Book Reviews

Redwall mixed with Foundation. Apparently the original title for the book was ‘Among the Tines’ but the editor rejected it. For being a space opera, a surprising amount of the book takes place in an essentially medieval narrative. Vinge does a great job of mixing the more cosmological elements with a relatively compact story involving pack-minds, competing fiefdoms, and scared children. I liked this far better than Rainbow’s Edge and can see why it won awards.

A masterclass in equanimity. This was never meant to be a book, so I read it as series of ’notes to self’ on how to live life, and strive for happiness. Perhaps because I was rather stressed out while reading it, I appreciated the cosmic perspective and happiness based purely on our own actions, stripped away from considerations of events outside our control. I’ll read this again.

Not as good as enlightenment now on the state of the world, or something like thinking fast and slow about cognitive biases. The survey that the author presented at the beginning had few surprises for me (or to anybody who has lived outside of the developed world?), and the rest of the book seemed to be hypothesizing about why we believe things with little evidence for those hypotheses. I did like the simplifying paradigms like there being 4 levels of economic well-being, and the topic is a good one, so 3 stars overall.

Not as good as lock in, but I don’t think sports corruption would ever be that interesting to me. Worth reading though. Like it’s predecessor, characters and setting were more interesting than the mystery at hand.

It was OK. The book was entertaining enough to read, but no ideas will really stick with me more than a week after finishing.

My favorite scalzi book to date. Really liked the premise and the characters. The ending seemed a bit of a disappointment, but it was a fun ride to get there. Will continue this series.

Better than the first book in the series.

Not awful, not great. Snodgrass seems to do better in the confines of a school than describing the reach of an empire, but still a reasonable jet-lag read.

Felt like a mix between Embassytown and Ancillary Justice. Military Scifi set in a world where mathematics and calendar rituals enable fantastic technologies, but bullets still work. Perhaps because the rules of ’exotic’ calendric powers were never really explained, it was difficult to feel surprise at any of the twists, I just felt like I was watching a sport I didn’t fully understand. I don’t quite recommend it, but wasn’t disappointed either.

Entertaining. Very similar to Red Rising, with the lower class chip-on-his-shoulder male protagonist and royal princess classmate. Enough to convince me to read the sequel, not enough to make me want to read the series.