Books I've Rated 3 / 5
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His Majesty's Dragon
Finished
I liked Uprooted a lot better. There was nothing wrong with this book but it didn’t really grab me in any way. It was an interesting world with decent characters but just … meh? as a novel.
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The Fifth Gospel
Finished
Better than Dan Brown. A bit of a strange anticlimax though. The last third of the book was a bit of, “is this the big secret? no, is this the big secret? No… is this ? …oh, it’s over?”
That’s probably an exaggeration. But there was at least some of that confusion about what the whole thing was about, as the end approached. Anyway, it’s still better than Dan Brown. I enjoyed it. I’d probably read something else by this guy.
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Yes Please
Finished
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Snow Crash
Finished
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An Unwelcome Quest
Finished
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Ready Player One A Novel
Finished
Pretty fun. Listened to most of it on audio. Something about the cover, and the way it had been presented, had led me to believe that this book was as bit more, I don’t know, literary? It’s not. It’s a fun science fiction adventure, and that’s about it. The language is plain, the characters are secondary to the adventure. It’s a nerd fantasy in the extreme, and sometimes that sort of takes you out of it a bit. But I am still a pretty big nerd. So I mostly enjoyed it, and now I’m moving on with my day.
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Child 44
Finished
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Revenge of the Witch
Finished
Picked it up because a movie’s coming out and I figured I’d read it before I (potentially) watched it. Having read it, I’ll say it looks like the movie won’t even be vaguely similar to the book.
Anyway: it was fine. The antagonists were not characters for the most part - more just abstract bad guys. But I did like some of the spookier writing. Not really a genre I care about, but it did give me the creeps a few times. Pretty formulaic; not a ton of world building at all - by which I mean I know next to nothing about the world they lived in. But not bad. Very quick. May pick up a sequel at some point.
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Spell or High Water
Finished
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Allegiant
Finished
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The Martian
Finished
It’s between 3 and 4 stars. I enjoyed it pretty thoroughly. In the end, it was more of a fun experience than a great book, so I went with three. It’s kind of how I felt about the movie Gravity: the actual plot, and anything they tried to do with it, wasn’t great. But the way they made you experience it was still really fun. Maybe I’m trying to describe hollow fun? But I don’t think this was quite hollow. Just … it leaned toward glib, when its subject matter could’ve been a lot more thrilling. It favored procedure over storytelling (“here’s how I’ll construct this tool” rather than any of the potential fear/introspection/character work that could’ve happened). The glibness made it entertaining – I laughed a lot as I read it – but maybe detracted from the end product.
I don’t know, mixed feelings: I really did enjoy it, start-to-finish, and I’d recommend anyone read it . But once it was over it felt a little shallow for what it could have been.
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Directive 51
Finished
A lot of interesting ideas that then sort of wander and fizzle. I enjoyed it, but as a piece of fiction the structure and resolution (or even lack thereof) falls short.
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The Legend of Eli Monpress
Finished
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The Spirit Thief
Finished
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Born Standing Up A Comic's Life
Finished
Kind of wooden. Some interesting stories, intermittent funny and smart bits, but even at a short 200 pages, those bits seemed to be pretty sparse. Felt like he was trying to be serious or touching at times. Not sure. I get the feeling I might’ve loved this if it were on tape.