Samuel Proulx

They wanted $7.99 Canadian for this on Kindle. It's way too short to be worth that price. $2.99 perhaps.

These books are slowly improving. Were I the target audience, I would have quite enjoyed this one. As it is, I mostly read them whenever they pop up in a place I can get them for free, out of a sense of fandom completionism.

This book says many of the things I've ranted about myself over the last couple years, but says them more eloquently and with more research than I would or could. I'll admit one part probably does slog a bit towards the end, but reading someone else extensively rewrite opinions I already agree with really doesn't bother me much. Though if you're not generally interested in the subject matter, I can understand how your eyes would glaze. However, if you're at all interested in the unfair media coverage “girls” shows are subjected to, the history of the various Pony incarnations, or some of the drama that has gone on in the MLP fan community (or just want something a bit deeper than “Wow, bronies. Huh.”), I'd strongly recommend this book.

I read this via the edition at: http://comicsempower.com/wynter-issue-1.html

That was produced for the blind, so I'm sure my experience is slightly different from sighted readers. However, this story holds up really well in narrative form! The reader/describer does her job nearly perfectly. The descriptions of the panels give enough detail to follow the plot, but are short enough that the suspense isn't lost. If you're a blind person who has never read a comic/graphic novel before, I'd recommend this as a darn good place to start.

An okay read. It's not hard military SF, but it's entertaining enough to fill time during a commute.

I read this while first going through the stages of thinking about starting a business (business plans, funding, etc). It can be rather dry, but if you're thinking about a business of your own, the information could come in handy.

Funny, full of information, and well read. If you're interested in nonfiction about space travel at all, you should read this book right away.

I've noticed a strong pattern in all of the Anne McCaffrey books I've tried to read. If she wrote the book herself, I never like it. If, however, the book[return]has a co-author, I usually find it at least good. This book, co-authord by an author who's solo works I've already liked and read, is excelent. I've read[return]all of the other books in the ship series, and this is by far the best of the bunch. If you don't plan on reading the entire series, at least read this[return]book. It stands just fine by itself; don't worry that it's book 3. The rest of the series isn't bad either, but I could take it or leave it.

This book is much less depressing than you might think. It is jam packed with crude humour, random pop culture references, and puns. Each of these things managed to make me laugh out loud, at least once. However, I don't recommend this one for anyone easily offended by dick jokes, or who isn't part of modern internet culture.

The only problem with this book was that I wanted more! This book only has something like six columns in it, that I had already archived on my own.

I originally came across this title on an online list of the top 200 science fiction novels of all time. As with most lists of that sort, most of the novels[return]that made it were so litterary as to be unreadable. While this particular title wasn't, in my opinion, one of the best of all time, it was worthwhile.[return]The characters are believable and well done, and they grow and change throughout the book. This is classic science fiction in that it takes one what-ifreturn and runs with it, fleshing out all of the many implications of that change. In a time when most science fiction[return]tries to build a complete world, the consintration on this one what-if is refreshing. The changes that it causes, and the resulting plot, are well thought[return]out. This is not a space opera. But it is quality sf.

This is almost universally accepted as Heinlein's best book. A framed story similar to the style of Arabian nights, it manages to keep the overarching plot[return]moving along while including many other interesting stories. the tale of the adopted daughter, one of the tales told, is in my opinion the most touching[return]thing ever to be written in a science fiction novel and the best part of the book. Either this means that I secretly want to read westerns, or I'm extremely[return]sappy. Honestly, I'd rather not analyse it, thanks.

This book is wonderful! It's one of the few modern books that has managed to make me really excited about current SF. Some have complained that this author[return]sounds a little bit too much like Heinlein (Starship Troopers, especially), but I don't at all see how that's a complaint; the world needs more Heinlein's.[return]Anyway, Old Man's War is better written and pased than Starship Troopers ever comes close to being. Yes, it starts slow, but come on. It starts out with[return]a bunch of 75 year olds; how fast do you expect things to move? Anyhow, it needs the slow start to build up important ideas that relate to the rest of[return]the plot. The characters are all interesting, the plot has some original twists, and the writing is as good as Heinlein's. What more do you want? I look[return]forward to seeing much more from this author in the near future.

This wasn't the book I expected to get when I started it. Fortunately, I did enjoy what it turned out to be.

Merged review:

This wasn't the book I expected to get when I started it. Fortunately, I did enjoy what it turned out to be.

The plot and writing of this book were OK, and the audio edition was decently read. Unfortunately, I hated the main character so deeply it's utterly beyond description. I have never wanted to slap a protagonist so hard in my life! Maybe she gets less terrible in later books in the series, but I'm not willing to purchase book two in order to find out. I got the first book on sale, and I'm rather glad.

I'm giving this book five stars because the author took the time to re-upload the book with alt-text on all images, for those of us using screen readers. If you've read in other reviews that the stats are all images, don't worry; they have alt-text for your screen reader on Windows/IOS/Android. Don't give the book a miss for that reason.

Unfortunately, I got way too excited about what I thought this book might be, and when it wasn't that thing, I was unreasonably disappointed. I was hoping for something like the Rick Cook Wizardry series, where magic could be programmed. I've been a moo programmer for years; a player in a VR game who somehow got a progbit by mistake could be a lot of fun, as he uses his ability to view and edit code to exploit his way through tricky puzzles, get slight advantages, etc. All, of course, while trying to not get noticed by the admins. This book, however, isn't that. It's good for what it is, it just wasn't the thing I wanted it to be.

I'm a sucker for framed tales, as well as for morrality in my fiction. This book contains plenty of both. It's thoughtful, yet easy to read, with an interesting[return]and fun plot and characters. The message, on power and society, is a powerful one. The point it makes isn't new, and I'm sure it's been made many times[return]before in fiction, but this is still an original take and worth the read.

This is an extremely silly little book, aimed at the young adult audience. If you like silly, you'll like this. It has no pretensions to be anything more than it is: humour. It will never be a Canadian classic, but it does make for a quick afternoon read that will bring a brieff smile to your face.

This book tries so, so hard to be funny. Unfortunately, it fails. This is probably because the author is unable to detect the fine difference between funny[return]and silly. The difference is hard to explain. The problem this book has is that all the jokes it tries to make are old and overused. Everyone has seen[return]how silly the things the author pokes fun at are, and has already laughed about them. Now they're just silly; all the fun has been removed by other and[return]better authors.

This book was my introduction to pern. Honestly, it didn't do that good of a job; I doubt I will ever be back. The story wasn't captivating, the characters[return]were poorly developed, the dragons were developed even less, and the whole thing couldn't decide what sort of atmosphere it wanted to settle on. I'm guessing[return]the author intended the dragons to be wonderful and loyal companions, but for me they held a near constant air of vaguely creepy mind-controlling symbiosis.[return]Needless to say, this broke the story for me. If what you're looking for is strong and well done companion characters, I recommend Mercedes Lacky highly[return]to you; she may not have been first, but she knows what to do with characters and how to develop feeling in the reader.

I have no idea why people give this 4 and 5 stars. I could only get through about ten percent of the book. The writing is just unrelentingly awful! Filled with typos, point of view and character changes that are never clearly indicated, short sentences that repeat words, and unclear descriptions. This is a perfect example: “Each time, the square side of the stone was facing the center of the strange gemstone, which was glowing with a strange white light.” Keep in mind that the adjective “strange” had been used three previous times on that single page! Without some heavy editing, this book is just unreadable.

This is not a particularly excelent book, but it's not a bad one, either. The plot gets off to an extremely slow start, sounding at first more like a history[return]text than anything else. Then it goes through several side characters before getting on to introducing the main plot of the book. The AI revolt plot that[return]was so carefully developed is then completely cast aside in favour of an alien artifact plot. It felt somewhat abrupt to me. However, the writing is good,[return]the characters are okay, and the story is interesting. While it's not all that good of a book, it's not bad, either.

Purchased it at a discount, didn't like it well enough to bother with the next book in the series.

This review is going to be a demonstration of reviewer bias, I guess. When I reviewed sheepfarmers daughter, I wasn't particularly impressed because it[return]was typical fantasy, and that's not really my thing. However, this book is typical space opera, and that is my thing. I personally enjoyed it. Until reading[return]the review just below mine, I even thought the plot was a new one. Yes, I know, I know: I'm probably the only SF fan in the entire history of the universe[return]not to have read anything by Lois Mcmaster Bujold. Look, I've only been around for 18 years or so, and for the first 8 of those I wasn't really reading[return]all that much. I can't have read everything.

I'd heard Mur Lafferty's name in association with good things like the Escape Pod podcast, so when I saw her name on one of the books included in the Bundle Of Holding, I was excited to get to it. And I wasn't disappointed!

While the premise of the novel is a humorous one, mutants with second rate powers gathering together to save the world, Playing for Keeps isn't played for laughs. As most of the superhero novels I've read are nearly exclusively comedy, this is refreshing. It's a rocking good story, with original and well written characters, that I cared about by the second chapter. Once I got into this book, I just couldn't put it down! I'd love a sequel in the same world, featuring some of the same people.