Valerie

I wasn't sure how I was going to handle a whole collection of horror stories, but really only two of them (Noble Rot and the MT Anderson baby story) were the type that really were too much for me. “The Haunting of the Wilson's By Me and That Bitch, Todd” is one of my top McSweeney's of all time. Great collection, even if you are on the squeamish side like me.

BKV and company continue to own this. How are 4 dudes writing all these female characters so well? Take note, menfolk, it can be done.

While all the time-jumping is trippy and fun (and I am hyper-critical of time travel stories) it's the relationships between the girls that stands out and make this a 5 star series. I'm very intrigued by KJ's story and what it means to her friendships as well as new Tiffany joining the team ( for however briefly... I know how BKV stories go).

This series also does a great job at looking at generations, and I think it will appeals to a wide range of readers because of all the places we can connect to versions of ourselves and other people in our life. As Charlotte says, we are all traveling through time.

I should start this review out by saying I'm not anti-trilogy. There are some trilogies that I absolutely adore. Robin Hobb's Farseer books, for example, are a neat little trilogy within a ...nonalogy? I don't know how many there are now. The point is that both the trilogy and the individual books stand on their own as novels within a larger setting.

When I finished The Blade Itself, I felt like I'd just read 400 pages of exposition, and now the story could begin. It was a huge let down. I got to know all the characters very well, but every piece of action was either part of the set-up for the next book or just a diversion. I didn't feel invested in any of the story.

This isn't to say that the characters themselves aren't interesting. Abercrombie brings together a very colorful cast, and he paints each one vividly if somewhat stereotypically. He seems to be using the stereotypes to highlight how each character breaks away from them, though, and I'm sure in further books we get to explore that. The problem is that this book falls rather flat on its own without those other books.

Logen Ninefingers is a reformed barbarian, and his inner commentary is some of the best parts of this book. I like how non-barbaric his internal monologue is, particularly his catch phrase. He doesn't really have any motivations in the story, though, and always just seems to be looking for a way to make time pass faster. I appreciate that he's not wrapped up in a plot for vengeance or any other such cliche. He's just trying to stay alive for one more day.

Glokta is similarly fascinating for entirely different reasons. Here is a fop forced into barbarism, a foil to Logen and possibly foreshadowing what may one day (or one book) happen to Jezal. Abercrombie is extremely good at describing pain and how a human being lives with pain. Glokta's chapters always made me think about the physical limitations of human bodies, about how much people can actually take. I looked forward to these chapters most of all.

The other characters didn't really move me very much. Jezal seems like a character waiting for a later book to develop. His relationship with Ardee is probably supposed to show me his human side, but I really couldn't bring myself to care about him. Bayaz is cliche enough though his actions at the end of the story made him a lot more interesting just in time for the book to be over. Ferro should be interesting to me, but we just don't spend enough time with her. I like that her focus doesn't waver, but she didn't get enough chapters to make me care to any significant degree. The same goes for Dogman and the barbarians, West, Longfoot, and all the other people who merited a couple of scant chapters in the middle of the main story.

Speaking of which, there's very little story going on, more like a string of character introductions with some fight scenes thrown in. It reminds me a bit of Ian Tregillis' first installment in his Milkweed Tryptych in that I ended without really known why I'd been there at all. “Bitter Seeds” bothered me because he left so many dangling plotlines, though, and this book because it hardly started any at all.

Two stars seems a little harsh because the writing isn't terrible, but I'd give it 2.5. The world-building is thorough and Abercrombie really understands how to write a fight scene. I just ended it feeling so unfinished without much motivation to dive into the next book. To me, that means it fails as a novel even if the trilogy succeeds in the end. I have the rest of the series, and maybe I'll go back someday and see if the plot gets rolling, but not right away. I definitely want something more concise and peaceful after this one.

So I've read a lot of books this year, and most of them have been fun. Lots of 4 stars. Very few that actually strike an emotional chord (which is my main crieria for hitting five). The Martian just wiped the floor with all of them and is by far my favorite thing I've read all year.

Let it be said that while I occasionally read hard sci-fi, most of it is way over my head and I'm in no way fit to judge the accuracy of such novels. When I finished this book, I felt better versed in space travel and how exactly humans can get such a thing done. I may not have understood all the physics, but Weir takes a concept people spend multiple doctorates on and makes it comprehensible to the average space fangirl.

And it's not boring! Too often, hard sci-fi spends so much time explaining how such and such is possible, I forget why I'm supposed to care in the first place. I never stopped caring in this book. Every technical detail was directly connected to Mark's survival, and his sense of humor and clever analogies kept the pace moving firmly ahead. Mark is resourceful, entertaining, and entirely loveable. He's like Wash if Wash were stranded on Mars. Alan Tudyk should play him in the movie. I could not stop reading this yesterday and churned through way more than is strictly healthy for my bedtime. I just couldn't sleep knowing something else was going to go terribly wrong at any moment. Don't pick this book up without a solid block of time to devote to it. It's not long, but you won't want to take a break.

So far the book is smart and engaging, but what really got me is the way it balances Mark's mission and NASA. NASA does a lot for Mark, obviously, but the times he is at his best are when all the bureaucratic strings are cut. Mark succeeds partially because of team of people rooting for him to survive, but mostly because the people rooting for him all either trust him to do his job or have no choice but to let him do his job. Same for the folks on Hermes. I felt a real kinship in this book for what humans can do when we are allowed to just do our jobs without anyone babysitting or critiquing.

Of course, Mark also screws up plenty of times because no one is babysitting, but such is balance.

There's a few odds and ends that bugged me. I can't believe a geek like Mark brought none of his own entertainment with him... or that anyone on the ship would have brought no entertainment or only one variety of entertainment, and the world rooting as one for Watney is a bit over the top, but Weir balances that out with the bureaucratic worlds actual discussion of budget cuts and mission safety regulations. Nothing actually hampers my enjoyment of the Story. And it gets a capital Story.

Man vs. the Elements may be older than Robinson Crusoe, but Weir does the archetype proud in this novel. Highly recommended to Space Pirates everywhere.

This book reminded me a lot of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom trilogy, which Brackett cites as one of her inspirations. However, where the Barsoom trilogy is rather soured for me by overt sexism and rather dated political ideas, Sword of Rhiannon is kind of an interesting SF time capsule. Written by a woman, it also features women in positions of power (although with some very dated ideas about relationships between men and women). The hero is pretty flat, but I did enjoy Boghaz who I kept imagine being played by John Rhys Davies.

There's high sea adventure, sword-fighting, and eldritch magicks which combine for a fun story if not one of my all time favorites.

At first, I was pretty into this book. I liked the concept of Changers and the back and forth between Horza and Balveda, but as the book went on, I just wound up seeing more and more of the trope that ruin “classic” sci-fi for me. From the gruesome cannibal cult to the constant fridging of women in the protagonist's sphere to the general unlikeablity of the protagonist himself, this book just lost me.

The absolute worst though was when Yalson reveals her pregnancy to Horza and promptly offers to have or abort the baby on his whim. You know a book is written by a dude when... And of course the pregnancy only exists to fuel Horza's rage further when she gets killed.

I read this for book club, but it was first recommended to me by a guy I was chatting with online who then went crazy stalker, flooding my messengers with hundreds of repetitive, creepy things when I failed to respond to him instantly, so I had a bit of a bad taste in my mouth for it before I read it. That said, other than Balveda, I just couldn't find much to enjoy in this one.

This book was pure caramel corn, action movie fun. The two main characters are both deeply engaging, the dialogue is witty and well-formed, and the pacing is superb. It's a little bit light sci-fi, a little noir, and a little buddy cop all rolled into a tidy volume one. The ending lets it stand alone, but still leaves plenty of room for what happens next. I am desperately hoping Miller's consciousness survived somehow. I enjoyed his point of view the most

Gunnerkrigg Court is sort of like if Daria went to Hogwarts. I'll admit that initially I was a little turned off from the series because the main characters look a little like Bratz dolls, but the recommendations kept pouring in and Neil Gaiman wrote the blurb, so I decided to give it a try. The world is interesting enough that I was eventually able to look beyond the style, and Siddell has a lot of fun integrating mythology from tons of cultures. This first volume is a lot of exposition and character introduction, so there is more left unknown at the end than the beginning, but I believe the whole series is still available as a webcomic, and I'll probably continue it there as I definitely want to see how some of the ideas play out.

Still lots of fun and Ghibliesque. Now with talking foxes.

I'm very disappointed in myself that it took me till this late in my life to discover Octavia Butler. This collection of short stories was just as captivating as the Xenogenesis trilogy which I so adored. Of them, the title story and “Amnesty” were probably my favorites. Both deal with similar themes as Xenogenesis: the ways in which human beings might coexist with alien life forms. In both stories, there are prices to be paid, some of which really are horrific. Butler focuses on humanity's ability to adapt and creates unique hypotheses on what alien life forms might find valuable. I particularly adore the image of alien life forms watching figure skating. Daisuke Takahashi could indeed be a force for intergalactic peace.

Also included are two of Butler's essays on writing and her own personal heritage. These are must-reads for anyone who believes writers are born and not made as well as anyone who questions the “value” of science fiction and fantasy literature. I hadn't really realized what a gateway Butler opened for writers of speculative fiction with her work and how few writers of color there were in the field as late as the 1980s. In her nonfiction prose, she is just as eloquent and candid as her fictional characters.

The only story I didn't really enjoy was “Near of Kin.” While it's interesting to see Butler explore a straight-up fiction story and her writing style still makes it enjoyable to read, the subject matter is just not something I'm particularly comfortable reading. I get enough sympathetic incest stories in my Japanese manga.

Science fiction fans, especially people who love a unique alien contact story should absolutely pick up this collection.

I picked this book because I wanted to start the new year with something Gaiman that I hadn't already read. That list is very small, but this has been sitting on the shelf for a while. Sadly, Gaiman's influence on the actual writing seems pretty diluted, and while it's a fun young adult adventure story, it isn't what I was hoping for.

That said, this book would make an awesome anime. The afterword says that Gaiman and Reaves initially pitched the idea as a tv show, but tv producers didn't get the idea. Anime is totally the format in which this story is meant to be told. YouTube animators, get on this. We could have a seriously beautiful show. The best parts of the book are the vivid descriptions of these myriad worlds. The worst parts are the clunky first person monologues. If it were an anime, we'd have the best without the worst. Make this happen, internet.

Also, ten points for being a book aimed at children and young adults with no romantic subplot. Huzzah! Saving the altiverse is more important that a hackneyed love triangle. Huzzah!

This review is mainly for Assassin's Quest, but also for the Farseer Trilogy as a whole. My final thoughts revolve around how Robin Hobb lets me live out a lot of my guilty pleasures in fantasy literature without guilt. In this book she continues tropes like talking with animals, badass sword-wielding heroines, spiteful pretenders to the throne, and then she adds dragons. Maybe it's because this is a 90s series and makes me very nostalgic for the fantasy lit. of my teenage years, but I kinda dug the world despite cliches.

I think I also enjoyed it because it's not an entire cliche. General spoilers, so locking just in case. One of the best surprises for me was Fitz' relationship with Molly. I have to say that for most of the second book and every time he mentioned Molly in this book, I groaned. It's not that she's an awful character, but she always pulled me out of the story and back into Fitz adolescent romance. Adolescent romance is my least favorite thing to read ever. Give me a phone book; it's more interesting. I like that Hobb recognized it as an adolescent romance, something Fitz had to go through and from which he would mature. They get their happy endings, but not with each other. Fitz doesn't even get a stand-in for Molly (I wouldn't count Starling). He just has to grow up and move on. Not enough fantasy books show that this is often what people (especially teenagers) have to do.Hobb writes animals like nobody's business, and Nighteyes' growth into partly human is more interesting to me than Fitz' wolfish natures. I like the slow transformation, the fact that Nighteyes grows to realize he wants a pack and won't have one among wolves, so he builds one among humans. It's slow and subtle and easily the factor that sets this book apart from all those fantasy tropes. The Fool was a character I grew to love quite a bit more in this book. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed him before, but I enjoyed him in the way all fan favorites are enjoyed. There's no question people will like him; he gets to be the sardonic tongue making fun of the story in the background. This book gives him background of his own, and while I found the White Prophet backstory a little flimsy, his relationship with Fitz more than makes up for it. The Fool gets to be genuine in this book, and it turns out unique and beautiful.Chade, whom I loved for many of the reasons I love the Fool, also gets to be a bit more genuine. I loved seeing him in his prime, and I wished he was present for more of the book. The other characters don't engage me as much. In the second book, I was about done with Fitz. He's more palatable in this one, particularly in the beginning where he's learning to be human again. However, he still gets all Molly, Molly, Molly too much for my taste and too often makes such stupid decisions. He's a believable character, but one I want to smack down nonetheless. Kettricken and Verity are also similarly believable if disappointing. It saddened me to see two of my favorites so weakened, and Verity is used as an emergency save a bit too often. I like Kettricken's steel spine, but I would've liked to see her take more action other than "Gotta find Verity." I wanted to follow her dragon story past the ending. That is my Kettricken.The new characters didn't move me too much. Starling is a bit irritating and Kettle was clearly marked for death from the moment she came on stage, so I don't have much to say about them. Regal remains too simple a villain for my taste.That said: This ending rocked. Very spoilery from here.Hobb gave me all the clues to her ending, but I didn't pick up on a single one of them. Skill-imprinting is such a basic tenant of all the books, but I never expected Fitz to be able to use it. Imprinting Regal to be a fanatical Farseer loyalist is absolute brilliance. I'd also totally forgotten about the little ferret from Blue Lake. What a fantastic comeuppance. My hat off to you, Ms. Hobb.I also enjoyed the Forging reveal. While it's a little bit abracadabra, the idea that Forging is an accidental side-effect of dragon exposure which destroyed a people totally unintentionally is a unique angle. I still think maybe the Redships would have pointed out this was a revenge mission, but then again their perspective is one where sense doesn't factor in. I still don't understand Forging all that well, but the how isn't as important as the why in this case.

So final thought-wise, this book isn't for everyone, but it mostly worked for me. You have to have a taste for fantasy tropes and a willingness to deal with a teenage (he might be older now, but he still talks like one) first-person narrator. If neither of those things bothers you, there is a lot to be said for the characters, story-telling, and world building here. It'll probably take me a while to get to the next trilogy in this universe, but it's definitely on my to read list now.

Well, if you want to never eat sushi again, this is the book for you. I've long known octopuses are bizarre, incredible, and intelligent creatures, but this book does a fantastic job exploring the writer's journey into learning just how bizarre, incredibly, and intelligent they are. I learned stuff. I cried about dead octopuses. I changed my opinions on aquariums multiple times. It's emotional, thought-provoking, and pretty much guarantees my takoyaki eating days are over.

This book is charming. Really there isn't any word for it. I was charmed. It's a children's book for adults, not a genre nearly explored enough. Sure it's a bit cheesy and he ending wraps up a pretty easily, but I think I was really in the space to appreciate a book about very genuine people fighting prejudice. The language is reminiscent of Pratchett or Lemony Snicket. It's a book that I enjoyed, and I could see having enjoyed as a teenager, and could see reading to my child (with a couple of discussions about maybe not using “bitch” as a derogatory). I can't totally explain why I liked this book so much, but I did. If you are a grown up who loves kids' books, this was more or less made for you.

I've read this book many times and it was just released in a new shinier edition, so when I saw it at Denver Comic Con, I didn't really stop to think before buying it again. The author and artist were there and kindly drew little Sparky dragons on my book.

Princeless has a lot of things going for it.
1) Balanced images of male and female charters.
2) Lead characters of color, including royalty
3) Beautifully explosive color
4) A sense of humor both kids and adults can appreciate.

Aside from the obvious, it's just good storytelling. Sometimes it gets a little heavy-handed with its message, but most of the time Adrienne stays true to herself not her archetype, and that's really what my students need to see. It's a comic I'm proud to recommend to families looking for kid-friendly but wildly entertaining stories.

I like this series more the deeper I get into it. At first, it felt like a very standard fantasy journey with more LOTR tropes than I prefer, but it is differentiating itself more as it goes along. I'm still not in love with the pacing, but I'm pretty committed to finishing it now.

I'm really glad I finally got around to this series. It's a solid fantasy with some good characters and interesting themes. I'm not always on board with its female characters, and some people fall a bit flat, but as a whole, I had an enjoyable time in this world.

Wow.

I've only read a little of Naomi Novik in the past, and what I read I'd enjoyed but hadn't really bonded with emotionally. This book took me a couple of pages to form an emotional bond and may very well be the best thing I've read this year.

Uprooted is a little bit Beauty and the Beast, a little bit Sorcerer's Apprentice, and a lot of unique, well-written story that stands on its own. It borrows from classics to form a very modern fairy tale, and it does so without ever reducing its characters to archetypes. Every character in this is complex, down to peasant #2's mother, and their actions have causes and consequences. Our staunch young hero (while perhaps suffering a mild case of MarySueness) is nevertheless relevant, likable, and interesting. Our antagonists, such as they are, have valid justifications for making the choices they make, even down to the Big Bad Wood. Even the blond, immaculate, would-be heroine of Kasia is granted a depth of emotion and a degree of agency sorely missing from princess archetype. We've seen a million adaptations of Prince Charming turned into a shallow, glory hound, but Novik takes it one step further by also making the thoroughly detestable Prince Marek into a grief-stricken son bent on rescuing his mother. Evil wizards? Sure! But are they “evil” because they live so long they cut themselves off from humanity on purpose, because that's the only way to function in court society without being accused of treason, because their first love was books instead of magic or people and they can't separate themselves from this idea. Novik investigates these characters to their roots (see what I did there?), and the reader is left wondering more about their fellow humans and what secrets they may hold.

The woods have long been used as a metaphor for society's cast-aside darkness, and the Wood in this story is both a source and reflection of the corruption even the most noble-hearted of characters find in themselves. Yet Novik approaches the symbol in a unique way which I can't delve too deeply into without entering Spoilerville. It is a scary villain, made scarier by how easy it is to identify with the visions it shows.

While the novel lovingly displays and twists the tropes of high fantasy, it is not bereft of comedy, romance, or horror, and this combination of genre is what I think is making it such a success right now. I get how Ellen DeGeneres could read this and go, “Movie Rights. Gimme. Now,” although I don't think film could ever match up to the images present in the prose. This is definitely an important novel in the fantasy timeline, and I highly encourage you, whoever you are, to pick this one up.

I was in the mood for classic high fantasy, and this book certainly captured that. It's a pretty straightforward quest story about a boy discovering his mysterious past and how the fate of the world hangs in the balance. It is very obviously the first of a trilogy, and as such primarily feels like exposition, but I think it will probably feel better as part of a whole rather than a stand alone. This book was written before 900 page fantasy novels were a norm, so I'll cut it some slack there. The series has been sitting on my shelf for a while in the “classics what I should have already read” section, so I'll likely finish it out.

Huh...

Just... huh...

Delany's blend of post-apocalyptic, mutated future-world and a fully gambit of crazily intertwining mythology make for an engrossing read that leaves the reader going... huh.

The world is astonishing, and the mythology is often over my head but still entrancing. This is a world that has had to adapt to survive, adapt in ways that appear downright grotesque, but it has survived. Yet the stories, the songs of Orpheus, have also survived. I love that music is the source of order against chaos and the thread that binds the Old Race to the New. Music is a literal weapon in this story, or maybe more tool than weapon.

I guess it's a story about the importance of stories, and it reads like a myth from an unfamiliar culture. It is challenging, and I don't think I'm quite done soaking in all it has to imply, but in the end, I'm glad that I read it.

I wanted to like this book. My sister first recommended it to me, and as an avid Alice fan, the concept intrigued me. Also the author is going to be at DCC this year, which prompted me to pull it off the shelf where it has sat for some time. I really really wanted it to be good.

And some of it was. I like Beddor's explanation for Alice on Earth and the exploration of her character that occurs there. I like the theme of exercising your imagination, and what happens to an imagination that is not used. I like Hatter (who would be played by Benedict Cumberbatch in any sort of film adaptation).

But that's about it. The rest of the book was pretty forgettable. Admittedly, it started at a disadvantage because I'm pretty over the world redoing Alice in Wonderland. I've started to feel it's detrimental to the original story and the original message. Modern Alices are all about the wacky parts a book and not at all about the reason Carroll put those wacky parts in. This isn't just a fairy tale; it's a political and social statement. The modern world could use a new Alice, but no one is taking the reigns. They're just making more eye candy with pale girls and rabbits.

Though Beddor's work predates the Burton (who seems to have taken a lot from Beddor) and recent tv imaginings, it still falls ploy to a lot of the modernization traps. First and foremost, the introduction of technology to Wonderland. For me, and technology Carroll couldn't have imagined breaks the story. Steampunk card soldiers and bombs and rose rollers... they don't fit. Propaganda doesn't fit. Loud speakers spewing aphorisms don't fit. Hell, war really doesn't belong in Wonderland. That is way too organized for the universe.

On the same lines, Beddor's sense of humor is so opposed to the humor of the original book. Every joke felt so terribly modern that it threw me right out of the work. There was actually a gag about kicking a robot in the groin. It had to be painstakingly explained that the robot was confused by the tactic because it's not actually sensitive there. You'd think it also wouldn't be confused because it's a ROBOT. The humor is forced and unnatural and killed the story for me.

The characters feel like they are from some made for tv movie adaptation of Alice. Alyss' parents are perfect martyrs, her love interest is rogueish and troubled, the scholar is wise and convenient, and the antagonists are cookie cutters. Also, who names one daughter Redd and the other Genevieve? Is Redd short for something or where Alyss' grandparents just asking for it? Redd's character is one of my biggest problems. The Queen of Hearts (who is a different character from the Red Queen of Through the Looking Glass, but whatever) is a satirical symbol of the ridiculous abuse of political power. Redd is a Disney movie villainess seeking vengeance for imagined slights. It's just... not okay.

There are moments of fun, and I really did enjoy the chapters where Alyss had to turn into Alice, but the rest of the book just deflated. Rather than rejuvenate Wonderland, this book patronizes it. Carroll's wit and whimsy are nonexistent as are his messages. Beddor would have been better off creating his own Steampunk world if he had so little intention of honoring the original piece. Then his own strength would shine through, rather than holding up a looking glass at a superior piece.

This is the most negative review I've every posted to Goodreads. I have to go read something else in a hurry now.

After the great Gaiman desert of 2008-20013, I was so very relieved to see this collection come out close on the heels of Ocean at the End of the Lane. This collection certainly doesn't disappoint and contains a wide variety of stories from the ridiculously silly (And Weep Like Alexander) to the terrifyingly creepy (Feminine Endings). I tend to prefer the silly stories and still am looking around my rooms nervously for statue people because of the creepy ones.

I am not really a hardcore Whovian, but this collection does contain a treat for those who are and even us more marginal fans can enjoy it. The greatest hurrah is certainly “The Black Dog,” which Gaiman says is the second of 3 short stories (following Monarch of the Glen in Fragile Things) which follow Shadow's journey back to America. Also it has Bast in it and Bast is the best.

Two of the best stories have also been published as illustrated collections which I really need now. I've heard so much buzz about “The Sleeper and the Spindle” (for all the wrong reasons. It's a brilliant story and people way overreact to that kiss in a way that made me think I was going to read about a torrid lesbian affair between Snow White and Sleeping Beauty I find it a little annoyed that this misconception overshadowed a magnificently original retelling of both those tales from which the sea of bland fairy tale revisionists could really take a note or two.

Anyone who knows me at all knows I am an unabashed Gaiman fangirl and would be hard pressed to say a negative thing about the man. Some stories in this collection are better than others and which ones those are is totally going to depend on the reader. Trigger Warning has something for everyone and certainly a must have on the shelf of every short story fan.

I've been an xkcd fan for ages now, and this is my favorite extension of that universe. Munroe is really good at explaining complicated science with hilarious stick figures. The concepts in this book are silly and extended beyond all logic, which manages to prove some really interesting points. It's funny, easy to read, and enlightening. Recommended for science nerds and xkcd fans everywhere.

I got a really beautiful edition of this book through kickstarter on the basis of a cult following and some of my favorite artists contributing. The art is beyond gorgeous. The story ... was a let down.

I think this book suffers from wrong medium. The actual story is fun, though more or less a Buffy fanfic. There's nothing wrong with Buffy fanfic. However, the writing is clunky and juvenile. Words like “badass,” and “double t hott” just have no place in a third person narrative. All of the characters' thought processes are spelled out in painstakingly told-not-shown detail and the author tries a clever simile about every third simple sentence, effectively removing any of the cleverness. This story really should be told in visual format where emotions can be conveyed in a panel instead of a full page, or even a tv show, but not as a novel.

Another review I read pointed to this as a “girl power fantasy” complete with shopping scenes and hott guys falling over our hero. I'd add to that a selection of 80s teen movie bullies (no bully has every really used the phrases “new girl” or “double half breed” as insults), an incredibly awkward not-sex scene, and instantaneous life bonds which, again, might work in a short format where the reader got to infer the relationship progress. There is nothing to infer here. Everything is spelled out to the point of frustration. I felt like I was editing fanfic reading it. It uses every one of my own horrible crutches.

I almost stopped reading after the first chapter, but I still kinda wanted my money's worth and the story itself has a good deal of promise. Fenris is great. The concept, though it has been done a bit to death recently, is popular for a reason. The fight scenes, too, are decent (and that's not easy to do). However, I thought it fell flat as a novel. I would love to see it again in a more trimmed down format, but for now there isn't really anything making me want to read the next book.

Reading short stories was a nice change of pace after some of the monster epics I've been reading lately. As a whole, I found this collection both entertaining and challenging. While I can't speak for any of the science, I definitely found the human (and humanoid) aspects of the stories intriguing and occasionally disturbing. The themes run from primarily scientific exploration to primarily theological philosophy. Of my favorite stories, I'd give one to each category.

“Hell is the Absence of God” is sure to rankle many religious readers, and it would be easy for an atheist to take superficial delight, but I found it fascinating. This reads as a “what if Biblical times were now?” story and draws heavily from Judeo-Christian stories. However, in this world, Divine Intervention is basically a natural disaster and a similar culture springs up. Everything from support groups to storm chasers appears in this short but powerful piece. God, in this story, is truly beyond mortal comprehension while being utterly transparent in His actions. Everyone believes in God because, there's an Angel right there and oh, look down, there's Hell. Once you don't have to think about believing, you have to think about loving God as the one true path to Heaven. You can't fake it, but what if you can't feel it either? The situations the characters in this story find themselves in are ones I've wondered myself, and while I've read people complaining the ending is obvious, it's the natural one to explore the idea of God and what it really means to believe.

My other favorite is “Lifecycle of Software Objects,” a novella included with my ebook edition. At first, this story made me feel horribly guilty about dead tamagotchis and neglected Neopets, but it makes me feel that while reinventing the classic “what is life?” trope of science fiction. It combines this with the “what is an adult?” trope. As someone who spends most of the week working with children and trying to figure out when they get to make a decision for themselves, I found the latter aspect a brilliant contribution to the former. Also is I could actually have a digient it would be a tiny tapir and I would never suspend him no matter what.

The other stories were also quite enjoyable, and the only one that rubbed me slightly the wrong way was “Understand.” I just didn't like the pessimism of the two characters ultimate goals needing to result in one of their deaths. I may not be superintelligent, but it seems to me that two superintelligent people could master coexisting when their goals were not at all contradictory.

Definitely recommend this collection to people who like thoughtful science fiction, especially those who also enjoy a good modern myth.