Rocco
This was a book I had to read for a college class (Science Fiction & The Human Dynamic) and it was fascinating to get a chance to read early sci fi, or more specifically to see what predictions Hugo Gernsback made in this that ended up being true. It was mostly about the technology and less about the characters for this story, but that makes sense given Hugo's background and his overall goal with writing/publishing.
This was my second time reading this. I last read it shortly before the movie came out and I felt like I didn't give this enough attention past the surface level story. I read this in tandem with a book club video series and thoroughly enjoyed the depth with which this whole story was constructed by both Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.
Doctor Who: The Blood Cell by James Goss is one of three new novels to be released featuring the Twelfth Doctor. I received this eARC through Blogging for Books via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. I am a life long Doctor Who fan and this marked the first time I've actually read a Doctor Who novel. Having seen every episode of the tv series featuring Peter Capaldi so far, it was quite easy to picture him in the role. The author did a splendid job of writing the character of the Doctor, as well as Clara.
The entire book focuses on the first person point of view of “The Governor,” in charge of an asteroid prison in which the Doctor is Prisoner 428. I liked the idea of a first person pov story of a character that wasn't the Doctor, it really gave us a passable mystery.
My only issue with this book was the solving of most of the who/what/whys towards the middle of the book, with one last mystery that kind of felt wonky. By time we reach that part of the book, I was just anxious for it to end. Overall, not a bad book though.
Wells writes a terrifyingly descriptive account of the effect astronomical bodies have on the Earth and it almost reads through like a film recap. For a story published in 1897, Wells was surprisingly apt at describing the near-apocalypse that the Earth and its inhabitants would go through.
Enjoyed hearing George Takei narrate a Star Trek story. The story itself feels like a run of the mill Trek story. Not to say it was bad, it was a quick listen and feels like a TOS story.
A very entertaining read! I could compare this book to having a similar feel to either the Harry Potter or Percy Jackson books, but I believe this book is more enjoyable for me as it has an inspiring message with it in regards to ecology and animal rights.
By the end of the book, I found myself wanting to re-read the story and also anticipating the followup book.
There is a lot of useful information in this book, however it is information I have already garnered from other locations. Still, a decent starting point for people looking to become financially literate.
This was an interesting read. I knew next to nothing about the Hittites prior to finding this book and now I'm going out of my way to find more information on them. The only thing this book needs are some illustrations/maps of the areas it describes, in my opinion.
A pretty good and sometimes eye-opening behind the scenes account of “Rehab Addict” written by it's host, Nicole Curtis. It was an informative read, from her early days and through the houses she's tackled on the show. Using a specific house for each chapter was an interesting way to showcase the timeline of the show easily.
This is a story that I've wanted to read since the media event originally happened in 1996, but never had the opportunity to read until recently. I'm not sure I would have appreciated it as much back then as I do now. I particularly enjoy seeing how authors manage to work a piece of fiction in between canon events and to tie it together so well. Steve Perry did the job well here and struck a decent balance between new material and classic callbacks between the movies.
I like Star Trek books in general, even if there is a figurative reset button at the end of each. This one is a bit more than that though and expands upon the cast of characters and fleshes them out more than the show could have.
It's debatable whether what I'm about to say is a spoiler or not, but I'll do a tag just in case. I'm unsure why, but I wasn't expecting it to end on a depressing tone for the most part. I somehow got lost in Picard's optimism and felt saddened by Picard being like "burned Icarus". Even characters that were created specifically for this story, like Vritet, I couldn't help feeling sad for in the end.
Normally I find something of interest in these older stories, but I'm unsure there is anything to find here. A quick read of a man who slowly goes mad with obsession. I guess a proto-mad scientist story. I was intrigued by the premise, but it kind of fell flat for me in the end.
I'm so glad this book was recommended to me, I have already recommended this book to numerous people. If you love geeky culture (tv, movies, games, music, etc), then you'll most likely love this book.
This is honestly the first Star Trek book I haven't finished reading. I've tried for more than a year to do so, but I found myself just putting the book down after about ten pages and forgetting about it.
To me, the writing is flat, not fluid, and overall just not very interesting to me. The one-dimensional character that is Sola makes this story seem like a glorified fan fiction more than anything.
Quite honestly, the similarities between this novella and the Titanic disaster are what got me to read this story. I'm sure that's the case for most people that read it. Overall, it's a fine story. The pacing sometimes feels off, but that's mostly due to this novella being three short stories loosely tied together by the event. I think the author had enough material to expand this out to be a longer story.
A brief read, but one I feel people should definitely make a point to read if they haven't done so already.
A Historical Fiction tale with a time travel twist. Surprised at the connection I felt to both characters in this in a short page count. Another reviewer here mentioned it felt like an older episode of the Twilight Zone and I feel that is a very apt description for it.
I was sold on the idea of “Farscape meets The Great British Bake Off”, or more specifically the Farscape half of that. The sprinklings of other sci fi genre tropes were a bonus to me. While there is cooking involved, it becomes less relevant to the central plot and becomes more of an ancillary device to catch Atlanta up to speed as she learns from Dabry. This isn't a bad thing, but I hope we get to see Dabry have a moment to shine in any future stories.
I found myself getting agitated with the main antagonist as his "revenge" kept seemingly dragging on with his showboating of having the upper hand. The payoff of the escape left me slightly confused. Not sure if I missed it, but I thought the device used to control it stopped it from doing anything other than what the operator said. After the escape, that device was explained as the reason it could pick and choose what it did. Would have liked more explanation on that front, but we have future stories that could explain that.
Overall, I enjoyed the book and look forward to future stories of this crew.
I'm not too familiar with Kamen Rider, knowing just the basics from a few episodes I'd seen on Toei's YouTube channel. Most of my interest in this was because of the Himitsu Sentai Gorenger manga that released last year. I enjoyed that and preordered this because of Shotaro Ishinimori. I'm learning I'm enjoying his work immensely.
I didn't expect this collection to be so hefty. I apparently ignored the page count in the listing, which was a nice surprise for me. The stories hold up very well for 70s sci fi. Unfortunately, as another reviewer stated, the themes are now kinda timeless. The writing balanced really well between dark and lighthearted in most instances. The art almost gives off a Hanna Barbera superhero cartoon vibe to me with some of the character and location designs.
I'm really glad to have this one sitting on my shelf.
I decided to pick up this novel after reading a brief preview of the collection on The Guardian. I knew going in that they would skew on the bleak side. I tend to like sci fi that plays heavy into the human aspect of such stories and these were quite a somber take on life. By the time I got to the third story, I could get a sense for Izumi Suzuki's view of people/life that she held as those particular feelings were interwoven into the characters of each story. Almost all of the characters prominently featured in the story had a particular unenchanted view of life.
This is my second time reading this book, in anticipation of reading the final book of the trilogy.
I've read countless times that John Scalzi's Sci Fi writing is accessible sci fi. It is very true of this story as well and is among the first new space opera stories I've enjoyed over multiple books in quite some time. The characters of these stories have stuck with me since the first time reading it and already feel like I'll end up missing stories from this series once I'm done.
Wasn't sure of what to make of this one initially. I generally like DC stories but don't really know much of Catwoman outside of the Adam West Batman series/movie, and her appearances in Batman TAS and the movies. I liked this book, but I feel like my interest picked up more once the other GC Sirens showed up and the cat & mouse games started (I'm gonna own up to intending this pun).
Don't often times get to hear/read an alternate account of historical events, or don't see them prominently displayed to get my attention, so I loved coming across this. This story gives more depth to the event from WW2 that we've come to know as “D Day” and I'm glad I read it.
I'm getting to this story years after having read Gateway and Beyond the Blue Event Horizon. I enjoyed this story, and it was nice to see more of the story prior to that of Robinette Broadhead in Gateway.
This was the first Star Trek TNG novel I read when I was younger and it felt like the right time to read it again, having forgotten most of the story details by this point. The structure of this story felt more expansive than what a tv budget or time constraints could do properly and showcased to me personally what Trek books have the ability to strive towards.
Having read it now, my brain kept characterizing it as a slightly (There's still quite a bit of violence) toned down “Star Trek as Game of Thrones” kinda story, with a super corrupt and wicked duke, a devious advisor, etc etc.
The unfortunate aspect of the story though is most of the conflict the characters deal with arises due to their own naivety, which seems out of place when you're talking about characters like Picard, Riker, or Ro.