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Guards! Guards by Terry Pratchett

Fires of Eden by Dan Simmons

1599 by James Shapiro

Penses by Blaise Pascal

November 28, 2022 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

Guards! Guards! – 4/5 One of the best titles for a book, and it reminds me a lot of the following old Onion article: So I also feel like many many many people already know this book pretty well. I am not the biggest Discworld fan (I generally like irreverence, but not whimsy and I am not actually a huge British comedy fan, especially where the jokes are built on maximalism), but I did enjoy this one. The book focuses primarily on the city’s defenses, […]

More Books, More reviews

The Machine Gunners by Robert Westall

Robot Visions by Isaac Asimov

The Between by Tananarive Due

Mad about Shakespeare by Jonathan Bate

Startide Rising by David Brin

The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green

The Woman Who Killed the Fish by Clarice Lispector

Real Hero Shit by Kendra Wells

We had to Remove this Post by Hanna Bervoets

The King's Indian by John Gardner

November 21, 2022 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

The Machine Gunners – 4/5 I picked up this book because it was on the Guardian’s top 1000 novels list and since I had never heard of it, it sounded interesting. It IS interesting, and it’s more interesting that the title might otherwise suggest to you. There’s some irony in the title because the would-be “machine gunners” are a group of raggedy London kids during the blitz. This group is mad as hell that the blitz has otherwise disrupted their childhood, and the novel does […]

Languages of Truth

Languages of Truth by Salman Rushdie

November 21, 2022 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

This is the newest collection of Salman Rushdie essays, and like the previous two cover a little more than 15 years or so. The consistency of all three is his wit and intellect, but especially his promotion of social causes, especially regarding race and representation. If you’ve read any Salman Rushdie novels, you might recognize or agree that they often involve elaborate story-telling, often silly dives into the minutiae of life, and lofty language, peppered with erudition and intelligence. He’s one of those writers for […]

Darwin’s Blade

Darwin's Blade by Dan Simmons

November 17, 2022 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

Among all the Dan Simmons book I’ve been reading in the last few weeks, I think this is the weakest, while also suggesting a much tighter, better book within. Perhaps that’s why he followed this book up with three shorter noir books in the Joe Kurtz series. He creates an interesting character, a former Marine sniper who later became a transportation crash expert through a doctorate and work on the Challenger explosion (this is the second thing I’ve read that Dan Simmons wrote about the […]

Floating Dragon

Floating Dragon by Peter Straub

November 15, 2022 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

The introduction to this book written when it was published has Peter Straub explaining that his idea for the novel was to present a scattered narrative and he was looking for a way to present that scattered story in a comprehensible if not cohesive way actually. His model then was Paul Scott’s amazing Raj Quartet, which consists of four main novels about the end of the British Raj in India and one kind of sequel that revisits side characters who stay after the British leave. […]

Glory Road

Glory Road by Bruce Catton

November 15, 2022 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

The first book in this series seemed like a more straight-forward history of the Army of the Potomac, especially its formation and early movements. Perhaps this book takes on a much different tack, or more possibly the history just got a little weirder, because this book is much more in the vein of the weirdness of the stories being told here. Highlights from this part of the series: ~~How bad at his job, in general, Ambrose Burnside was as a general. But also he was […]

Zirza on A Gothic Classic for a ReasonIt's one of those wish-you-could-read-it-again-for-the-first-time books. I loved it.
Emmalita on “It came to something when you found yourself hoping that the footsteps you heard were ghosts.”I loved the ending! I don’t think it’s been out long enough to talk about why though.
Dixie on Track Her Down by Melinda LeighI am just starting Track Her Down and I have read them all in order till now and thought I...
Roland of Gilead on How can you give us the gift of a crazy character named Rando Thoughtful and then just as suddenly take that gift away? We need to talk, Uncle Stevie.I came across this randomly years after it was written because I was searching "Random Thoughtful. But I have the...
Emmalita on “Only you, Em, would refer to heartbreak as a distraction. I think I would have a more sympathetic response if I asked to marry a bookcase.”Oh my goodness, Gallifrey was beautiful. I’m sure her mittens were gloriously murdery.

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