Review: The Queen of Attolia

The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Not as good as the first, but still pretty good. Would continue.

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Review: The Thief

The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was nice. It starts well, gets better, and has just the perfect balance of intrigue and a very well-written, first-person perspective that conceals as much as it reveals brilliantly.

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Review: Emperor of Thorns

Emperor of Thorns by Mark Lawrence
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This was a good ending. Jorg was very unlikeable earlier, but he seems to have gotten a lot better now. The world also starts making a lot more sense now that we know where it fits in; you can even sympathize with him sometimes, and understand the inexorable arc of history that made him who he was and made him who he would become.
It's very dark, hard to keep track of and contains a lot of unnecessary fluff, but it's a good tale.

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Review: United States of Japan

United States of Japan by Peter Tieryas
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I really wanted to like this but just couldn't. It was too close to Man in the High Castle, and had all the problems and none of the plus points. It was tedious, long drawn out, and unnecessarily brutal in the wrong places and times. There were too many convenient coincidences. The characters were unpleasant and forgettable, and for the few that weren't, inconsistent.
Give this a miss.

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Review: Fantastic Voyage

Fantastic Voyage by Isaac Asimov
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's classic golden age scifi, almost endearing in it's earnestness, slightly (and unintentionally) offensive tropes and attitudes that mark it as a product of a bygone age - but still a brilliantly imaginative journey, a standalone story that established so many clear rules and boundaries for itself so fast it was completely believable.


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Review: Blackfish City

Blackfish City by Sam J. Miller
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Blackfish City lives in a Paolo Bacigalupi dystopia with almost William Gibson-level touches, a Sense8 set of parallel plotlines on a Snow Crash Raft setting.
If that sounds like a lot, it is - but it's still very readable, fast, engaging, and empathizable. At times it's dark, violent, and bleak, but it ends well and still leaves you with a future you'd want to look forward to.

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Review: 2001: A Space Odyssey

2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Some books are so seminal, so genre-defining, that you really can't review them.
Just read it.

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Review: The Wasp Factory

The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Imagine you're in a train, in the very last coach, speeding through the countryside when you first feel it - a little tremor, as imagined as felt... then the noise and the shockwave hits, and you're flying forward, down the corridor and through the vestibules, slowly drifting through coach after coach, through scenes of startlement, fear, panic, violence, gradually escalating destruction and gore as you move towards the impact point of the collision...
The story the Wasp Factory builds just like this, feeling almost like a dark version of The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, progressing into a cataclysmic horror perfectly set up by, and contrasted with, the idyll and creeping darkness of all that came before.
It's not a Culture novel, so no AI swarms of nanomachine killers as I first thought, but this is a very good break from the long line of depressing medieval fantasy I had got stuck in. And if you seek out horror-drama, you couldn't do too much better than this.

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Review: The Hammer of God

The Hammer of God by Arthur C. Clarke
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's interesting how hard sci can be so minimalist - one concept, one plot, one idea - and one short story. But it comes up with a feel that Armageddon and Deep Impact completely lost, and despite the million-dollar budget, leaves you thinking a lot longer and harder.

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Review: Age of Myth

Age of Myth by Michael J. Sullivan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Pretty decent. There's a slow burn, memorable characters, and an explosive end. A lot of plotlines. Excellent worldbuilding. A sense of the epic along with daily human drama. Good magic. Sometimes a bit slow but definitely unputdownable.

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Review: The Wasp Factory

The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Imagine you're in a train, in the very last coach, speeding through the countryside when you first feel it - a little tremor, as imagined as felt... then the noise and the shockwave hits, and you're flying forward, down the corridor and through the vestibules, slowly drifting through coach after coach, through scenes of startlement, fear, panic, violence, gradually escalating destruction and gore as you move towards the impact point of the collision...
The story the Wasp Factory builds just like this, feeling almost like a dark version of The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time, progressing into a cataclysmic horror perfectly set up by, and contrasted with, the idyll and creeping darkness of all that came before.
It's not a Culture novel, so no AI swarms of nanomachine killers as I first thought, but this is a very good break from the long line of depressing medieval fantasy I had got stuck in. And if you seek out horror-drama, you couldn't do too much better than this.

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