I appreciate the absurdity of the book, I really do. The plot was part funny, part horrible, always absurd and tragic. I see how the repetetiveness of the theme can be read as great. It just didn't fit my taste. It felt like it nearly could have been a Vonnegut, but wasn't thinking quite the same way. I'm glad I have read it though, it was time well spent.
Nice story, giving us a hint of what being Lucifer will do to Stark. Short and … well, not sweet at all, as Stark discovers, then forgets, that he's not the second but the third Lucifer.
I liked Binti a lot more than Akata Witch, which I enjoyed very much. Binti was impressive and creative scifi, and the tha fast pace (du to the <100 pages) was refreshing and very well executed. Binti is a wonderful protagonist, and the culture and belief system sketched out in the book made me hungry for more. (Also: living ships?! Living ships!)
At the same time, no matter how enjoyable this book was, I feel that it fails to address consequences to actions properly – like the plot was laid out and will be followed regardless of second thoughts, or petty things like consequences for mass murder. This might have been alleviated by writing a bit more, so that more context is given, idk.
Story can be found here: https://thedreaming.moteofdust.com/1999/10/10/snow-glass-apples/
Well, what do you expect from Neil Gaiman tackling Snowhite from the perspective of the evil queen? It's great. The princess's heart was a nice touch.
An astounding fairytale about a monk and a fox.
4.5 stars for me, but let's round it up.
We see Lauren starting a new religion about God being Change in not-quite-post apocalyptic America. I think that's it.
I'm not really sure where I stand on the mysticism, but the characters and characterizations and descriptions were so good, it doesn't even matter to my opinion that much.
Wow, this book was … a lot to take in. I liked it very much. Getting thrown into an Ankh-Morporkesque city, discovering alien races, and characters, and social structures was awesome. I noted with thanks that there was very little of a conventional story arch, so that the overall direction of the story only grew really clear when reaching 50-65% of the story. The very clear-cut and very different characters were relatable and realistic, and the final twists were all the better for the fact that they were not positive.
Also, screw those transcendent moths with their creepy fractal wings ewwwww.
2-3 stars for me. This is … space fantasy? A space epic? I wouldn't call it scifi, and it reminds me of Star Wars (although more thought was put into it). The writing had some seriously weak moments, large plot elements were predictable, and, the worst, all characters were clearly good or evil. It was never phrased like that, but c'mon. Seriously, that's no fun.
I liked the backstory, the different types of human and alien settlements (and of course the Roamers, which are clearly the coolest. But again, they're meant to be the coolest, meh). The story was, well, ok.
Great successor! We see more of Arlen (and later, Renna, who has a wonderful story), Rojen (who was a bit neglected, to my feeling), Leesha, and a fancy new character! Also, more insight into politics and the demons. Everything was very cool, especially how people had all sorts of agency. I felt that character development ran a bit low in this book, but that's a common theme for second volumes, so let's hope the next one picks it up a bit.
It's rational fiction on Frozen. Fairly good (rrrresist the cool pun, resist!), but characterisations are very much on the nose and progression is weird. Enjoyable short read though.
This is the infamous Culture book that's mostly ships talking. Which is not the part I disliked, the ships and their story were cool! But the humans were terribly one-dimensional and felt lazy, which distracted me from the cool Excession and nearly-as-cool intrigue.
It's a nice premise, but the execution was somewhat lacking. Too dramatic, too predictable, and not going far enough.