I didn’t grok this book at all. That folks, is a hilarious joke about the most annoying literary device I’ve come across in all the books from the list. Grok, you see, is a Martian word for…something. Like knowing or understanding or something so deep we can’t possibly translate it with our pathetic language. AND … Continue reading
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Book review: Shadow of the Torturer
I do not have a fucking clue about what that book was about. Everytime I started reading it I suddenly started to feel very, very sleepy. Maybe this was part of the problem. Plot is vaguely: Severian is an apprentice torturer. He befriends one of the people his guild has to torture, helps her kill … Continue reading
Book review: Outlander
I think you’ve got a problem with storytelling when most of your dramatic tension revolves around attempted rape or rape. But in the case of Outlander – the guys probably get it worse. I think most of the rape against women turn out to be attempted whereas the guys who get raped are…well…concluded. So plot: … Continue reading
Book review: Lucifer’s Hammer
Where do you start. Maybe I’ll start with the tiny bit I did enjoy and then rant on from there. The last 100 pages were okay – it had some dramatic tension and all that jazz. They had a big battle and that was kind of fun. However. This does not make up for the … Continue reading
Book review: Sunshine
So, when I thought this was on the list I first thought it must be the novel version of the film Sunshine and was then tremendously disappointed that it was a fucking vampire novel. I haven’t read Twilight and the books that I’ve read with vampires tend to either be Terry Pratchett, Bram Stoker or … Continue reading
Book review: Contact
I think this is the first Carl Sagan I’ve ever read cover to cover. I have owned Cosmos but never read it. Anyway, if you’ve seen the film, it’s actually a lot like it. They compress various characters into one (in the film) and in the end (in the book) 5 people are sent in … Continue reading
Book review: Conan the Barbarian
Oh my god. OH MY GOD. The grandfather of fantasy, Conan the Barbarian, sets the stage for all the ridiculous sexism that shows up in later fantasy novels. I wish I could say it was kind of a guilty pleasure like Starship Troopers but it’s not. It’s just…upsetting. There are a lot of stories, so … Continue reading
Book review: The Mote in God’s Eye
So, when I read Dune I realised that I hated the idea of some vast space empire built on heredity. I mean, Star Wars has an empire but we know it was because of Senator Palpatine. This book’s central government is a vast space empire, with a royal imperial family, that has other aristocrats afforded … Continue reading
Book review: Ringworld
This book was a bit of slog. You would figure 278 pages of 2 humans and 2 aliens being shipwrecked on an alien built ringworld would fly by. You would be wrong. There doesn’t seem to be anything fundamentally wrong with the idea, it was just a bit badly written, I think. Also, some of … Continue reading
Book review: Magician
So, apparently back when this was first published, Raymond E. Feist was told to make it shorter. However, after he became famous, he expanded it and it was republished – much to my dismay. 841 pages of dismay. So, the plot is interesting enough: a rift is opened between two worlds and a war-mongering empire … Continue reading
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