Aaron

I like the character of Earl Harbinger, and it's cool to get to see some more of him, but I miss the other characters.

Still a fun read, though. Loved it just as much as the others.

More of the gun totin' fun from the first. I really like these characters.

I felt like the trilogy was uneven, I liked some parts of it much more than others. The idea of swallowing metal and then “burning” it in your stomach to do magic seems silly to me, but I love everything else about the magic in these books.

The ending wasn't horrible, but is wan't very satisfying either and it was rather abrupt.

The concept of advancing the world through a modern times setting and into a sci-fi future one is interesting. I'll give them a try.

While still episodic, this has a more cohesive story arc than the first book.

After reading the Grimnoir Chronicles I was inspired to see what all the fuss is about. I was not disappointed.

While some allowances must be made for when it was written, it is an exciting mystery with plenty of action and, above all, amazing dialog. The plot was slightly convoluted and a little choppy in places, but mostly easy to follow. The ending was satisfying, although not what I was expecting. I'll be reading more of the Philip Marlowe series.

Too dark for me, but well written.

Some very interesting ideas, but I could barely make it through the alien scenes. Overall, it was just boring.

The narrator was phenomenal. I was a little confused and frustrated that the middle four stories were not about good old Jeeves, but followed completely different characters. I think I would have liked those stories better if I'd known to expect them.

Not bad, but the pervading sense of political correctness was stifling.

A new epic fantasy series.

There's a lot to take in and some of the story lines take a little while to get going, but I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.

Mostly new characters, but still a great read.

I like this much more than the original trilogy. I wasn't expecting to, I usually don't like having to meet a whole new cast of characters, but I like them even more than I did the originals. The small nods to events and characters in the first trilogy were very well done, a nice touch for those that new the references without being distracting for those that didn't.

I was worried when the author delayed the rest of the series to do this unplanned book, but I'm glad he did. I'm even excited that there are going to be three more books in this time period before moving on.

The end.

One of Sanderson's first books. Not my favorite, but very interesting to the greater Cosmere story line.

Back to our first hero, but in a new setting. All new challenges and just as good as the first.

I got hooked on Cory Doctorow's books with Down and out in the Magic Kingdom. All of his books are slightly weird, and this one doesn't disappoint. Not my favorite, but I still enjoyed reading it.

Overly long and drawn out; mostly boring. Way too much time was spent on the world building. The premise is interesting, maybe now that the story has gotten to the point, book two will be better.

edit: reviews of book two say no.

It took a few chapters to get into the story, but it was a fun read just like the rest of the series.
Plus one star for you, Taylor.

A burly gun enthusiast writes an adventure novel about a burly hero that totes around big guns and kills even bigger monsters.

Too much fun to be a guilty pleasure.

This review is for Cold Case by Jim Butcher:

Damn.

Overall I liked the series. It's not your normal fantasy and I liked that. It does hit our heroine pretty hard and even dip a bit into torture porn territory at the end, but but mostly the gritty realism made the story more believable.

OK, the end is pretty much torture porn. She can survive anything ‘cause she's super tough and it only makes her stronger. We get it.

The rest of the book is worth it, though, and the series has definitely become a favorite.

Our heroine is special after all! Well, somewhat. What's the opposite of a Mary Sue? Nothing comes easy for Paksenarrion.

I love the subtle use of magic. The story is believable. I can't quite call this an excellent book, but this series is becoming a favorite.

According to Wikipedia the author intended this to be, to an extent, a parody of space operas. Reviews here warned me that minor characters got a lot of screen time. (Although, I was still surprised that less than half the book was following the protagonist.) Forewarned is forearmed, so I enjoyed it for the sprawling beast that it is. In fact, it was mostly little things that broke me out of the narrative and annoyed me.

I read the Kindle version and the OCR errors were a little distracting. A “c” instead of an “e”, an “f” instead of “lt.” And I hope “irregardless” was an error. The British use of cannon as its own plural in an otherwise American English text made me pause and re-read a sentence more than once. Along with a few other minor niggles it meant there was something distracting on nearly every page.

One could say, and fairly, that I'm just nit picking, but I was already spending so much effort suspending disbelief, that those little wrinkles tripped me up and took another star off my rating.

One of those classics that's interesting to read, but I probably won't re-read.