John

I just finished Scalzi's latest offering, “The Collapsing Empire.” This is not set in the same universe as “Old Man's War,” but is instead an entirely new setting, one where mankind is spread across the stars which are connected by a hyperspace-like phenomenon called the Flow. A newly (and reluctantly) crowned “Emprox” learns some disturbing truths about the Empire she now heads and the nature of the Flow, a physicist escapes his homeworld with a revolution and a natural disaster nipping at his heels, and the heads of dynastic and monopolistic families vie for power and influence in a time of rising uncertainty. I found it very enjoyable but entirely a prologue for what appears to be a much larger epic. If he thinks he can finish this story in anything less than five hefty books, he's not seeing the potential of his newly constructed universe.

I originally read this book many years ago (nearly thirty, I think), and I enjoyed the re-read. It's a satisfying story, not hugely original, but well written and well paced. It does reflect the technology of 1950's America, and more so the attitudes. There are parts that are repulsively sexist by modern standards. But such attitudes were common in the age in which this novella was written. All in all, I find this to be one of the more enjoyable of Heinlein's early works.

I'm a long time fan of Jack McDevitt's. I've been reading his work since his first novel, The Hercules Text back in the late 80's. I just finished Thunderbird, a recent work, and I was sincerely disappointed.

This novel is a followup to his novel, Ancient Shores, which was published in 1996. I quite enjoyed Ancient Shores, a combination of xenoarcheology mystery story and thriller, pitting scientists up against the overwhelming odds of the federal government, with science winning the day.

Thunderbird does not live up the the legacy of its predecessor. While the pacing in Ancient Shores was a race down an ever-steepening hill till you finally reached the bottom, the pacing in Thunderbird was uniformly flat. It was never really boring, but it never really got exciting. Instead of a pace that increased the closer you got to the climax of the story, it was a story that moved steadily forward at a constant pace. Because I was reading it via my iPad, I didn't even realize I was getting close to the end of the book until I looked down and realized I had less than twenty pages to go. This was disappointing because one thing I came to love about McDevitt's writing in the 90's and early 2000's was his mastery of pacing.

On top of that, the ending was perplexing, disappointing, and abrupt. Here there be spoilers: The book takes us to so many interesting places, and introduces us to many, many enigmas. We meet three different alien races, start building relationships with one of them to the point where we were exchanging books and cultural artifacts, find alien worlds, and even a future version of Earth. All of these situations hold the promise of interesting discoveries and conflict, and we just barely start scratching the surface of many of them. And then, out of the blue, Chairman Walker decides to pull out the metaphorical spark plugs and dump them into the depths of Lake Michigan. No discussion, no desperate pitch to save the day, and absolutely no closure for any of the intriguing possibilities that had been brought up. It made no sense to end the book this abruptly, and with so little sense of drama. I get that the chairman was scared out of his wits, but and this was an easy way to end the book, but it really didn't give me much satisfaction.

This is the third book of McDevitt's recent releases that I've been rather disappointed by. I hope that this is a temporary lull in the author's skill in writing exciting, engaging, and satisfying books, and that in the near future, I'll look forward to his name appearing on the shelf on a new work. But with the current trend, I'll probably be a lot less inclined to pick up his next novel.

A thoroughly engaging read. I very much enjoyed the author's exploration of what it means to be a person. The hero's native language is genderless so all people are referred to with female pronouns regardless of their gender expression. While on the one hand, it makes it hard to envision some of the character, it also works to make the distinction between sexes a meaningless one for the story. That combined with the fact that the main character is a severed shard of an artificial intelligence inhabiting a human body, programmed to believe she is less than human, makes for a very interesting viewpoint (especially when people around her come to a different conclusion while she remains oblivious). The action builds nicely into a satisfying climax, but only comprises the opening act for a larger story. Now, if you'll excuse me, time to dig into the sequel.

Entertaining but unsatisfying

While I enjoyed reading this novel, by the end I felt it very unsatisfying. The hero of the book never faces a challenge they couldn't easily overcome, and frequently had successful ideas that unrealistically no one had come up with before. All this while freshly turned 18. The ending was sudden, without any real build up or resolution. If this was a standalone novel, it would have received a one star rating, but I gave it three in the hopes that this was entirely a “setting up the situation” book and subsequent ones have actual drama, difficult challenges, and maybe even some conflict. If book 2 isn't a vast improvement, there's no point in continuing.

It's been a good number of years since I originally read this book, but I certainly enjoyed the re-read. And it was interesting reading it after so much more has been added to Star Trek lore, including all of the information about Klingons from TNG and DS9. In the thirty years since the book was originally published, we've also have technology revolutions which make a lot of the technical terminology look positively obsolete in the 21st century, no less the 23rd. But the story is charming, the retrospective look at Trek as it existed thirty years ago is amusing, the link to the “Here Come the Brides” TV show starring Mark Lenard (who played, among other roles, Spock's father, Sarek) is entertaining, and the occasional references to other Science Fiction properties gave me a few laugh-out-loud moments (such as a casual mention of Kastaberous, a clear reference to Doctor Who). Definitely a recommended book for those who enjoy the Star Trek novels published in the mid 80's.

I have read the entire series of chapters released in “The Human Division”. I have to say that by the end, I was somewhat disappointed. The book ended before some crucial questions were resolved, and while the characters wound up resolving one situation (not necessarily for the best), it wound up having an incomplete feel to it. Very much looking forward to the newly promised follow-up book.

I felt that this was one of the weaker Secret History books. It starts with what really felt like a stand-alone shirt story that offered tantalizing glimpses of Molly's history, but that glimpse was all we got for the rest of the novel. The remainder of the book dealt with Shaman's and Molly's infiltration into Casino Infernale and the Shadow Bank. It started off feeling somewhat formulaic, but there were some twists that kept it from becoming completely stale. (There unfortunately were some elements that were completely predictable, like flunkies turning traitor.) It was nice to see what Eddie was capable of without his torc, and it's always a pleasure to see Molly let loose, at least when she wasn't made nearly useless by far too frequent use of “null zones.” Overall a pleasurable read in the series but not up to the standards of previous books.

I think this novella is what happens when Brandon Sanderson tries to write a short story... ;-)

I quite enjoyed this novella. It's a much smaller stage than he usually writes on, a story involving a small handful of people (three main characters, and three minor named characters) and a very limited scope of time. It's an in-depth exploration of a kind of magic that allows the practitioner to re-write the history of a thing and change it's current nature by use of intricately carved stamps. The main character is a master of this magic who gets caught in the midst of the swap of an original item for the forgery she made (though this particular part of the story evolves quite a bit during the telling), and how people who find her magic repugnant discover to their disgust they need her talents. But it's also the story of learning so much about a person that you thoroughly understand them, and how this is the real magic.

It was a short read – it took me a couple of hours – but a compelling one. It would be a great introduction to Sanderson's writing for anyone who isn't already familiar with this epic fantasist. It's also a showcase for something Brandon does amazingly well: the exploration of a thoroughly imaginative magic system. And, of course, if you are already a Sanderson fan, pick this one up to read while you're (patiently) waiting for his next epic tome to be published.

I found “The Long Earth” to be an interesting thought experiment, populated with interesting characters, all in search of a plot. The narrative wandered around from present to past and back, often without warning, but I never really found it jarring. I just didn't feel the story went anywhere, or if it did, it was extremely subtle. Still, it was enjoyable enough that I've already picked up the sequel.

When I picked up this book, I was expecting light-hearted fantasy fare. That's not what I got. Instead, this book is an action-packed fun ride filled with an interesting magical system, lots of entertaining literary references, and not a few very interesting philosophical quandaries. It resembled a Dresden Files book in pacing and theme, but with it's own voice that set it apart. The ending sets the story up for follow-up books (and has an amusing twist), so I'll be looking forward to sequels.

I have an inherent fondness for Scalzi books. He and I share a similar sense of humor and of drama. Redshirts is a great example of what I'm talking about here. This is a darkly humorous book, somewhat of a send-up of Star Trek, but told from the point of view of the “redshirts” of the crew, those extras whose sole job it is to die horrible deaths so that we know our heroes are in danger. In this case, the protagonists of the book are newly graduated cadets of a Universal Union who all score the most prestigious posting in the Fleet, the Intrepid. As far as they know, they live in a normal universe, leading relatively normal lives. They bond over drinks in the space station bar before the shuttle takes them to their new home. Once aboard the Intrepid, they start to notice that things are very odd there. Whenever the Captain, the Science Officer, the Engineer, or any of the other “main cast” crew members are walking down the corridor, all of the other crew members suddenly find reasons not to be found. Our protagonists discover why, as they go on “away missions” and barely survive. As they talk with other crew members (once they survive their “initiation”), they discover that for some reason, the rules of physics and statistics are severely bent out of shape in the presence of the “main cast” officers.

The book is full of very dry and dark humor. This is especially true as the characters come to terms with the fact that they are each likely to be killed off soon in some pointless and meaningless way. Cliches abound, but they work for this kind of a story, as they become the recognizable tropes that signal imminent danger for the characters that they are completely oblivious to, but which are obvious to readers. Even the ultimate solution to the problem is a huge cliche, but I found I didn't mind in the least because it was so appropriate to the setting. It was almost inevitable, and it was done well.

I do have some complaints with the novel. There were a few editorial oversights with mixed up names and such. I can generally overlook that, but it was jarring this time. Also, some of the names of the protagonists are visually similar and it took me a while to sort out which backstory belonged to which character. But the biggest complaint I had with the novel was that it seemed to end too soon. I don't mean the book was short; I mean that it felt like one of those TV shows where everything looks like it's wrapped up neatly but you still have fifteen minutes to go, so you expect that there's some big twist that's just about to happen to make the story that much more interesting. This novel seems to set up such a big twist, but then suddenly ends. It was disappointing because that apparent big twist had such potential.

After the main story ends, the book has three “codas”, extensions of the main story with characters that were featured in the main story but were not the main characters. Each of these codas were interesting additions to the story in very unique ways. The first coda is a first-person narrative told in blog/epistolary form. The second coda is written in second-person, a very unusual and difficult style that rarely works. This time I thought it did, exploring the thoughts and feelings of someone who has been told he was in a terrible accident with severe brain damage, and is trying to account for a couple of weeks missing from his memory. Finally, the third coda is in... you guessed it, third person, which tells the story of an actor who learns how profoundly and positively affected someone was by her portrayal of a bit part character, someone who had all of a couple of minutes of screen time. It's sweet and perfectly caps a story line from the main story.

I'd say, if you like Scalzi's stuff, this is a no brainer. Pick it up and enjoy it. It's not his best work, but it's a fun read. If you're in to Star Trek, or other weekly SF TV shows that sometimes just don't make a whole lot of sense, you might find this darkly humorous take on the entire genre to be entertaining. If neither of those are the case, you might still like it for the humor and the character interactions, which Scalzi always handles well. This is not a deep book, there are no life-altering revelations for the reader, but it is a fun read and a quick read.

Moist Von Lipwig is back, and still working hard to keep his neck free from Vetinari's noose. This time he is made responsible for the public safety (and the city's financial stake) regarding a radically new form of transportation: steam powered locomotives. Along the way he has to manage the growing ingenuousness of goblins, help stave off a Dwarfish civil war, and keep an increasing amount of, well, change from getting out of hand. And at it's heart it is “change” that is the subject of this novel, and how people deal with change. Some embrace it, some fear it, and some see it as a way to profit. It's not a “laugh out loud” Discworld book, which will be a disappointment for some, but I quite enjoyed it.

A pretty basic military space opera with some nice hooks and believable characters. Definitely a quick and fun read.

A decent read, but even by the end of the fourth book there were more unanswered questions than I'd like.