27th book of 2020. You would think that the narrative of a grumpy antisocial robot who just wants to get back to watching TV serials would get boring after a while. It doesn’t. I keep reading these books as they come out.
7th book of 2020. A story about a boy who thinks he’s smarter than everybody else (check), who grew up with a traveling troop of nomads (carnival?), was homeless before eventually ending up at university while scraping pennies together studying magic (code?). So I guess this is the fantasy drama version of my life from 16-20.
74th book of 2019. Not disappointing. Picking up a beloved childhood series as an adult can be a gamble. It’s like rewatching films in high definition, and flaws that were buffed out in the haze of memory become glaringly apparent, while sometimes the author, out of ideas, ends up recycling the b-side plots into endless books of dwindling quality. Exhibit A: the Ender’s Game series. It was a compelling first book, and even first series, but once Card started to get into geopolitics, a lot of questionable racism came out, discrediting the entire series in my mind. ...
68th book of 2019 When I’m bored and on a plane, sometimes I write book reviews (i.e. right now). Other times I watch marvel movies. This book fits squarely with the Marvel movies. Welcome to the helicarriers… I mean Rife’s Raft… I mean Endura: the floating city of cliche scythe plots and Chekov’s guns locations. Despite the fact that GRR Martin can’t seem to put out more than one book a decade, plots like this remind me why a decade is worth the wait. ...
67th book of 2019. Scythe – an interesting, somewhat meditative YA scifi novel on death. The premise was fun, and I appreciate how the author went to pains to tell a utopian story. In some ways it’s a trick on us, being able to find enough misery in such a utopia to fill the pages of a novel. But I digress. The characters were ok but nothing special. The plot moved along though I felt like the author tipped off upcoming twists a bit too clearly, such that none of them ended up a surprise. Maybe that means I’ve just been reading too much Scifi. ...
54th book of 2019 – I enjoyed it. It felt like a sci-fi version of bureaucratic fiction (i.e. 驻京办主任) where the grinding gears of tradition and succession are as much an element of the plot as the living characters. Moreover, it captures the feeling of being a foreigner, and to quote another review: “This is for all those who have ever fallen in love with a culture that was not their own.” ...
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.
I, too, love murderbot!
The narrator is so compelling, these books are just fun. I’m going to read every book in this series.
Fun. Reminded me of all you need is kill, combined with Andy Weir.