SK
I quite liked the opening of the book. For me it fell apart a bit when he makes the underground railroad and actual underground railroad. Each individual portion was quite engaging and often horrifying. But The effort to force of this to happen to the same character didn't work for me. I think this book would have worked better as a collection of short stories and novelettes about different characters experience different forms of racism across the US.
Gorgeously written. The prose is sparse yet beautiful. The story itself was a bit disappointing. The author tries to give a new an interesting spin on the classic legend but it fell mostly flat for me despite a strong opening. Three stars mostly on the strength of the prose.
This is the first full Stephen King novel I've read. Despite its length (nearly 1,000 pages) I never felt bored. The story isn't particularly fast paced either. Just something about King's writing style. I understand now why he's one of the bestselling authors of all time. I think this book was hovering around 4 stars until the final handful of pages. I shed more than a few tears at that ending.
Really loved this book. Much more than I expected to. I finally understand why its such a classic.
Fantastic book. I listened to this after having watched the movie, which I also loved. Rarely have I felt so connected to a character.
The book is a first contact novel, told from the viewpoint of the aliens. We follow Ryo, who is a bit of an oddball that never quite felt like he fit in with normal Thranx society. Ryo hears rumors that a new intelligent species (which turn out to be humans) was discovered and the book relays his adventures attempting first to meet the aliens.I appreciate that the author didn't try to force another 200 pages into the book just to make it longer. I'm interested to read some more of the Humanx Commonwealth novels in the future and some more Alan Dean Foster in general.
A perfect 5. Nothing particularly bad about this book, but nothing particularly great about it either. The best bits are when the scientists are sort of geeking out trying to understand the rules of the time travel they've discovered. Everything else is pretty meh. This novel probably could have been very good if it was 150 pages instead of 350.
I really loved this book with some major reservations. Overall, the story was thoroughly engaging. I have always enjoyed Niven's somewhat dry style. The Earth is struck by an almost world ending meteor. We see the lead up to the strike and then the slow recovery of civilization in one small area (Southern California). The major flaw is that the only group of black characters in the book just happen to become a roving band of cannibals. It's not unreasonable to think that some people might resort to cannibalism, but to make the only black characters the only cannibals... If you simply make this group a mixed group it in no way changes the overall story but makes it far less racist.
Another improvement over the previous entry. The time jump didn't bother me at all like it did for some other reviewers. There is very little that makes the time jump apparent. The author just tells us the crew is older and they ache some and they have grey hair. But beyond that, its still the same crew. More action in this book than previous two and the space fascist bad guys are interesting. I have high hopes for the final two books in the series.
Several of the stories deserve 5 stars, but some were unbearable. Going to give it 3 stars overall.
Forever Bound by Joe Haldeman
The Triumph by Robin Hobb
And Ministers of Grace by Tad Williams
Out of the Dark by David Weber
Defenders of the Frontier by Robert Silverberg
The Mystery Knight by George RR Martin
The Pit by James Rollins
20 stories in total. The 7 listed above are good to excellent and worth reading. The Triumph by Robin Hobb is my personal favorite from the collection.
This one might deserve 1.5 stars, but barely.
Piers Anthony's novels tend to be fun even if they are very often simplistic. But this book is the same damn story again. Dragon's Gold captivated me as a child. I loved it. By the time I got to this, the 3rd novel in the series, I was incredibly bored. Even as a 12 year old I was able to see that he was just putting a new skin on the same story just to sell a few more books.
If you want to read good Piers Anthony, read Dragon's Gold, The first 3 Xanth novels and the first Apprentice Adept novel. Then skip everything else he ever wrote.
This book is not without flaws. But its strengths outweigh its flaws by so much that I have to give it 5 stars. It's basic format is to state a problem that many people have in business, sales, discipline, motivation, etc. Then it will give you a very simple, common sense action plan for how to attack this problem. Each of the attack plans is concise and motivating. The fact that they seem like pure common sense on the surface doesn't detract from the fact that very few people I know actually do these things on a daily basis.
My problem with the book comes from the authors tendency to state opinions as though they are facts. He very often refers to studies done by this organization or that organization that shows x% of manager said this about what they are looking for in an employee or some other such statistic. But I didn't find a single actual citation for any of these studies. For all I know they are completely made up for the purpose of illustrating the author's point.
As a skeptic by nature, you would think that this massive oversight would ruin the book for me. And somehow it didn't. This is still by far the most effective book I've read on self motivation and self discipline.
Minor Spoilers if you care about that.
This is the first Star Trek book I've read since I was a kid. First I need to say that despite all of its many, many flaws, I still found this book rather enjoyable. That said, if this book didn't take place in an already established universe with characters I already know and like, I likely would have put this book down after only a few chapters.
As a literary work, this book is not great. The writing is a bit clunky. And the characters feel pretty shallow. And the poker analogies are far too numerous. We get it. Captain Riker players poker (which he never once does in the book btw, you're just presumed to know this from the show), you don't need to make a reference to his poker face every single time he's in a conversation.
The plot is similar to a standard TNG episode. Nothing particularly interesting there. They try to make it feel different by throwing some new characters and species into the mix, but none of those characters or species are developed at all. They have no depth, they are just talking cardboard cut outs that presumably look different from other talking cardboard cut outs.
The action sequences near the end of the novel are fast paced and fun. The events allow the author to have Tuvok join the crew which is exciting. Mostly because this character already has depth established by the Voyager TV series, and because he was one of the few characters in the novel who felt like a real character. They also bring aboard the Reman Mekrikuk who helped Tuvok escape. I am very interested to see what they do with him. He is definitely the only new character that struck my interest. I hope they use him well in future novels.
You will definitely need to already enjoy Star trek to have any hope of enjoying this book. But if you do, you will find a fast paced, fun, light read that leaves open the potential for some interesting character development (Tuvok and Mekrikuk).
I kind of liked this book at first. But I just got more and more bored with the world and the humor as it went on. This might be the only book I've stopped reading 75% of the way through, I just didn't care enough to finish.
I very much wanted to give this novel 3.5 stars but goodreads doesn't allow it. A very enjoyable story where we get introduced to two very interesting characters. The writing is superb as it always is with Orson Scott Card (and Johnston in this case). However, this novel doesn't quite end. It's very clear that its just a set up for the next several novels in the series.
The main characters are mostly memorable. Victor is very likable and believable. Lem Jukes' insecurities and struggle to get out from under his father's shadow is very entertaining. We are also introduced to Mazer Rackham, but he doesn't get much ‘screen time' (he gets much more in book two).
Overall it was extremely enjoyable prequel to Ender's Game but doesn't get quite as personal as Ender's Game or nearly as philosophical as Speaker for the Dead.
Very short and fun novel. John Scalzi's writing style overcomes the shortcomings of characterization and originality in this story.
Loved this on my first read years ago. But in my 2023 re-read I found that it continues the trend from re-reads of the other books in this universe-all the characters are too smart and too capable. I decided not to continue at about the 50% mark. I was just over the Mary Sue trope in these books.
While still enjoyable, Bean suffers from the same problem as Ender. He is too perfect. Too smart. Just too everything. The book is still good. I enjoy the parts before battle school in Rotterdam far more than the retread of the events of Ender's Game.
Just love this book. He has a way of writing characters that really resonates with me. The book was actually far less science focused than I remember. Far more character driven. I'm going to make it a point to re-read book 2 and then read book 3 for the first time.
Fast paced, military sci-fi. The action flows well and is enjoyable. The science and strategy seem to be a bit below the standards set by John Ringo, David Weber and Jack Campbell. The side characters are a bit shallow and I often forgot which character had which back story shortly after they were introduced.
Overall I'd judge it as a fun read, but not for readers who prefer well developed characters.
I read a review someone that touted this book as ‘what Harry Potter could have been'. Yea, if you took out all the wonder and excitement from Harry Potter and replaced it with melancholy.
One of the very few 5 star reviews I give. The single best autobiography I have ever read. It's really just a collection of autobiographical anecdotes but manages to be very funny, informative and inspiring all at once.
Anyone who loves science, skepticism or witty humor will absolutely love this book.
This book came highly reccomended, but it never really did it for me. The hero is a generic “badass”. The plot seems totally arbitrary in an attempt to keep the reader guessing.
The one saving grace of this book is its action sequences. They are fantastically done. So good in fact that they make an otherwise boring book reasonably enjoyable.