Cody

3.5 stars. A few fun twists along with a few predictable ones. Although I didn't love every bit of it, and I thought the second act meandered a little bit too much, it was still very solid read overall.

Pretty much exactly what I expected but with way more misogyny. Decently fun book though once you remember this was written at the dawn of civilization or something.

Simultaneously feeling like Vonnegut's most personal novel as well as Vonnegut's most bull-shitted novel, Slapstick serves as one of the most Vonnegut-esque books. Goofy, crude, whimsical, and poignant, I found myself constantly thinking about one-liners and random lines of dialogue, just reflecting on their subtle brilliance that borderlines on obscenely dense. Love this book, and man, I love Vonnegut.

X-Wing: Rogue Squadron, a fun, camaraderie-driven action-romp, sets up the X-Wing series with great individual character moments; fantastically, often tongue-in-cheek, snappy dialogue; and notably hard-to-follow dogfighting action that at the very least always felt cool.

Arthur C. Clarke: a man of many talents, mostly pioneering the early beginnings of what we now know as “hard sci-fi.” However, his character work leaves a lot to be desired, and the climaxes of his stories aren't always the most satisfying. This is definitely the case with Rama. Although there were plenty of neat moments and ideas—especially in terms of scientific possibilities, the plot was fairly straightforward and needlessly foreboding until the very last sentence. Perhaps that was the intention, presenting a thematic statement of “the mysteries of the universe will always be mysteries,” but it didn't land very well for me.
Again, pretty sick sci-fi ideas though.