drews

So this is going to be more of a review of the series as a whole than a single book.

Issac Asimov's Foundation series is a epic scifi series based in the far future galactic empire more than 20,000 yrs in the future. A time when Earth has long faded into myth and legend

LIke most good scifi, its not so much about the scifi as it is about the story of the rise and fall of civilization. This series is written in a way that is generally easy to follow without alot of complication and each book is set up in parts from 4-5 parts each and each part launches you 10 + yrs into the future.

Not so much a character as narrative driven story it focuses on the ideas of large crowds behavior can be predicted via laws of mathematics based on the main character Hari Seldon ficitonal science pyshochistory.

In alot of ways the books are quite dated in references to both technology, and social norms and ideas such as gender roles can come across as biased or stereotypes so it may not be good for everyone but for me I love the big ideas of this scifi, the epic scope and ideas that what is fact can fade to legend and myth over time.

Overall Foundation is in this reviewers opinion an awesome read as a whole series, only loses some points due to the dated nature of some of the references.

This book is all about the search for a theory of everything. I was not expeting to like this one to a 5 star rating based on previous books I have read by Michio Kaku, but this one was actually really really good

The history and evolution of physics and the search for the ultimate theory to explaine everything really was a good and entertaining read

I especially enjoyed learning about Edgar Allen Poe and his role in helping to answer some fundelmental questions of physics in his day despite not being a scientist but a amature astromer and author. You will have to read the book to find out what that is

This is the final book in the main arc of the Sword of Truth by Terry Goodkind. My personal rating is more a reflection of the series as a whole

This series was one of the first epic high fantasy series I had read and I fell in love with the series from the start of my 1st read through. I love the characters, the world building and the general ideas throughout this series of books. So much so that I named 2 of my kids after characters from this book series.

My reading tastes however have evolved over the years and I just finished my re-read of the series as a whole. Terry Goodkind has been known to be a somewhat of a controversial author in the fantasy community, something I did not know when I first read the series but on the re-read I have come to understand why that is.

It is no secret that Terry Goodkind was heavily inspired by Ayn Rand and libertarian ideals in the writing of this book series. These ideas of liberty self determination etc.. are repeating over and over and over and over and over again like a mantra to the point of becoming overly repetitive throughout the books from Wizards first rule to Confessor

The bad guys, Emperor Jagang and his imperial order we are reminded over and over again about how evil they are and how good and right Richard and his circle of freedom fighters are good. Good kind goes out of his way to paint the bad guys as so terribly and in a way that at times feels like he is beating you over the head with it, and then some and does the same thing in reverse with the good guys

This book series gets excessivley preachy at times with political philosophy and idealism which can get quite tiresome at times in the excess.

This gets tiring after a while to the point where we want scream OK WE GET IT ALREADY!

That being said the world building, the characters and the overall story and plot I still do really really love and enjoy. To be Honest I am torn, while I really struggle with the black and white objective good and bad guys and strong libertarian ideals to the point of political rheteoric I still can't help but love everything else about these books. The charcters, the world, the magic system so much good mixed with so much bad. 15 yrs ago I might have given near 5 star rating, but now with half good and half bad 2.5 stars for the series as a whole for me

Thisi s the sequel to Caleb Carr book The Alieniest and to be honest I did not like it as much as the Alieniest

From almost the start we knew who the suspect was so this story was more of a process versus mystery not much different in that sense from the Alienist.

Personally I just found the whole court room drama thing kind of meh for the most part, and investigation methods were not exactly legal eithier lol,

not a whole lot to say but meh, the ending was just ok, and maybe its not being overly familiar with the time period but it was worth a read once, but that is about it.

This book is full of ludicrous crazy ideas that do not comport with reality in anyway

That however is part of the fun of this book. It is for sure not character driven nor does it have any character development in any real way but it is full of adventure and a fun imaginitve ideas of what it is like in the center of the earth long before we knew anything about the actual make up of the earths crust or world

From underground oceans, to dinosaurs and prehistoric plants this book was honeslty entertaining.

That being said it is a bit dry in the writing style at times and the characters were a bit 2D, so it loses marks there but love the imagination behind this epic adventure, overall good, not great or amazing but good