Aaron

Not quite as good as the first, but it still has that quiet appeal. The huge moments of obvious wish fulfillment for the author are not enough to disturb my appreciation of the story.

Understated and unhurried. There are no action scenes. It's about a boy who becomes an orphan and hires on as a merchant marine. Well, the sci-fi space equivalent.

I can definitely see how some people would hate this book, but I really enjoyed it. From one point of view almost nothing happened, but I had fun reading about the every day, small time struggles of the characters. It's very zen in a way.

We're back to a fun, light action adventure. Big, stompy robots and weird aliens. Well, less of the stompy robots, but still enough to keep me interested. I'll almost definitely get around to reading the next book.

A modern fairy-tale. Everything you hope it will be from the title.

All the action from the first book, but weighed down by Libertarian dogma. Even if this was something I agreed wholeheartedly with, it was just too preachy and got in the way of the story.

Big, stompy robots fighting weird aliens. Quick, light, fun read.

A warship's avatar separated from it's warship. A little heavy on the social warrior front, but still very interesting.

Edit: Re-read February 4, 2016. Definitely my least favorite. At least so far. I'm giving in to peer pressure and reading more of the series.

Re-read Jan 25, 2016

Edit Jan. 24, 2016:
On re-reading with an idea of what to expect, I like it better. You just have to accept that 2,100 year old druids have god-like powers and will be able to take care of anything that comes at them. Easily.

Several of my friends really love this series, but I just couldn't get into it. I've blocked most of the details from my mind in order to maintain my sanity, but I remember thinking the plot was rather ridiculous and just got worse.

Edit Jan. 24, 2016:
On re-reading with an idea of what to expect, I like it better. You just have to accept that 2,100 year old druids have god-like powers and will be able to take care of anything that comes at them. Easily.

Several of my friends really love this series, but I just couldn't get into it. I've blocked most of the details from my mind in order to maintain my sanity, but I remember thinking the plot was rather ridiculous and just got worse.

A guilty pleasure. The author REALLY needs a good editor, but space ships are cool, so I'll keep reading.

I just can't give this more than three stars, though something in me wants to. I had fun reading this book.

The author made a few logical leaps that I didn't follow, but that didn't throw me too much. The order and duration of events wasn't always clear and sometimes things suddenly took much longer or shorter times than they originally were said to take, e.g. things that had just been stated were a few minutes travel would be over an hour away just a paragraph later. A character takes off their helmet, then bumps it on the top of a door frame in the very next sentence. What most of the problems in this book boil down to is the lack of a really good editorial process.

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.

I can't believe I waited so long to read this. A must for any Dresden fan.

The original cyber-punk. A little 80's for my taste, but much more enjoyable than I thought it would be.

Very weird, but in a good way. It's nothing like Blade Runner and that's OK. It's one of those books I'm glad I've read, but probably won't re-read.

My favorite RPG.

I read the second one too?

I read the third one? Something must be wrong.

Why did I finish this book? First person present tense takes skill.

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

The tone is grim overall.  At best, it's frustrating or bittersweet.  Despite some humor, and even liking the characters, I'd rather spend my time reading something else.

OK, new characters. The world seems like it's got a lot in store, so I'll push on.

Mostly new characters, but still a great read.