Daniel Vanzin
This book started out slowly, it took a while to care for the main character. The first meeting held by Lord Vetinari with other town representatives took way too long, and I was thinking that he was the main character of this story.
Then the real main character Moist came into the picture, and as the story unfolded, I couldn't believe this was really going to be a book about a postal worker. Were it not for the intelligent style of writing of Terry Pratchett I might have stopped reading the book.
Things started to get interesting when the con artist began to use his skills for the public service. During the book he is confronted with another one like him, but more powerful and really evil. He must find a way to outwit him.
I really liked how he changed his evil ways by forcibly having to interact with common, good, hard-working people. He saw the harm his lies have caused in the past in the lives of so many innocents, when used for selfish interest.
I did not like either the story or the writing style. Too much military jargon and sci-fi talk relating to spaceships and interstellar travel that has put me off continuing to read the book.
The plot seemed to revolve around the first contact of mankind with alien life. There was this spaceship that came out of an area in space known of god's face. The area received this name because due to the way some astral objects are positioned, when viewed from a distance, it looks lake a face.
This unknown spaceship attacked the spaceship of the protagonist for no apparent reason. He retaliates and succeeds in killing the aggressor. When the remainings of the spaceship are collected, they found out the body of the pilot is of an anatomy completely different from humans.
Mildly amusing, that's how I would describe the overall tone of this book. It is filled with small jokes and satires relating religion, politics and philosophy. The writing style is very clever, but I'm not much of a fan of the British “Monthy Python” sort of humor, or else this book would rate a 5 for me.
The story revolves around a monastery that represents the center of political and religious power in this region of the world. The monks worship the god Om, and they are very keen on judging other people. Anyone that does not conform with they're very rigorous view of the world is sent to the Quisition to be tortured and killed. Also, they tend to wage war on all other nations that does not follow the same religion as theirs.
The protagonist is a simple minded monk that has a perfect memory. One day, he starts hearing a voice, that turns out to be the god Om speaking to him. He soon finds out that he is the only one that can hear him, and that every other pious priest of his religion is an hypocrite that is more preoccupied with rituals, traditions, following the rules, not getting tortured and politics then with proper adoration of the god.
The dialog is very intelligent, there are many philosophical references as jokes are made about them as well. The characters are very likable, even the antagonist which is a fervent worshiper of himself, apparently. His only goal is to rise in the church hierarchy to impose his views on others. Among other things, he is against asking too many questions, reading books and any other activity that leads to critical thinking.
I liked the writing style and the plot seemed promising. A war that has been going on for a thousand years against an alien race.
However, as with many war stories, it focus on the technical aspects of war that I do not find interesting. The book details the training of the troops, the special mechanized suit they had to learn how to use, the difficulties of training in a barely hospitable freezing cold environment. The unit the protagonist belongs to is the best there is, and still many are expected to die before training is over.
They're goal is to protect the portals from which instant travel to other portals in the universe is possible.
A collection of small stories (20+) about the decimation of the world population by a plague, presented from the point of view of the survivors.
The stories are very well written, but take out the zombie part and they do not hold their own for me. This is a book I would recommend to anyone that does not like fiction.
Stories vary a lot in theme. One is about a suburban mom with a cheating husband, two kids and an apathy for the world events, only concerned about her life. Then the plague came. Another is about a doctor who finds his patient to be infected. Then another about the guy who saw an opportunity in the crisis an made up a fake medicine.
The world of Hyperion is about to be invaded, and the consul for the Human Hegemony is tasked take a ship to evacuate their inhabitants. During the trip, he is accompanied by other ten travelers, all going in a pilgrimage to meet the Shriek. This mysterious creature is said to grant a wish from one member of the group that seeks him, and kill the others.
From these passengers, one of them is believed to be working with the invading force, and the consul is tasked to find out the traitor.
The crew decide that to improve their chances of survival, they should each share their stories about why they are going to seek the Shriek. After all, unlike other pilgrimage groups, they were chosen by the Church of the Shriek.
This is the introduction of the book. The rest of it is the stories of each of the eleven passengers.
The first story is about a Christian priest, who has previously been to this world with an exiled fellow, and it is because of him that he is on a pilgrimage. His is a story about man trying to save his religion from extinction.
The second story is from a war veteran general, and his story starts in his youth at a training computer that simulates a medieval setting. His is a story about the first women he loved.
I stopped reading here. Both these themes does not interest me. Lost love and lost faith. But mainly I did not like the sub-stories in themselves. Not much going on but the perceived emotions of the characters in them.
Very well written, a love story about science. However, I like a good plot, and this book is just about what it says: the events leading up to mankind first contact with an alien race.
The story is told through the main character, a woman who overcomes the prejudices of a men dominated field of astronomy and becomes the leader of the SETI program. With the help of a new kind of radioscope she helped to develop, in the imminence of the cancellation of her work, she peaks up a signal, that turned out to be a message coming from a far away galaxy in space.
There is a lot of praise for science and scientific achievements through the story.
A children's book, however well it is written.
After hearing he might be the last of his kind, an immortal unicorn decides to look for the other members of his species, only to find out that the world has changed since last he left his groove. People no longer believe in magic, making him look like a regular horse in their eyes and significantly hindering his quest.
This is told in the first few pages, and I was liking it enough. This story about the lost of magic in the world, making magical things look like common ones, and only a few who could see them for what they truly are.
Then a wizard is introduced in the story. He is really a magician, a common men that can perform basic illusions, party tricks, but sometimes his magic is real. Again the thing about the lost of magic in the world.
However, as soon as he is captured by a pirate, the “children story” comes into play really strong, and I lost interest.
A very short an pleasant adult fairy tale. The movie as I remember it was very faithful to the book.
The young Tristan crosses over the wall that separates our rational world to magical world of fairy. The idea is that every single story ever imagined in our world and then forgotten, inhabits this land. As such, it has no limits. A perfect analogy to our imagination.
He is looking for a fallen star to give it to his true love, so that she would wed him. He is surprised to find out that the star is actually a girl, but that don't change his goal to bring her back to his village.
At first they're at odds because Tristan doesn't take into consideration her desires, treating her like the object he expected her to be. Of course along the way things start to change.
The two other main plots revolves around a witch that wants the star's heart to make a spell that gives her youth back, and two princes that needs something the star has in her possession in order to find out who is going to be the new king.
The book is divided in 3 parts I think. The first one showed some promise, I could take the slow build up of the events into the revelation of what does the Overlords really look like and what are their motives. The story was interesting by itself, with a somewhat well defined main character.
Learning about the special powers this alien race, wondering why they wanted peace on Earth and how people resented being forced into having peace was fun.
The second part started off really well. It takes place many years latter, and there are a new cast of characters. There is no main character but that still could be have been fine. The Overlords have revealed themselves and it was time they make their plan known.
It seemed to start building up a dystopian future where there is no war, crime, diseases, anger, envy or anything bad, but mankind have lost its artistic creativity and the desire to explore space or to advance science in any way.
The Overlords have provided them with anything they needed. Any conflicts people had could be resolved by this special television that could see into any time and place in human history. So all of the religions were extinguished when they could actually see the truth of how they got started. Murderers were discouraged to commit crimes because they would certainly be caught.
But this was described in one page and nothing else happened. Although this is a small book, there is too little of a plot. It is mostly filled with mundane events, like talking trivialities at a party.
I stopped listening by the start of part 3, when things should be getting more interesting, but they just didn't.
Perhaps the best children's book about King Arthur and the Round Table. Somewhat akin to Harry Potter in quality. I did not like neither, not the kind of book for me.
If you know the story, how many pages of Arthur as a fish do you think it takes to capture its essence? If the answer is a whole chapter, this book might be for you.
Not really a novel, may be ok for hardcore fans. This is Tolkien's huge Elvish name dictionary, strung together with other words in between.
I really wanted to like this, and it's very pleasant to hear the almost of a story of the inception of the world of LotR. Every region, mountain, river, forest and every single being that ever existed is named in this book.
I finished this book only because I did not want to pile up on my gave-up-upon shelf. The writing is kind of fine, but the story not so much. I somewhat liked the characters lack of presumption, as in they have magical powers but aren't abusing they're might. But there just wasn't much going on for me to like.
Nothing really exciting happens, I kept waiting for the plot to take over, but it just didn't. It read almost like a documentary rather then a fantastical tale.
Read until they started floating around the Ringworld. I kept waiting for the interesting part, what was there in the Ringworld and why that would be of any importance. But I couldn't bare the thought that it would never happen, and this was going to be one of those books about the journey, not the end. And the journey is boring. I don't much care for alien races, unless they are very well developed perhaps. And they were not. Giving weird names and appearances does not a good character make.
I did not like the main character at all. Nothing to relate to. Reading some reviews, people seem to have an issue on how the female character was portrayed. I did not share that feeling because ALL of the characters felt really blend to me.
This review is not as complete as I would like, but I had to publish something here.
Ok, first of all, this book is HUGE! I should have written a review for each of the 4 parts, which are available as separate books as well. Overall it has many flaws, a few of which are major ones, specially in the last book. But I enjoyed so much that I can gladly overlook them.
The book is a retelling of the classical King Arthur story through the point of view of the women, so much that I could see how a men would take issue as how the male characters are under represented, and also how women often feel reading the typical male centered medieval fantasy stories.
However, I don't have strong opinions on the gender issue, and I try to judge a story by it's quality alone, not political correctness issues. When I read a book with a unidimensional female character, I think of her as an unidimensional female person, and if that fits well within the plot is what interests me.
Before talking about the story itself, this book is beautifully written. It could be used as a teaching aid in how to write, even by modern standards.
Anyway, this phrase has been repeated to death, what does it mean “from the point of view of the women”? Well, the women are the main focus of the story, and the book is written in a first person point of view, alternating between the protagonists. In order of importance and amount of appearance, first comes Morgaine and then Gwenhwyfar (copy and pasted this, of course). The first book is almost exclusively of Igraine, Morgaine's mother. Also throughout all the books, main roles are given to Morgause, Morgaine's aunt and Viviane, the Lady of the Lake and Morgaine's foster mother. Some minor roles are given to to Nimue, a priestess used to seduce an enemy, and Niniane, Viviane's successor.
The arthurian story, although very much present, is used as a backdrop for the lives of these women. They are fully fleshed out characters whose emotions, motivations and desires are beautifully conveyed.
Most of the myths regarding the classic tale are expressed as rational facts, adding even more to the original story. Excalibur? Forged from the metal of an meteorite, granting some of its legendary attributes, like being indestructible. Magic? Mostly explained by the interaction of wise and intelligent individuals dealing with unneducated common folk. Somethings like clever reading of another's body language in order do “divine” what they are thinking, deep understanding of human psychology in order to predict the future. Also praying on peoples false beliefs to apply some clever trick and to fool them.
The myth of King Arthur is told as an actual historical account, with real names of places, accurate dates relating events. The story is also enriched by explanations like the origin of Lancelot's name. His real name is Galahad. Which is what he calls his son. In fact, all of the knights of the round table have intrinsic relations with each other. All very well constructed.
Everything about Morgaine is nicely exposed. How she gainned her reputation as first a sorceress, then an evil one.
Nimue's plot in the last book was the weakest one, although it was still pleasantly written. The priestesses were quiet for a long time in the face of much depredation of their faith, and the case the they decided to use their powers was such an inconsequential one.
Also, the shift of attitude in Morgaine was way too sudden. Her motivation was very clear, but the way it was represented was like she woke up one day and decided to destroy Arthur.
An advanced life form comes down to earth with scientific proof that God exists. He then asks to talk to a paleontologist to find out more about Earth's evolution. The scientist is an atheist, and have is having a hard time believing the alien, who also claims that other advanced races believe in the existence of an intelligent designer as well.
First off, its not the Christian God, and the belief in his existence has nothing to do with religion. It is presented as a fact that all the major arguments against the existence of a Creator have been throughly refuted by being more intelligent then us.
This is the science fiction leap. There is basically those that believe in God because of faith, and those that refute him because of science and/or reasoning. To believe in his existence as a scientific fact is unheard of.
The book does not present a deep philosophical discussion, but it is accurate and comprehensive enough. It goes something like “There is 4 irrefutable arguments against God's existence” and then one by one “yeah, but our advanced science proved them wrong”.
Some people might find this somewhat dismissive nature troublesome on the basis of logic, but as I said, I see this as the fiction part. What I didn't like about the book was that I hoped it would have more clever discussions, like say Asimov in some of his books. Also, the cancer angle bore no interest to me. As it stands, this book has more drama then the science fiction parts that I like. And the intellectual content is too shallow to keep me interested.
Stopped reading after the first few pages. I saw this book recommended in a thread on a book I liked.
The book starts which a bunch of words that collectively I can't call a story. More like a spouting of fictitious facts about something which is not very clear what.
Also, I was listening the audiobook version. The narrator's voice felt like sharp needles going into my ears.
Reading other review of the book I think I would not like this book even if I could get past all of that.
Stopped reading after 1/3 maybe. I did not enjoy the writing style. Even if I tough this was a good story, I could not bear to read this any longer.
The book starts on a convoluted scene of some sort of game being played. I could not find any interest in this. There is no attempt to create an empathy for the protagonist. He is a guy who plays games. He is the best at it. What games? All sort of games, none one we know of course.
I don't know if reading the first book would have helped, but the lack of context was very disturbant. What are drones? Why are they relevant? Do people own them? How close to human is acceptable for them to behave? Do they share the same status as living things?
The main plot, which takes a while to get at, revolves around this player deciding to cheat at a game to achieve a very hard to achieve kind of victory. Why does he do it? Because. And then he is caught on tape by an evil drone (do drones have morality?). However, tapes are easy to temper with, an no one believes in them. This drone just happened to have the one kind of tape that people do believe in.
Even if this latter becomes explained, as a rouse to get the player to go to this years away world to play this life altering game, it is way too weak of a plot. The drone also seems to be omnipotent and omniscient. The threat of releasing the tape seems really meaningless compared to that.
I fully expect the book to waste many pages on the description of playing an arbitrary game which I care none about.
Really good writing, but too slow for my taste. This book is as slow as The Wheel of Time, but the plot seems to be weaker.
About half way into the book and here the following is all that happens:
A young boy goes out into a journey with his aunt and some old storyteller/vagrant guy, both of which may be more then what they appear to be. They are both fleeing from some people and looking for something as well. They are also keeping some secret about the boy's true identity.
It is implied that the people that are looking for the boy, which is a whole race of them (race as in Men of the West from LotR) are known to serve this dark lord of evil, but they live among everyone else as if that is not a problem.
No, just... no. There is nothing more to tell. I wanted to know how everything would end, but I might as well read a 2 line paragraph and that would be better then this book. Stopped after the overly-descripted-nothing-happening was too unbereable. I think Corwin had just left this random woman he met on the road and made him almost decide to let all realities being destroyed just to be with her. or maybe after his second encounter with his brother, I don't recall.
The story now begins to decay. It seems the author ran out of ideas after the amazing set up from the last book. In the first, Corwin has just escaped prison and you wonder how he will take revenge. In the second book, he delivers that revenge, but now he is faced with an evil greater then the one presented by his brothers and sisters.
The only thing good about this book is the explanation of all the mysteries raised in the first books. But this takes about one page worth of writing. The rest is just a filler. There is also a good summary of everything that has happened so far.
The family bickering takes a front seat again, but it's just not good enough.
Nearly as good as the first book. Corwin has discovered his true nature as a Prince of Amber, beings able to create any sort of realities through they're will. Having escaped his prison, he begins to plot his next attempt at the throne. This time, he has a secret weapon.
This story has more elements of fantasy then the first, including a knight and castle. :-) Also there is the struggle against this evil that corrupts the land, and an encounter with a mysterious and beautiful lady. Very basic medieval fantasy, but all this things takes a background to the court intrigues, fighting and distrust between the heirs to the crown.