Robots, but very much enjoyed this book.

I've been reading this book at lunch while I've been fasting and the insights have been great. This has felt like the most spiritually focused fast I've ever had, and I'm coming out of it with a great deal of optimism and a renewed sense of commitment to my spiritual growth.

I look forward to rereads of this book each fast, with continued insights as I go back in the future.

I'm very glad I purchased this book for this Fast.

I really enjoyed the art and that was the primary reason I bought it. I've always enjoyed Bernie Wrightson. I didn't expect much from the story, and it was okay. Very Stephen King and I enjoyed several references to places I remember growing up around Bridgton.

I just finished this book this morning, so it is still weighing on my mind. The full effect may not be felt for days, but here is my first attempt at a review.

This book both is and is not what I expected. It is both more and less poignant than I expected. The end was both more and less impactful than I expected.

I guess that comes from having expectations. I'm familiar with the movie, but haven't seen it. I knew the plot. I've not read the book before, so my awareness was from some sort of cultural osmosis, hence my expectations.

First of all, it was published in 1959. It hasn't aged terribly poorly, but there are some kind of uncomfortable moments. It is unusual that a story would win both a Hugo (as a short story) and then a Nebula several years later as a novel. Despite the date of publication, I did find it relevant and insightful to the themes of family expectations and dynamics, adverse childhood events, treatment of the the mentally ill, our thirst for emotional connection, and the competitive and sometimes shallow “rat race” of science, if you'll pardon the pun.

A couple of the expectations I had were that Algernon would play a bigger part and that the downward spiral would be longer and explored more deeply. That was me focusing on the Algernon in the title, and not the flowers, which I find to be an important metaphor for the theme of emotional connection that runs through the book. And I'm not saying the downward spiral was given short shrift. It was done artfully, poignantly, and well. The point of the novel wasn't the experience of the downward spiral as much as it was the impact of the rise and fall and attempts to “go back home” and the perspective from inside and outside of someone with reduced intellect.

I think the book is deserving of its reputation and one I would recommend to anyone.

Catherine Clinton had to don her detective gear to put together this biography. What do you do when the figure you are writing about has very few records extant? Enslaved people are often without official documentation of their dates of birth, family circumstances, marriages and relationships. Active participants in the Underground Railroad needed to not keep records, for obvious reasons. A Black woman acting as an “official” spy or nurse for the young United States is not going to have records kept of each spy mission. So the author had to do what she could with records that exist, and extrapolate or postulate about the rest. I do not begrudge her doing so. She did say “Harriet Tubman felt this way...” but instead “Harriet Tubman may have felt this way...” which is valid and nothing more than we as readers would do when given an ambiguous circumstance.

On the other hand, the author did fill in a great deal of the important context of Harriet Tubman's environment. Information about contemporaries and allies such as Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, William Seward, and John Brown bring useful insights into the challenges and disparate approaches to battling slavery.

She also pointed out controversies, challenges, and alternate points of view about many things. For example pointing out the dialect used on a plaque in Auburn, New York as problematic and undermining of the stature of such a heroic woman and an example of white-dominant culture's condescending view of an “illiterate fugitive slave.”

Throughout it all, Harriet Tubman's courage and faith shine through and is inspiring. Her sense of purpose, single-minded focus on justice, ingenuity, grace under pressure, and the circles within which she socialized belie any humble beginning as an unlettered enslaved woman. I have a better appreciation of her as a giant among heroes and found the book very enjoyable.

What a prescient novel to read in 2023! Perhaps it should be classified as horror, because when I look at the state of the world it isn't hard to imagine it devolving to this scenario.

The main character, Lauren, is in somewhat of a Cassandra scenario where she is telling people what will likely happen, but nobody will listen and will in fact actively deny and repress what she is saying. She is the lone voice of wisdom, or at least the voice of practicality without denial.

The novel explores hope, loss, and trust. How well do you really know people you have known all of your life when the world you know crumbles? How do you know you can trust people you have just met? How can you maintain your moral code when the world around you does not follow that same code, and you are pressed in to acts that you would not normally do?

The author makes a bold choice in exploring the beginning of a religious movement while simultaneously setting its goals far beyond just establishing morality. Earthseed is the metaphor for the titular Sower, and where in Maslow's hierarchy is space exploration when you need to determine where you are going to get your next meal or drink of water?

I look forward to reading the second book, and I'm sad that the third book in the trilogy wasn't finished before the author's death. (Doing a little research I see the author intended for there to be several more novels in the series, too.)

This is a book I was excited about due to the hype around it. A haunted house in space? Sounds good!

The background of the main character was interesting to learn about, especially in relationship to the main situation she found herself in, but I think there could have been more exploration of the psychology of the initial experience. The setup and worldbuilding were strong, and the ship they found was a very interesting construct and setting for the main plot.

The structure of the book was used effectively to create intrigue, and I think the plot is the highlight of the book. It occurs in essentially two acts, so it does build the tension effectively. The climax of the book was exciting with several twists and a clever resolution.

The characters were kind of predictable and while the other crew members were somewhat three-dimensional, they were a rather standard array of personalities. The investigators, however were not very deep and were very cliché, as were all the other supporting characters.

I'm not sure how I feel about the romantic element of the book. One the one hand, it is interesting to hear it from a woman's POV, and it isn't unrealistic for there to be feelings between co-workers which provide conflicting thoughts, so I did enjoy that aspect of it. On the other hand, it just felt mildly clumsy and not at all necessary. It isn't that it felt false, so like I said, I'm unsure how I feel about it.

Overall I did enjoy it and it was only on reflection for this review that I was able to find things to nitpick. It was a pretty quick read that I looked forward to getting back to whenever I could.

To provide perspective, I loved The Martian and haven't yet read Artemis. I read The Martian after having seen the movie and still loved it. It was the only fiction book I read in 2021 that I rated 5 stars, so hearing people say Project Hail Mary was even better set some pretty high expectations.

Those expectations were not met. Don't get me wrong. I ripped through Project Hail Mary in just a few days and spent time devouring it at every opportunity. It motivated me to read, and if every book went down as easily as that one I'd be able to set my reading goal at 100 books or more. There were even a couple of times when I felt very sad, thought it didn't bring me to tears.

My biggest problem is that I defy you to read that book after watching The Martian and not see Matt Damon in that role. Ryland Grace is essentially Mark Watney, and that did a lot to take me out of the story. Now Stephen King writes a lot of authors as main characters, and each reflects him at least to some extent, but there are differences between them. We have a much smaller sample size with Andy Weir, but I hope he pushes the bounds of his characters beyond that prototypical science guy.

I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll be vague. I did enjoy the mystery that unfolded, and the structure of the plot worked very well for me, at least in the episodes that were pure flashback. The science seemed solid and interesting, though I didn't spend time trying to assess each and every decision and fact. I suspended my disbelief and rode with it, which worked for me. I was there for the story, not the science.

I felt that things were explained pretty well, and didn't feel there were any gaping plot holes, so I was satisfied with the ending and the decisions he made along the way. The stakes were very high, but at no point did I think, “Gee, he's gonna do it. He's gonna give us an unhappy ending.”

So ultimately the book worked for me for exactly what I wanted. I'd been reading The Brothers Karamazov and needed a palate cleanser before diving back in to that. I had intended on hopping back and forth between them, but Project Hail Mary did engross me way too much for that to happen. It was a good yarn, an escapist adventure that is easy to enjoy, quick to read, and enjoyable.

It did, however, make me more interested in reading Artemis despite many people saying it is the inferior book of the three. I appreciate that.

I don't know what I expected, but this wasn't it. I knew it was considered a classic. It is a collection of thematic vignettes of varying lengths, from just a few paragraphs to several pages. The book is short. The beginning was rather cheeky, with several expeditions to Mars and the results of them. I found the middle of the book a bit meandering, but it really hit its stride with several of the longer stories being very riveting.

My favorite stories were:

–And the Moon be Still As Bright - a commentary on colonialism
Usher II (which I found brilliant) - a commentary on the cost of censorship
The Martian - a commentary on loss and grief
The Luggage Store - a pithy short but meaningful conversation
The Off Season - where the plot takes a dark turn
The Silent Towns - a statement on our materialism and shallowness
The Long Years - where not everything is as it seems
There Will Come Soft Rains - almost a meditation on the potential disaster of nuclear war
The Million-Year Picnic - a poignant end

Having gone back through the book to pull out my favorites made me realize how much I did enjoy the book. It provoked a lot of thought.

One thing to be aware of, though, is one story (Way in the Middle of the Air) that addresses racism through the eyes of racists in the Jim Crow south and is one of the few stories that take place on Earth. It is disturbing in its portrayal of the bigotry and actions of the main character and in the repeated use of the n-word. It does not feel as gratuitous and “natural” as the writings of H.P. Lovecraft, but is jarring nonetheless. It is a commentary on racism, and having been written in 1948 by a white man lacks any subtlety, but fits the theme of the book in calling out humanity's shortcomings.

Overall a very good book and it entices me to want to read more of Bradbury. The prose is often beautiful, full of imagery and poetic phrases.

This was an impulse buy at Goodwill because I was starting a job search. I am so glad I bought it. The approach and exercises and advice are all top-notch. I have a newfound confidence going in to interviews due to the approach given.

The book has you inventory several aspects of your qualifications, and then create Q statements where you quantify those aspects so that when you answer a question you can elucidate a response that includes not only the important qualities, but the tangible benefits demonstrated by that quality. Rather than saying “yes, I'm an experienced project manager” you say “I've been a project manager for 5 years and have managed teams of up to 15 people and projects of up to $250K. The biggest project took 15 months and was brought in 3 weeks ahead of schedule and $15K under budget.”

Practicing these statements before you interview can really make a difference in your confidence level.

Great book. Highly recommended.

There were parts of the book where I felt I was slogging through just to finish the series, and interspersed it with reading other books. However, the book is saved by the final few chapters. I'm hoping The Crippled God will start off fast since it is essentially the second half of this book.

I have to say that I don't think this book aged well. I have fond memories of this series from when I first started reading fantasy several decades ago. I specifically only remember one story, The Vivisectionist, from Shadows of Sanctuary, the third book. I don't remember any of the stories from this first book, and can't say any of the characters were that memorable for me. I love the name Cappen Varra, and I did enjoy seeing characters from one story show up in another. It is similar to the enjoyment I get when Stephen King is self-referential, or when there are literary allusions in other stories and forms of entertainment.

Perhaps it is because I have read a LOT of fantasy in the intervening years, but the distinction between each writer's style was rather pronounced to me. I'm a huge Joe Haldeman fan on the basis of loving The Forever War, and I think Blood Brothers was the most interesting story in the book. I don't think I'm going to continue a reread of the series. Perhaps, but there are so many other books on my TBR clamoring for attention.

I received a copy of this book from a Goodreads drawing.

This is not the kind of book I normally read, but after this I may start reading more. Just as a point of reference, one reason I grew up loving Stephen King books is because I was raised in Maine and he wrote about areas I knew and lived in. That made those books special.

Ms. Divakaruni also made this book special by it being based on a real person who I knew nothing about. I found the main character compelling. You could feel her love for her brother, and her husband, and the loyalty to those who helped her. You could feel her sorrow and anger at the betrayal of those who were not loyal. And through it all she never felt unrealistic. She wasn't infallible, she was human, and while at times she was living the dream, at other times she was brought very low.

I think what I liked about it so much was that it made a part of history, the colonialization of India by the British, very personal. They say history is written by the victors, but in this case we get a glimpse into the other side of the story.

It felt to me like a kinder, gentler Game of Thrones, but that really is doing it a disservice. I'm not sure what element of historical fiction resonated with me so much, so I'm not sure where to go from here. Was it simply the characterization, or was it also that I find East Indian culture so fascinating? Was it the time period? Was it the fact that it was the voice of the minority instead of the same old stuff we are taught in schools in the United States?

Whatever it was, I really did enjoy it more than I thought I would and unreservedly recommend it.

I'm not sure what the aim of this book is. It is made up of 400 years of history, divided into 5-year chunks, giving us 80 short essays and other pieces, interspersed by poems.

I definitely learned things. I heard from authors with perspectives and backgrounds different from mine, which was incredibly valuable. I learned about events in our history I never would learn in school. There were cultural references I did not understand, but that spurred me to do additional research.

The quality and interest of the pieces varied, as you'd expect with 80 different authors. It isn't a book you'll read from cover to cover, but was good for digesting in chunks here and there.

It might actually be 4.5 stars. I'll have to let it simmer for a while.

An enjoyable book with some surprisingly heartwarming moments that had me tearing up. As a father with a daughter, not since Hyperion have I been so affected by time travel's impact on a father-daughter relationship. The end was very satisfying, if somewhat predictable. It wasn't the most action-packed book, but more of a slow-burn where you are trying to figure out what happens next when anything Kin does seems to keep making it worse.

I enjoyed the thoughtfulness put in to the ramifications of time travel and the limits and cost. If people could go willy-nilly whenever they wanted to what kind of chaos would that be? Kudos for a “believable” constriction on time travel.

I thought the characters were good, believable, pretty well fleshed out, if not compelling. The question of how well we really know people was a fun theme the book explored.

It isn't a long read, and I did really enjoy it.

I really had high hopes going in to this. I guess I was expecting a bit more wonder, like The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia McKillip or The Dreamstone by C.J. Cherryh. Admittedly my memory of them may be incorrect as I read them both a couple of decades ago.

That said, I thought I'd also enjoy the “unlikely rag-tag group of heroes” but found it a bit hard to engage with a fish and a toad and a crow and a cat. The foreshadowing was a bit clumsy, in that the end of the knight's curse was easy to predict from the beginning of the book. The love story didn't feel organic, or respectful of Thing.

And it felt a bit too coincidental in the end as the knight came across old companions.

Perhaps I should give it two stars (I originally gave it three). I am sitting here trying to remember parts that I really did enjoy, and unfortunately I'm just glad I have finished so I can start another book. I hunted this one down for years. On to the TBR.

This was the first science fiction book I remember reading as a child, so I was delighted to share it with my seven-year old daughter. It is a Scholastic book and meant for young readers, so it is kid of hard to review on the typical aspects on which I'd judge a book.

I didn't remember many details from when I read it many decades ago, except for one specific situation that comes up on the penultimate chapter. It felt like exposition city as there were many instances of a character launching into exposition, but maybe that is normal for books written for younger readers. Maybe “show, don't tell” is too subtle for younger minds. I do know that every chapter that went on my daughter kept asking “when are they going to meet the character on the cover? Or is that the statue they found? Are they going to be able to talk?” And she really liked the joke about the Wizard of Ooze.

The science is gonzo, but imaginative and fun. It is a variation of the “hollow earth” theme like Pellucidar or Journey to the Center of the Earth. You've got some Matrix-like things, some advanced civilization stuff, and some kind of cliche good civ/bad civ stuff, and some kids who are just kind of along for the ride.

One thing I really enjoyed as I was reading it to my daughter was coming up with different voices for different characters, which my daughter says she likes. Dr. Shaw had a Maine accent. Professor Kincaid sounded like Peter Lorre. Saa sounded a bit like Data. Stan had a deep and manly voice. Gaanu and Krii had a typical villainous voice. The rest kind of all sounded the same.

So is it going to dethrone the Wizard of Oz or the Chronicles of Narnia? No. Is it going to continue to have a place as a nostalgic favorite that led me into reading Tarzan and comic books and enjoying fantasy and science fiction? Absolutely! And I'm very glad I got to enjoy it with my daughter.

Hmm. I'm not sure what to think about this one. I probably did it a disservice using this book as my “read while falling asleep if I go to bed before my wife” book. That means it was read occasionally, in small pieces, sometimes while struggling to keep my eyes open, until I finished it one day while waiting to apply for a passport and reading the final 80 pages or so.

I've probably seen the movie, but don't remember much about it except the iconic scenes. I do want to have the voice of HAL for a GPS and for my voice mail. Perhaps the most enjoyable part of the book for me was the Forward to the Millennial Edition. That was pretty riveting.

As for the book itself, although I only rated it three stars, it will likely go up over time. I appreciate the seminal nature of the book, the unique process by which it came to be, and the impact on society. I feel I missed a lot by not giving it the attention I think it needs, because I missed a lot. I am, however, now spending a lot of time watching reviews, videos on the difference between the book and the movie, and generally picking up many of the things I missed. I'll definitely be rereading it.

Knowing the great swaths of information that was left out of the movie I have little desire to try to see it again as a way to understand the book better, but I am interested in watching it for its artistic merit and the amount of controversy it spawns from people who “just don't get it.”

I don't think Arthur C. Clarke is just destined to disappoint me. I did quite enjoy Rendezvous with Rama, and I do look forward to reading Childhood's End, but I don't have a driving desire to read more of the Rama series or the Space Odyssey series. Am I missing out? Am I not “getting” Clarke and his writing? Perhaps I need to focus more on the ideas than the execution. In the meantime, when I put a book down and I'm spending my time thinking about it instead of running to grab the next one, then there is definitely something to be said for the book. Perhaps that reread will be sooner rather than later.

That was incredibly disappointing. The best thing about it was that the chapters were short so it was easy to make progress and get through it.

I picked this up as a break from two long anthologies I'm reading and there was so much buzz about it. Ultimately it is the poster child for melodrama. I don't really like when people are seemingly driven to extreme measures, or choose to do so in what seems a cheap and easy manner. Ultimately I only cared about one of the characters. This is the kind of book that promotes “mean world” syndrome where everyone lies or is a psychopath or manipulator or strives to outdo others in reprehensible behavior.

I should have known when the selling points for the book were about the premise of the DNA Matching and the next thing someone would say would be “and someone is matched with a serial killer, and one man is matched with another.” I guess that is the literary equivalent of liking to play Cards Against Humanity.