Ben Saufley - Reading

The Fold

by Peter Clines

Finished 2018-03-15

The Woman in the Window

by A.J. Finn

Finished 2018-03-13

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories

by Ken Liu

Finished 2018-03-08

Annihilation

by Jeff VanderMeer

Finished 2018-02-27

There’s something very Lovecraftian about the style of description of the foreign organisms, the idea that there are concepts that English has no word for, which I appreciated for a while until it was clear that I was really going to be left with no greater understanding of what the protagonist was trying to describe. The premise was intriguing, but by the end of the book nothing really seemed to have been revealed. I ended the book with almost exactly as much information as I had one third of the way in. And the style was simultaneously too robotic and too flowery? Like, robotically poetic. I dunno. I’d be curious to know more about what’s going on here, but probably not enough to read two more books—I might just look on Wikipedia. And I’ll probably check out the movie.

I contemplated giving this two stars, but I feel like I want to give it an extra star for effort, even if I didn’t really like the result. I liked what VanderMeer was going for, but I felt like it didn’t land, for me, in the end.

The Blood Debt

by Duncan M. Hamilton

Finished 2018-02-22

Jorundyr's Path

by Duncan M. Hamilton

Finished 2018-02-19

The Wolf of the North

by Duncan M. Hamilton

Finished 2018-02-11

Every Heart a Doorway

by Seanan McGuire

Finished 2018-02-06

The Hate U Give

by Angie Thomas

Finished 2018-02-06

Algorithms to Live By The Computer Science of Human Decisions

by Brian Christian, Tom Griffiths

Finished 2018-01-22

Autonomous

by Annalee Newitz

Finished 2018-01-11

I bought this immediately when I read that Neal Stephenson said, “Autonomous is to biotech and AI what Neuromancer was to the Internet.”

That may have jacked up my expectations too high.

It felt a lot like a lot of other books I’ve read in the genre. The contemplations of autonomy were really pretty interesting but far from the focus of the book, which was entertaining enough and had pretty standard implications regarding capitalism and tech, but didn’t really hold much emotional weight or any particularly new and compelling information. I’d have liked more examination of any one single theme the book had.

The Paper Magician

by Charlie N. Holmberg

Finished 2017-12-20

The Lying Game

by Ruth Ware

Finished 2017-12-18

Murder on the Orient Express

by Agatha Christie

Finished 2017-11-25

Creating Character Arcs The Masterful Author's Guide to Uniting Story Structure, Plot, and Character Development

by K.M. Weiland

Finished 2017-11-05

Read

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#frontCover { fill: currentColor; } #spine { fill: color-mix(in srgb, currentColor 45%, #000 55%); } #backCover { fill: color-mix(in srgb, currentColor 78%, #000 22%); } Creating Character Arcs The Masterful Author's Guide to Uniting Story Structure, Plot, and Character Development

The Fold

The Woman in the Window

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories

Annihilation

The Blood Debt

Jorundyr's Path

The Wolf of the North

Every Heart a Doorway

The Hate U Give

Algorithms to Live By The Computer Science of Human Decisions

Autonomous

The Paper Magician

The Lying Game

Murder on the Orient Express

Creating Character Arcs The Masterful Author's Guide to Uniting Story Structure, Plot, and Character Development