Wow. Easily my favourite book of the series so far.
We get: character development for everybody (except maybe the advisory wizards, they got theirs last time). Dairine is obviously front and center for this, but Kit and Nita get to explore their feelings for each other, and Nita's parents get to deal with computers and even more wizardry.
I really wonder how I would have reacted to this book as a child. Would it have been to complex or abstract? By now, I just love it. I love the inclusion of computers in a book from 1990, I love how it reminds me of Stross (computers can work magic), and HPMOR (magic has a system that gets more clear as the books carry on). I love how we deal with the implications of creating a true AI in a book from 1990. For children. This book went in a different direction than I thought and wasn't just a copy of the first two books, including Dairine as protagonist. It explores a different theme entirely, and does it well. Will re-read, and it easily deserved my five stars.
I liked the first book in the series a bit more, although Duane does a lot of nice world-building here, both regarding the deep ocean and the whales, and Nita's family (Dairine, mom, and dad).
While I was still fascinated with the world Duane builds, and the very poetic language she uses, I felt that she mostly re-used the first book's plot, relocating it to the ocean. It also got a bit too dramatic for me; since I didn't believe that Nita would actually have to die, the foreshadowing and plot was pretty clear. Then again, it's a book aimed at children, so I guess I can't really complain here.
I really loved this book - it reminded me of Harry Potter, naturally, but better written and better thought-out. Magic actually has a system, people have motivations and actions have actual consequences.
Nita and Kit are the most adorable protagonists, and very much to be taken seriously. Both human side-characters like Nita's sister Dairine and parents, and the Advisory wizards seem very real, none too perfect. Even the Lone Power is not completely evil.
Duane also has a way with words that made me swoon and/or feel frission on several occasions. This is definitely a book to re-read and I'm now diving into the remainder of the series.
Nita goes to Ireland - it felt less important, somehow, and just like following a pattern. But since the pattern is pretty good, I still enjoyed reading it.
Nita faces temptation … a lot. Felt like a Hiob story in many ways. She has to deal with her mother dying and learns how to change whole universes to try and deal with it. Reminded me a lot of Buffy in the same situation, only a lot younger (but including the outcome and the younger sister, btw).
I didn't quite like how the criticizm of an overly-dependent Nita was addressed here, because I think it has some merit. Still an enjoyable book, especially interactions with the Advisory, but I hope that the next one will be more like High Wizardry or at least the first two in the series.
This one was again much better, and illustrates a lot of the reasons I enjoy this series. I love how Duane deals with autism here, in many ways. I love how she takes care to take it seriously, and doesn't paint it as a defect. Kit has difficulty connecting with it because of his preconceived ideas about how autism works.
I also like that we see how we see Nita's grieving in a really realistic way, without pity or anything.
This was a very generic book in the series. Didn't dislike it, but... yeah
Hm, it might just be that I'm not a fan of thrillers, but I don't particularly love this one. There is nothing wrong with it. The characters are very relatable, the story is sound, the details are well-researched, the language and pacing are very well done,... I don't dislike it, but I don't love it either.
While there was a lot of action, the book still dragged on and on for me. I liked the recurring characters, and even the resolution, but I didn't care for the pacing, and while the dangers and risks sounded dire, they didn't feel like it. Nice parts, but a bit meh overall.
Short story collections are tricky things, and tricky to rate. You never love all of them, but when one or two of them truly grab you, you're good. And of course, nobody gets grabbed by the same stories. The three stars represent the amount of stories that didn't do a thing for me, even though I fell for a few of the others.
There was a lot in here that struck me as stereotypically gothic or "just a" story, even though Gaiman always finds beautiful words for his stories. But beautiful words don't make a story. That was The Flints of Memory Lane, The Facts in the Case of the Departure of Miss Finch (I kind of felt that you had to be Kurt Vonnegut to pull off telling the ending first), Feeders and Eaters, Pages From a Journal Found in a Shoebox Left in a Greyhound Bus Somewhere Between Tulsa, Oklahoma, and Louisville, Kentucky (maybe how Kafka would have written, if he was Neil Gaiman), Keepsakes and Treasures, and the Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves …, also nearly all of the Poems.
There were also some that I liked, but did not love; they were nice to look at, but did not touch me: A Study in Emerald (because apparently you can pull off the Holmes/Cthulhu crossover if your name is Gaiman), October in the Chair (nice little precursor to the Graveyard Book), Bitter Grounds (too Kafka to touch me, but very, very well done), Harlequin Valentine (I can go with that symbolism), How Do You Think It Feels (I don't like affairs, but I do like Gargoyles), In The End, and Goliath, which he wrote for the Matrix website when the movie got out, and I think I liked it as much as the movie. Also, How to Talk to Girls at Parties and Sunbird, which I knew and liked already.
And then, sometimes, stories or poems or ideas just touch you. Some even grip you, and some of those won't let go for a long time: The Problem of Susan, even though (or maybe because) I did not like Narnia. Instructions, which I need to write down in the nicest lettering I can manage, and put it up, or give it to somebody who needs it. The Monarch of the Glen, because Shadow. Oh, Shadow. And, last and foremost, Other People. Yeah, that one is not going to go away.
I loved this one. I'm not a space nut, not even a real sci-fi fan, but this book just really, really worked for me. The combination of space, and magic, and physics, and human and alien conflict, sprinkled with a bit of time line technicalities? Yeah, more, please.
I really liked this book - it hits all the sweet spots for me. Brilliant language, not-too-overbearing fantasy setting, believable characters, good pacing and narration (and a bit of training in the $arts).
Kvothe is relatable even when he's making mistakes, which is really important in protagonists. Halfway through the book I started thinking that he was maybe just too much of a Mary-Sue character, but when I stopped to think about it, it turned out that he isn't one, really. He just comes off that way because he's allowed to tell his own story, and with enough conviction, everybody's their own Mary Sue.
Can't wait to read the second part.
Gods, I already knew they had chosen Matt Damon as lead role, and I can imagine him in that role so very well! Brilliant humor with hard scifi. I seriously hope they won't fuck up the movie.