The thing about entirely plot-based books is that they don’t usually make for good re-reads, and I am a TOTAL book re-reader. “Do I want to re-read this someday?” is genuinely a question I ask before I will elevate a book to the four star level. If the answer is no, then there better be some damn fine extenuating circumstances as to why not (for instance a book that’s really good, but so traumatizing and upsetting that you can’t read it more than once). Mysteries sometimes […]
Sacrifices understanding for looking real smart. Mistakes complexity for depth.
What it comes down to with this book is that the barriers to entry were too high. (I shouldn’t have to add the “for me” to that statement, but I will because other people are losing their mind over this book and it was nominated for a bunch of awards, so clearly SOMEONE gets it.) With science fiction and fantasy as a genre, certain barriers to entry are expected, even looked forward to. I always relish that feeling of confusion and displacement I get when […]
This is book eight; time to stop wanting this series to be something it’s not.
This was back on form after the disappointment of the last one. This series still isn’t perfect for me, but I find it really comforting and enjoyable anyway. I think I just need to let this series be itself and stop wanting it to be what it’s not. The mysteries and plot twists are always going to be predictable. Flavia is always going to pursue random avenues of inquiry that somehow magically lead her to answers. There is probably always going to be a misbalance between the mystery […]
Stop Waiting and Do Something
On the spaceship Intrepid, low level crew members die at an alarming rate. The premise is right there on the cover: They were expendable…until they started comparing notes. Whether you have watched the original Star Trek series or not, most people know that the guy in the red shirt was going to die. In Redshirts, Scalzi explores what would happen if, rather than actors who went home at the end of a day of shooting, the characters were just going about their lives until everyone started […]
Simply put, Evelyn Abbey is my former almost-girlfriend-turned-archnemesis-turned-tentative ally whom I would now very much like to permanently seduce
4.5 stars Carter Aaron and Evelyn “Evie” Abbey (nicknamed Evil by Carter shortly after their first meeting due to her nefarious and wicked laugh) meet at an early Halloween party. They seem to be the only single people in a sea of couples, and both drift towards a corner of the room away from the “marrieds”, discovering that they coincidentally both came in Harry Potter costumes. Hitting it off instantly, their enthusiasm towards one another wanes a bit when they find out they are both […]
Quests for chivalry and loyalty in Westeros
This is a review for the audiobook version of the first three ‘Dunk and Egg’ novellas by George R R Martin, set about a hundred years before Game of Thrones. They come together in one file on Audible, which is quite nice and easy. Each novella is about 3-4 hours long (much easier to digest than the 33+ hours of A Game of Thrones, for example). The novellas are difficult to find on their own, coming in edited volumes from a variety of sci-fi/fantasy authors (at […]
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