Peter Jones

A decent first novel. The idea is fun and engaging. I think it will be a particularly enjoyable read if you have an understanding of 80s pop-culture and an appreciation of gaming. The references come fast and furious, perhaps a bit too fast. At times it seems the references are just being thrown out there to show how many can be crammed in there. I think I would have enjoyed the book more had there been some restraint in that regard.

Also, given the author had an entire virtual universe to create, the story felt rather predictable. Enjoyable, but not really much in terms of surprise along the way.

I have been a fan of Michael Stackpole since I read the first Rogue Squadron book many years ago. He writes action quite well, and seems more comfortable with writing in the first person perspective than many authors.

In Hero Years is a “super hero noir” novel. Told from the perspective of an normal person who played the super hero game, the novel takes place in a world where super heroes are the norm, as are villians. After a 20 year absence, the reasons for which we discover later, our hero finds himself back home to a world where heroes and villains are bet on and treated like fantasy football. There is a hero stock market and heroes and villains bid on the rights to either commit crimes or stop them.

The public treats this like every day entertainment. That is, until serious, deadly actions begin.

An interesting story, in a compelling and almost believable world, In Hero Years is an enjoyable novel for those who love super hero fiction. It also is an interesting story for those who might find super heroes just a tad ridiculous. Quite enjoyable.

There really isn't anything to say that hasn't already been said about The DaVinci Code. It is interesting, speculative fiction, that is written well enough to keep you turning the pages. I enjoyed it enough, but felt no need to run out and read more of the Robert Langdon novels. I imagine I will get around to them at some point, but for now, I am done.

Rick Riordan again tells a griping tale of demigods and mythology mixed with modern times. I find his writing, while predictable, to be engaging and the characters are well thought out. The new characters from Roman heritage are interesting, likable, and still seem very human, despite their powers. This is what makes Riordan so effective, his ability to take these severely overpowered characters and still make them flawed, vulnerable and likable.

I very much look forward to where the story goes from here, as the clash between Greek and Roman demigods is imminent. Highly readable.

This review is off of old memories, so forgive me. I was very intrigued by the concept of Nine Princes in Amber. I mean, this idea that all worlds are just shadows of this master world, Amber. And that there are people who can manipulate this at will is all pretty cool.

However, what we end up with is a bunch of characters who were all pretty much chumps, waging war for no purpose other than their egos (I suppose it is true to life then, eh?) and the fact that they can to become the ruler of Amber. The main character, Corwin, was completely unsympathetic. I had zero reason to want him to have any sort of victory. The other characters were all terrible as well. It moved both too fast and too slow, at times getting bogged down in silly details, and completely rushing to others.

I honestly cannot recommend this book, and just don't see any of the praise that is heaped upon this book.

A sometimes overlong epic, Williams does a wonderful job of world-building, with a rich history that he manages to keep germane to the central story. Simon's development through the course of the series is well written and very believable.

The Throne of Fire is the second in the Kane Chronicles series by Rick Riordan. Like the first, it continues the story of Carter and Sadie Kane and their ties to Egyptian mythology. Like the predecessor, it alternates between points of view, two chapters to each character at a time, told in first person.

The story continues where the first left off, with the looming threat of Apophis rising and plunging the world into chaos. This was, of course, the larger evil revealed in the first. However, wherease the first book felt that it had a decent, if unresolved ending, this one suffers from “middle movie syndrome”, or rather middle book. The set up has already been done, and the story just doesn't end in what was, for me, a satisfactory conclusion. There was a bit too much set up and not enough tie up.

Overall, I still quite enjoyed it, and recommend the series to fans of Riordan's previous books. It just isn't my favorite of his.

I won't lie, it took my wife suggesting this a few times for me to finally decide to pick it up. I found the beginning, the genesis of the relationship with Russel and Holmes interesting. However, the middle really bogged down for me. I just didn't feel there was that much “sleuthing”, and that was what I came to the book for. It was interesting enough that I may read another in the series, but I wasn't running out to grab the next book.

I'm a complete sucker for McDevitt's Alex Benedict/Chase Kolpath novels. I really enjoy the sci-fi mystery aspect of them. And while this is far from the best in that series, it was still a thoroughly enjoyable entry for me.

It follows the same formula as the previous entries. An initially mundane artifact leads to a series of questions and intrigue. No new ground here, but well written with a palpable sense of wonder at the size of the universe. The hope that there is something else out there is a common theme in McDevitt's work, and it is at the forefront here.

This isn't necessarily going to convert new readers, but the faithful will find lots to enjoy here.

I try to stay up to date on the hot Young Adult fiction. My kids either have or will want to read a lot of these, and so I try to make sure I am familiar with them. Some I really enjoy (Rick Riordan's work for example), some have a lot of promise then fizzle out (I'm looking at you Hunger Games series). So with Divergent being the new hotness in our home (we had a countdown for the movie running) I decided to give it a go.

Well, sadly I couldn't make it. Kindle tells me I made it 83% of the way through it but that was when I called it quits.

Future dystopian fiction has the difficult challenge of walking that line between telling you too much about the world or not enough. I just never felt that I knew enough about this world and what led to the world as it is. As such, I never felt interested I the world. The characters were just a bit too cliche for me as well. The main character, Tris, never was someone I cared about. And I found myself caring even less about Four, her dreamy love interest. Finally, it was becoming too teen angsty for me. The development of the relationship between Four and Tris never felt real. It was obvious that they were going to end up in a relationship, but I never saw any real reason for that to happen. There was just no believable development to the relationship.

I ended up reading the synopses on Wikipedia and think I mad the right choice in stopping when I did.

More of 3.5 stars, but not an option.

I quite enjoyed this one, finding the blend of “excerpts” of Lincoln's journals along with the “historical” prose to be an effective manner of telling the story. It was an interesting exercise to couch so much of Lincoln's life in the terms of vampiric action and manipulation.

While the book is never really exciting, save for brief moments here and there, it is interesting. Not a must read, but an entertaining alternate history book with a satisfying, though not surprising at all, twist at the end.

Charles Finch both adds layers to his characters, and takes away the spotlight some in this next addition to his Charles Lenox series. The most interesting aspects revolved around Lenox having to reconcile his new marriage, position in Parliament, and life changes of close friends with his ongoing need to be an amateur detective. Unfortunately, I didn't feel these were fleshed out as much as I would have liked.

Also, I find it more difficult to sympathize with the characters, primarily due to their aristocratic position in Victorian England. The most powerful moment comes when a character challenges Lenox on this very point.

I enjoyed it, but didn't find myself as engaged as I had with previous books in this series. Still, worth reading.

As a huge fan of Rick Riordan's other books, I greatly anticipated his latest release. This release did not disappoint. I greatly enjoyed the mixture of Greek and Roman mythology, and the manner in which Riordan created two distinct worlds based on the difference between the mythologies. I did feel at times that the humor and “teenager-ness” was forced. The set up for further story telling is interesting, and I look forward for the rest of the series.

I found the conclusion to the Hunger Games trilogy to be a grand disappointment. Gone is the strong, resourceful Katniss. She is replaced wholly by a whiney, self-indulgent teenager. That would have been fine at some point of the story arc, but not after all the life changing experiences she has been through. The deaths and violence often felt unnecessary, like they were just thrown in there to make the story more dark and grim. They didn't seem to.really serve much more of a purpose. Particularly the deaths of Finnick and Prim. Both of these felt like deaths thrown in there just to manipulate the reader.

Finally, the end left a really bad taste in my mouth. First off, the entire series starts off with the goal to protect Prim, and Collins doesn't even give that to Katniss. Second, I really didn't get the feeling at the end that the world was any better off than it was at the beginning. All in all, I don't plan to go back to this series again and am glad that I used the library.

Rick Riordan continues to demonstrate that derivative fiction is not necessarily bad fiction. The Red Pyramid has so many parallels to the Percy Jackson series (also written by Riordan), as well as Harry Potter, that it would be easy to discard it.

However, Mr. Riordan blends ancient mythology (this time from Egypt) with modern life in a way no one else is doing. He also writes enjoyable characters who grow in believable ways throughout this books. Carter and Sadie Kane are no different here. As details about their troubled and unconventional childhoods are revealed, they develop a bond that is both believable and natural. The action is well written, the dialog is witty and humorous, and I anxiously await further installments in the series.

Elantris is the first novel by Brandon Sanderson. It is a very good first novel, but it does feel a little raw as compared to his later work. The concept is interesting and the characters well fleshed out.

However, I actually felt the characters were too well fleshed out. The majority of the book feels like character development with very little movement of the ultimate conflict of the story. The story sort of meanders back and forth between the three main characters until the last 1/4th or even 1/5 of the book. At that point, suddenly it kicks it into overdrive and begins to tell a very interesting and compelling story.

My biggest complaint is that once the story was over, I finally really wanted there to be more. The book ends with the potential for much more. While the novel resolved, it felt to me that there was much more that could have been told. It really feels like the first book in the series, where the majority of the time was spent establishing a world and characters so that a larger, epic story could be told in the follow up books (that don't, at least at this time, exist). Worth reading, no question, but not my favorite of the author's.

This is tough. I think that I would give it 2.5 if I could, but given I can't, it is probably closer to 2 than 3. I liked the idea of the world Paolo Bacigalupi built. Emiko herself was an interesting character. However, I just didn't care for anyone else. Jaidee perhaps, but I didn't feel any connection to the characters, and there was really no one I felt I could cheer for. Perhaps Kanya in the end.

The writing is fine, the world is interesting enough. But in the end, I just didn't care about any of the characters, and this was the book's biggest failing for me.

I have been an avid fan of Jack McDevitt since reading Omega years ago. I have been in love with his work, particularly the Alex Benedict/Chase Kolpath novels. Very few of his books have disappointed me (Ancient Shores and Eternity Road being my least favorite). Time Travelers Never Die is one of his latest, and actually is one that I don't plan on reading again. It is a fascinating, fictional look at some historic events and figures. That aspect is well done. However, there was little tension in the events. The ability to instantly jump out of whatever situation the characters were in hindered the building of meaningful tension and conflict. I also found that the novel didn't really address the idea of the paradoxes of time travel satisfactorily. Enjoyable and worth reading, but only once. Not one I will go back to again.

For the few who may not have heard of it yet, Born to Run is a book about the Tarahumara of Mexico, a group of preternaturally good runners. In this book, author Christopher McDougall uses the Tarahumara and a race staged on their home turf as a backdrop to discuss running, particularly long distance running, in many different ways.

The story is compelling, the characters fascinating and larger than life, and the writing is engaging and immediate, while still remaining thoughtful. It does come across as somewhat sensational at times, and you are left wondering just how solid the studies that are referenced are. However, there really is a powerful story here, with some evidence to back it up, that running really is something we humans should be doing. Not just something that we can do. Running really does seem to be almost an essential part of our nature, and this book does a great job of eliciting a response in the reader. I definitely recommend Born to Run, and plan on re-reading it whenever I feel my running mojo fading.

Whereas the first book in the series didn't really demonstrate a lot of depth to either the characters or the world, I felt this was remedied well int the sequel. The enemies felt more threatening, the world felt more developed, and the characters seemed to become much more multidimensional. All in all, I felt much more excited to read the next entry than I did after finishing the first.

I have enjoyed all the previous Galactic Cold War novels, and this one is my favorite. There is more of a focus on Kovalic as the main character, but new characters, such as Addy Seyers, continue to be well fleshed out and are interesting additions to the group.

While set in the future, in a setting of science fiction, this is still definitely a spy thriller at its heart. As such, I think it would appeal to fans of either or both genres. The story moves along at a thrilling pace, with enough breaks that it never feels out of control (the entire story takes place over the course of only a couple of days). As a novel, it wraps up satisfyingly enough that it was enjoyable, but ends with its hooks deep in you, wanting more. Hopefully the story will continue!

It took a while to get going, but once it moves, American Gods is a fun, intriguing romp through the varied beliefs that make this “melting pot” such a great place to live. Shadow, the main character, is an intriguing main character. Stoic, yet still surprisingly vulnerable throughout. The climax was interesting, but not quite as fulfilling as I had hoped. Nevertheless, a fine read.

There is no question the Dune series is influential. It deserves its place in the pantheon of sci-fi. However, God Emperor was my least favorite. Leto II goes on and on about his “Golden Path”, but there is never any really clear idea of what this means.

Political and philosophical machinations and discussions abound, and in the end I was left wondering really what had taken place in the book and how important it was.

Ender's Game is a classic. Probably my personal favorite science fiction book, it is perfectly paced. The action sequences are well written, and the more cereberal portions are incredibly engaging. Ender Wiggin and Bean are two of the best characters on paper. The catharsis of the final battle of the book is still one of my most memorable moments in fiction. Highly recommended.

Continuing excellent space opera

I continue to be very taken with the world created here. The characters are very likable, the situations tense and believable. The stakes are real as well, as characters I've come to like are placed in true peril and many have died. Gripping, interesting, and excellent stories are found in this series. Very excited to continue the series.