Enno Rehling
This was another nice start to a new series of books that I'm going to read the rest of when I get my hands on them. It's got magic, wizards, crime, it's set in London, what more can you ask for? Maybe a less rushed conclusion. The character of Molly did not really make a lot of sense to me, and ended up being a bit of a deus ex machina?
Very touching immigration story, excellent artwork. The complete absence of words works very well in support of the feeling of isolation.
I'm sure this would be a good introduction to fantasy for younger generations. My own younger self would have devoured these books, just like he couldn't get enough of Dianna Wynne Jones's children's fantasy. Adult me thinks it stretches a pretty straightforward story a little thin, but will still try to get a hold of the next part.
I think of this as the first “modern” Tintin book. One that doesn't rely solely on slapstick for its humor, where Tintin isn't just a travel reporter who gets saved by either sheer luck or his dog, and where the characters and villains have a clearly developed motivation. Still, I can't wait for the Captain to finally join the cast.
There is something very strange about reading this book a second time after having forgotten almost everything that happened in it, and having it slowly come back to you, at the same time it comes back to the protagonist.
Not bad for a second book. Likable new characters, another exciting heist that leaves the reader in the dark until the very end, and many adventures that make me want to play a D&D campaign in this world. This book made me want to play the old Pirates! game from Sid Meier again, and I didn't regret that either.
This book was very amusing, but also straight-up informative. The author has done a lot of research into the problems that arise from putting humans into space, and the history of addressing them. I'd go so far as saying that this is essential reading for anyone planning to write a book, movie or TV show set in space.
Finishing 2014 on a high note. This book is great space opera, with a few surprising twists and two very different main characters in a well written, lived-in, gritty world. Sign me up for the sequels!
Wow. Just wow. This was amazing, and is up there with Maus as one of the best graphic novels I've read.
This is a second book in a series, and it shows. I didn't like it half as much as the first, but soldiered my way through to the end.
This would sound like blasphemy to my younger self, but I really don't think the early Tintin books are all that good. The story is very haphazard, the characters are one-dimensional, and it would all be very predictable if half of the time, the solution to any problem wouldn't be “Tintin has a very lucky escape”.
If my memory isn't completely off, the books get good once Captain Haddock is introduced, and the stories have a proper arc (Le secret de la Licorne was my favorite book as a child). These 30's travel books (Congo, America) simply don't live up to modern standards.
I did not expect much from this book. A Victorian comedy of manners? Not my usual fare. But it promised time travel, so I had to check it out, and I was richly rewarded in more ways than I expected. This book is so many things, but above all, extremely funny. A welcome change after all the dark apocalyptic dystopias I read in recent years. I want more.
Trippy, occasionally funny, but I don't quite see the comparisons to Douglas Adams that some reviewers have made.
I was a bit harsh in my last review, and here I've just finished another of her books just days later. Mandel's characters are flawed, but allthemore life-like for it. As readers, we still root for them, because they're human beings, and they deserve to get a happy ending. Except for Aria, of course.
I liked this one more than the first part, and it was indeed just like those Agatha Christie stories where in the end, it turns out you were completely wrong. As was I in my previous review.
Masterful. Nearly all the recurring characters come together in this epic story about a legendary sword.
This was fantastic. It captures so much of how successful tech projects work (at least ones that I've been a part of), the kind of people that work on them, and what motivates them. It also makes me nostalgic for a time in computing that I missed because I was born too late.
I got this as a free eBook, and it turned out not to be very good. The characters are boring, the story never really gets beyond some kind of pseudo-ninja fiction. There is a lot of better science fiction, and my time is limited, so I decided not to actually finish reading.
This is going to sound like I disliked the book. I promise I didn't hate it, but I didn't enjoy it as much as the Peter Grant novels, because it has Problems.
Things that make the Rivers of London books special:
* Peter, with his nerdy interests and pop culture references
* The interplay between Peter and Nightingale
* The Rivers (especially Bev and Abbigail)
* London, historic and present
* Kobna Holdbrook-Smith's wonderful audiobook narration
All of those elements are missing from this book, the protagonist is not a practitioner, and she's more a victim of events than actively managing them.
Maybe it's going to take a few of these to warm up to Kimberley and the FBI, but for the time being, I'm looking forward for more Peter Grant titles.
