Enno Rehling
A book that lured me in with the promise of a noir detective novel, but turns out to be an alternate history and more. Excellent world building, great characters.
What this book taught me: Vernor Vinge is brilliant when he's writing great SciFi, but boring when he is writing pulp. This book is dated, and if you're hoping for more of what makes Across Realtime or Fire Upon The Deep so great, stay away from The Witling. I gave up in chapter 3, returning this to the friend I borrowed it from.
Once again, this series does not disappoint. For a moment, Aaronovich had me believe that there really was an architect named Stromberg, and I tried to find the buildings that the book describes, but they're all just delightful fiction. Can't wait to read the next one, especially after this twist ending.
There are some of Sedaris' trademark short stories in here about his childhood and family that I really enjoyed, but then there are a couple other stories that fell flat for me, usually when he talks about more recent events. Have funny things just stopped happening to him?
This was a fantastic thriller. The technology totally checks out, and Suarez draws a very scary picture of a not-too-distant future.
Just Lovely. Makes me want to travel again, and really get to know a city by living there for an extended time and exploring.
not every one of these short stories is a winner, bit overall I enjoyed the book quiet a lot.
If you are a fan of OOTS, don't miss this book. The origin stories of Redcloak and Xykon are the best D&D character backgrounds that I know of. This beats the pants off the first prequel book.
This is the book that made me want to learn to read when I was a child. Happy to learn that my parents still have it (in German, of course).
Wonderful origin story of Celanawe and the Black Axe. I'm also currently reading the Mouse Guard RPG, which has me wishing I could play this.
This was for me the right book at the right time, on more than one level. By far my favorite of the Hainish Cycle books, this made an even bigger impression on me than the left hand of darkness, and displaces it as the best fiction I've read in years.
Tells the history of how we made food through the ages, the tools we invented, and how we got to where we are. Fun and packed with trivia. I'll never look at my kitchen the same way again.
This book hasn't aged well. It may be one of the first cases of a dystopian novel, but the author's imagination doesn't stretch much further than that. A lot of his points are very on the nose, and the final chapters repeat them, just in case the reader has made it this far without figuring out the message. Would not recommend, but for some reason it still gets assigned in school.
This must be the worst book I ever read. The story is not funny, it is like a five-year old trying to come up with his own version of Forrest Gump, while hopped up on sugar. I'm left with nothing but questions: How did this book get so many good reviews? Why is there an elephant? How can this possibly be a movie? Are all Swedes crazy? What is the point that the author wanted to make? Why did I read the whole thing?
What an amazing book! I am only just discovering Le Guin for the first time, and this book is so clearly influential to many other books I have read. I am going to be on a rading spree to finish all her other books.
The audible recording is very nice, I recommend it highly.
This was cute, and a quick read. I didn't know it was part two in a series, but now I want to read the others.
I was hoping for a Terry Pratchett book, but got a mediocre Baxter novel with a cliffhanger. I don't think I will bother with the sequel.
I read the whole thing, because I was hoping to find another copper story that I could sink my teeth into, but I'm probably not going to pick up the next book anyway. There's not enough suspense, the protagonists are certainly no Sherlock Holmes, and I did not care about the crimes they solved, of which there were too many.
Dark and frightening. A deeply unsettling story. What happens to the social outcasts we went to school with? They don't all end up like Dahmer, thankfully, but it does make me wonder about some of the kids I went to school with.
It's the flawed characters I come for, and this book didn't disappoint. There were some unexpected connections to the Glass Hotel, and the themes of making bad investment and getting screwed by the economy reappear.
This is probably my favorite Usagi book. Not only is Kitsune back in the very touching story “Noodles”, but all the other stories are very solid, too.
Loved it. So many twists and turns, genuinely funny moments. Good world building and characters, too