Aaron
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.
The OG of high fantasy. It's less that it's a book I like than it's a book that's nice to have read.
What happened to “write what you know?”. I wish straight, white dudes would stop trying to tell stories about poor, downtrodden social victims. I can appreciate what I think they're trying to do, but the cringe is always so strong it's not worth it.
After reading Nathan Lowell's Solar Clipper series and being disappointed by the direction it took, I was hoping this would be similar, but without going off the rails.
While it doesn't devolve into military sci-fi, Trading in Danger is less about the trading that I was hoping for and more about the action filled danger.
Not a horrible story, and I do like other books by the author, but I can't get over my disappointment to continue the series for now.
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.
I never thought I was a military sci-fi person, but John Scalzi changed my mind with Old Man's War.
Terms of Enlistment had my interested the whole way through. Great actions scenes. I even bought the romance.
I'm looking forward to the next book in the series.
The movie is a favorite, so I thought I would give the book a try. It's better and worse than I thought it would be. The little extras were fun, but the conceit of it being “real” book got old. I'm glad I read it, but I don't plan on a re-read, I'll just watch the movie.
The Shepherdess and the Black Knight is the only story I haven't enjoyed in this series.
I can't believe it took me this long to finally read this. I really liked the movie and the book is even better.
I really wanted to like this book more than I do. The concept is awesome and the action was fun, but unanswered questions and abrupt shifts in random directions kept pulling me out of the story. If you're less prone to falling into plot holes than I am, I still recommend the book.
A coming of age story with enough new ideas to make it interesting. That said, there are a few things to be aware of. It's basically The Hobbit plus a little Dungeons and Dragons. It draws heavily on Tolkien's the Hobbit. There are a lot of parallels. Also, it's written in a similarly overly verbose “ye olde bedtime story” style. From D&D we get Adventurer's being a recognized profession and the bag of holding.
The last thing that annoyed me was that the protagonist did almost everything by accident. He was still roundly praised for his “heroism”, though. And despite all the talk of power being a responsibility and having a cost, there was no absolutely no cost for our hero. Everything came extremely easy to him and he never had to struggle even once. I'm much more relaxed about Mary Sue characters than I used to be, but it's still disappointing when they're taken to the extreme.
With all that said, if you're okay with the style of prose and the idea that you won't be treading much new territory, this can be a fun read. Just go into it with the proper expectations and you'll do fine.
Not your typical fantasy. There's barely any magic and no grand battles with millions of soldiers. But the foundation of ordinary serves to highlight the extraordinary.
It's not without its flaws, but overall this was one of the most interesting fantasy books I've read.
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.
A little smoother than the first book. I'm still not real keen on the whole social warrior thing being rubbed in my face, but the world and characters are interesting and the plot is intriguing. I'll read the next book.
A warship's avatar separated from it's warship. A little heavy on the social warrior front, but still very interesting.
The Geriatric Expanse didn't quite work for me. It was still a fun adventure, but one throw away line about “anti-aging pills” didn't make the 30 year gap go away.
The whole “I have to do this because a future version of me does it” just doesn't hold up. Otherwise, a really fun read.
I liked this even more than the Eli Monpress series. It's the right mix of light, fun, and geeky.