Bronwyn Knox

Sci-fi thriller in which time, memory, the nature of reality, and perception are explored. There's a theme of not dwelling in the past, appreciating your memories and looking ahead. The ideas were fascinating and the action had me on the edge of my seat.

While I did enjoy the romance between two main characters, this is mostly a concept-driven story. The characters did not have defined personalities and the dialogue wasn't great, not interesting or believable.

Overall, this was a memorable novel that I'll be thinking about for a while.

These four Novellas are connected by a loose theme of retribution or comeuppance. The idea was good but the stories were flat and lacking tension. With the exception of maybe Fair Exchange all the recipients of the revenge pretty clearly deserve it; there's no ambiguity or food for thought here. I love King novellas, but I wasn't feeling this collection.

In the two stories about male predators (Big Driver, A Good Marriage), the women get their revenge or justice pretty easily. So I wasn't really hanging on the edge of my seat as I usually am with a King book. Everything just happens and I felt no sense of satisfaction or relief on behalf of the characters.

Fair Extension is more about the person getting his revenge than the one receiving it. It would be kind of dark humor but it doesn't quite go far enough in showing how petty the main character really is to be very funny.

The novella 1922 did have some scary moments and visceral thrills. But overall this collection let me down.

A romantic rock-n-roll fable that is pure pop culture and light entertainment. Nothing I have to take too seriously. I'm a fan of classic rock, and the late '70s had some especially good bands/albums. The author seems to draw some inspiration from Fleetwood Mac and the romantic drama among the mixed band members that took place in the Rumors era.

There's a touch of feminism as the women have to make various choices. Is Daisy going to be a groupie or make a name for herself? Is Karen going to give it all up to have Graham's baby etc. But this is not too heavy-handed. Lead character Daisy is a drama-queen and Judith Krantz-style nightmare and you wonder how her warm and down-to-earth best friend Simone puts up with her.

My favorite character is the drummer, Warren. He is pragmatic and very droll, adding some laugh-out-loud comedy. He's outside the drama and mostly commenting on it.

Because it's written as an interview transcript, it's a super fast read and all the characters get to have their own “voice” in the events. Recommended if you like rock, pop culture, and humor.

This novel examines the effects of sexual and emotional abuse on a teenage girl by her English teacher, including her long-term attachment to her abuser, and feelings of guilt that her own decisions and desires were to blame. I understood the intended point, but unfortunately, it felt like a sort of fictional case-study of abuse and the effects on the victim/abuser, rather than a complex and engaging novel. Everything fits a by-the-numbers scheme.

Vanessa, a supposedly bright high school student and Strane, her teacher, simply fill the victim/abuser roles. They have no life of their own, and their relationship is lifeless, predictable, and flat. In order for me to buy into Vanessa's ambivalence, I'd have to feel the connection and tension between her and Strane. The predatory nature of Strane is transparent, obvious rather than left for the reader to discover. (Having him seduce her with a copy of Lolita is a little too on the nose.)

As individual characters, neither of them are well-developed enough for me to feel any anger, loss etc. Vanessa has little in the way of other interests or relationships. I can't empathize with how her life has been defined by the abuse because the author never shows the potential in her for anything else. We never see any of Strane's supposed charm or charisma. If he was popular and witty, someone who kids like and other teachers respect, there could have been some interesting conflict. Instead, everyone is suspicious of him and it's obvious that they should be.

I was expecting something deeper. The promised exploration of “psychological dynamics” didn't really occur as far as I could tell.

This book has it all: history, drama, magic, romance, conflict, action and touches of humor. There are interesting characters to root for or to hate. I really loved reading this and did not want it to end.

The story is set up as a rivalry between two magicians, Strange and Norell. Strange doesn't show up until a fourth of the way in, but you're already on his side before you meet him. Norrell is vain, secretive, paranoid, elitist, and cowardly. Plus he's a liar and a hypocrite who quietly sits by and takes no responsibility when his own action causes so much suffering. Strange on the other hand is self-involved, impulsive, and neglectful but also brave, witty, and resourceful. Much easier to like.

It's almost perfect but short of five stars for me because the rivalry story was not as tightly wound into the story of the actual villain as I would have liked. When it comes to the climatic moments of the story, heroic actions that should have been taken by Strange or Norrell go to other supporting characters, making it just short of perfectly satisfying. (There's nothing wrong with a book that doesn't go the conventional route with character development, it just didn't work for me in this particular case.)

One of my favorites of the Discworld Witches subseries. In no small part because it revolves around Anges, my favorite young witch and introduces my two favorite races, the Nac MacFeegles and Igors. Great story with fun humor. Pratchett loves taking on these pop culture phenomenons, and this was published during the run of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer. I love it when Discworld puts their characters up against classic horror monsters, phantom of the opera, vampires, werewolves and so on.

Among the themes of the book, this one is directly stated: Evil begins when you treat people as things. This has an anti-corporate message, as in corporations using the masses to drain their money, for cheap labor, etc. Other themes are the idea of being reborn (the phoenix, Granny Weatherwax returning, the life cycle of the vampire, the notion of what faith is (all conversations with Granny and Oats) and duality or contradiction of mind (Agnes vs. Perdita and Oats knowledge of what he's supposed to believe in vs. what he actually thinks).

Though Granny remains the problem solver, the story is observed through the younger characters, Agnes and Mightily Oats. Granny Weatherwax spends some time dealing with fears of being obsolete, with there technically being four witches in Lancre these days.

Carpe Jugulum's biggest conflict comes out in favor of a traditional approach, which is unusual for the series that generally favors not sticking to tradition. For instance, main villain County Magpyr took a “modern” approach of contracting with his victims, making them into docile farm animals instead of the traditional monstrous approach of hiding in the shadows and coming to his victims at night. Verence's attempts to be a “modern” king and improve the kingdom were largely ignored by the Lancrastrians, who take what they see as a sensible approach at all times.

Perhaps even Pratchett was not immune to being in a contradictory state of mind.

It's a real pleasure to read and reread this series and get more from it each time.

Tragic story of Blaze who has such bad luck. There's a bit of a supernatural element and a tribute to Of Mice and Men.

The events of Blaze's life are so dark: brain-damaged by his father, hated by the head of the orphanage, placed with an abusive foster family, tricked out of a good home by cruel fate. How much could one man take? People taking advantage of his size and slowness right and left. You can't blame him for falling into a life of crime or anything he does because he's a true gentle giant.

“Bachman” really got to me with this one. Blaze's story is frustrating, tragic, compelling, and inevitable.

One seemingly small thing that stood out for me was the irony of the child Blaze fathered (but never knew about.) The son is similar in size and temperament. He's adopted by a presumably good couple, plays high school football, and goes onto college. The implication that Blaze could have had a similar life, but for all bad that happened, really hurts.

The best book in the series since the first one. Instead of just exploring the Long Earth's, here we get antagonists, real conflicts, and some interesting revelations.

We learn more about the history of the “natural steppers,” ancestors of Sally and Joshua. There's an interesting parallel between how the the British government treats the steppers and how the human governments of the Earth and Low Earths tried to treat the Next.

The big bad in this book are a group of very alien beings that the humans can't communicate with so a more extreme solution is required. Humans and Next have to work together and real sacrifices have to be made to save the future of the Long Earth.

Really satisfying. And as always the writing style makes these books a pleasure to read.

Unclear how this gets placed in the horror genre, other than that the author has written some other horror books. This is a classic road story with some admittedly weird elements. McCammon really gets to me. So far I've been sucked right into every book of his I've picked up. The genre is irrelevant.

I love that the antagonist is as interesting and sympathetic as the protagonist. As I read it, I wasn't exactly rooting for Flint to catch Dan, but I was very invested in what would happen to him and Pelvis.

Every character involved in the chase is a freak or unusual in some way, and every character has suffered. They are all looking for some sort of “prize” that is going to either temporarily or permanently solve their problems, soothe their soul.

The ending might be a bit idealized given the terrible things that preceded it, but it works because of how extreme (in the best possible way) the story and characters are. If it had ended with a whimper, not a bang, that would have been a waste.

Much to my surprise, this ended up being my favorite of the Rincewind subseries of Discworld.

First of all, it's funny. Yes, Discworld always contains a lot of humor, but with The Last Continent there were times I had to stop to calm down and wipe the tears out of my eyes before I could even think about continuing to read.

The main plot admittedly wasn't spectacular; no real conflict other than the usual universe forcing Rincewind, our favorite beleaguered wizard, to solve its problems. There was no particular villain other than drought or nature itself. But Pratchett explores ideas like evolution and causality in an entertaining way. This is all against the background of wacky time travel and goofy deity hijinks.

The b-plot with the Unseen University Wizards was very engaging. Ponder is the central focus and he has to put his youth and curiosity against the experience and obstinacy of the older wizards as they travel through a weirdly and swiftly evolving island. I always love scenes of absurd Wizard dialogue.

Ponder sighed. “I wasn't questioning your authority, Archchancellor, “ he said. “I just feel that if a huge monster evolves into a chicken right in front of you, the considered response should not be to eat the chicken.”The Archchancellor licked his fingers. “What would you have done, then?” he said. “Well...studied it,” said Ponder. “So did we. Postmortem examination,” said the Dean.

Due to some temporary temporal mix up, young Ponder experiences old age and the old wizards become young. The empathy they experience toward their opposite age “demographic” doesn't last very long, but it is there for a moment.

This is the most time the series has spent on Ponder, and it was enjoyable. More competent than any other wizard, he's one of my favorite secondary characters in all of Discworld. Sure, he's one of those guys that corrects people all the time but his thoughts and frustrations are highly relatable.

Ponder Stibbons was one of those unfortunate people cursed with the belief that if only he found out enough things about the universe it would all, somehow, make sense.

This is not a book about Australia. No, it's about somewhere entirely different which happens to be, here and there, a bit... Australian. Still... no worries, right?

I have to confess, I do sometimes judge a book by its cover. I'm not a Western reader; this is a first for me and it was the cover that attracted me. It's a really cool image. The inside pages also have a striking graphic style, so that was really fun.

Fortunately the content lived up to the appearance. This was an offbeat, dark comedy, a Tarantino-style western. Two brothers, who are killers for hire. We see the story through the younger brother, Eli, who is full of conflicts: sympathetic, romantic, violent, bad-tempered, immature, thoughtful, and impulsive. Eli has a lot of doubts about their line of work. He and his brother Charlie are familiar but not close, and Charlie is as much of an antagonist to Eli as he is an ally.

The story has a lot of humor and many twists and turns with an unexpected but satisfying ending. I'm surprised by how much I enjoyed it, in fact this was one of my best surprises of the year. This is not my usual genre of choice, but a good story is a good story.

The description of the book says “tragic comedy” and that says it all. Not because you feel sad for any of these characters. Kennedy Toole masterfully gives us distance to see what is absurd about them.

Ignatius is both a slob and a snob. A buffoon who behaves so badly to everyone that you're laughing and amazed at the same time at what he tries to get away with. Most of the people reacting to him are not exactly “the straight man” because they are all for the most part onto him, and in some cases perpetuating schemes of their own.

My favorite element is how well all the groups of characters and their storylines converge for a chaotic ending. I love books that can do that and have it be, not exactly believable in the realistic sense, but perfectly fitting for the tone of the book.

Like other previous reviewers, I was hoping this would be as good as [b:White Oleander 32234 White Oleander Janet Fitch https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1501159524l/32234.SY75.jpg 1223333] but, unfortunately it was not the case. Paint it Black was a depressing, and at times tedious story, about a young woman grieving over her boyfriend who committed suicide. She spends the entire book feeling sorry for herself, making it really difficult for me to feel sorry for her. It's not as deep and rich as White Oleander. It felt like the writer was trying to pretend it was more meaningful than it was. Still, it's far from unreadable. I enjoyed the “punk” setting, the bits where she was acting in the independent film (an interest of mine), and her slowly unraveling the mystery of all the things she didn't know about her boyfriend and his mother. It shares a theme with WO of getting out from under overbearing parents. If I'd read this when I was a teenager, my younger self would have related to Josie and been all caught up in the emotion and the drama.

Fantastic story of one year in the life of a 12-year-old boy. It's touching, exciting, scary, and funny. It reminded me quite a bit of Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury.

There are elements that are realistic, like bullies in the schoolyard, family money troubles, and racial tension. Then there are the elements that are way out there, prehistoric creatures, vengeful monkeys, spiritual powers, etc. There's also the overall theme of a town that is on the cusp of the changing society in America in the 1960s. McCammon does a great job of combining these elements with warmth and humor as well as keeping the reader on the edge of their seat.

Sometimes the fantasy elements are a little over the top and in a way that breaks the spell of immersion a bit. But I liked it so much I certainly wouldn't dock a star for that.

Intense and engaging right from the start, as most SK novels are. Even his worst one is still a book you can't down.Exciting as it was, the plot sometimes struck me as a little silly. Canned spaghetti, commercialized children's toys, and television westerns are the food of evil, y'all. Not that there's anything wrong with that, the man does have a sense of humor. It has a parallel-world story connection to [b:Desperation 10584 Desperation Stephen King https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1395764566l/10584.SY75.jpg 14015], but I liked this one better. I don't have strong, objective literary reasons for this, I just enjoyed the characters and interactions a bit more.

Gillian Flynn has yet to let me down.This was a fun, quick read with lots of twists for a 65-page story.The homage mentions of books like [b:The Turn of the Screw 12948 The Turn of the Screw Henry James https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1567172392l/12948.SY75.jpg 990886], [b:The Haunting of Hill House 89717 The Haunting of Hill House Shirley Jackson https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327871336l/89717.SY75.jpg 3627], and [b:Rebecca 17899948 Rebecca Daphne du Maurier https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386605169l/17899948.SX50.jpg 46663] put it nicely in the right zone for the spooky October season.

Great kid's stories show kids or young people left to their own resources and devices, with no reliable adults to protect them and solve their problem. A few of my favorite examples of this: [b:The Outsiders 231804 The Outsiders S.E. Hinton https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1442129426l/231804.SY75.jpg 1426690], [b:The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon 11564 The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon Stephen King https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1580235339l/11564.SY75.jpg 1836389], and [b:Coraline 17061 Coraline Neil Gaiman https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1493497435l/17061.SY75.jpg 2834844]. The kids in Swamplandia! are teens left to cope and make their own decisions and of course they make horrible, life-endangering mistakes. As a mom, I want to beat the living crap out of the dad who abandons and endangers Ava, and Ossie. However, I can still put myself in the place I was as a young person though and appreciate that these were the kind of tales I loved the best.The two lead characters, Ava and Kiwi, are endearing and clever but both overestimate themselves. When the chips are down, though, they come up with the courage they need. Swamplandia! Has a unique setting and story elements and is cute and quirky and an easy read. It's definitely a YA book, I'm not seeing the horror, magical realism, or fantasy aspect. Most of the “weird stuff” that happened, supposed ghosts etc., are easily explained as a projection of the character's minds.The Prose is a bit much at times with needlessly obscure descriptions that don't feel right in the “voice” of the character telling the story. They sound self-consciously like a writer and not at all like the thoughts of the person they're supposed to belong to. Also, and this is just my personal pet peeve, but I hate it when writers flip from a first person narrative to a third person without any compelling reason. Russell could have just stuck to third-person omniscient and we still would have known Kiwi and Ava's thoughts and feelings. This would be good for young adult readers who like offbeat stories.

Carrion Comfort is an action-adventure thriller with supernatural elements. The novel is loaded with social and political commentary. It is not enough that the powerful evil beings Simmons created can control others with their mind and feed off incredible violence, but they are also racist, misogynistic, anti-Semitic etc. (One of the main villains was a Nazi; another is a racist old southern lunatic; a third is a Harvey-Weinstein type Hollywood producer.) The heroes who dare to fight them (with incredible violence) are underdogs representing historically oppressed groups. It's not meant to be subtle (I'm guessing). While superficially epic and action packed, it was really boring at times. It felt very long and scattered compared to Simmon's [b:Song of Kali 3979 Song of Kali Dan Simmons https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1165368440l/3979.SY75.jpg 1623747], which explored similar themes but was tight and focused. All the various plans and schemes and betrayals and confrontations in Carron Comfort get jumbled up and lack trajectory.

I've read a few of Dick's novels, but this is my first time checking out one of his short story collections. They were not as engrossing as his longer works.

The stories are very short indeed; 27 of them in a book of less than 400 pages. Mostly they are just concepts with a twist. The characters don't matter much and are not memorable.

In the introduction by Norman Spinrad, he explains that these stories were written between 1952-55, before Dick's first novel. He describes them as having a “repetitive, sameness” and show the author “staking out his own territory.” That sounds about right to me.

A few themes that repeat throughout the stories are Cold War paranoia, fear of destructive effects of the future and technology, and marital strife.

A few stories that did stand out for me or are worth noting were:

“The Cookie Lady”: A variation on Hansel and Gretel in which an old lady tempts a little boy with cookies and cannibalizes his youth. My favorite in the collection.

“Behind the door”: A paranoid marital-strife fantasy with a cuckoo clock.

“Prominent Author”: A man discovers and becomes a god to a tiny civilization.

“We Can Remember it for You Wholesale”: The story upon which the film Total Recall was based.

“Trouble with Bubbles”: People build tiny living worlds and destroy them for a pastime.

“Adjustment Team”: Story was the inspiration for the film The Adjustment Bureau, though more loosely than Total Recall.

I tracked this collection down because I was interested in Cyberpunk beyond William Gibson. There are a couple of Gibson stories that I already had read in his Burning Chrome collection, “Gernsback Continuum” which is one of my favorites, and “Red Star, Winter Orbit.”

The best new (to me) story in this collection was “Petra” by Greg Bear which isn't a Cyberpunk story at all. It's a Weird Fiction apocalypse where reality and rationality break down. Dreams and nightmares become real. Stone statues and gargoyles come to life and buildings become trees, etc. A new world order develops among the new half-stone and half-gargoyle beings. Very imaginative and compelling.

One I liked that was a bit more Cyberpunk in nature was “Stone Lives” by Paul Di Filippo, about a blind man from the slums who is chosen to receive eye implants and an unusual job. It reminds me a lot of all those Gibson stories where a poor underdog gets involved in a mystery and is exposed to how the other half lives.

The most humorous tale is “Mozart in Mirrorshades'' by Bruce Sterling and Lewis Shiner. An unscrupulous company robs, corrupts, and exploits alternate timelines of resources like oil, art, and Mozart for example. I've seen things like this done before in films and other books but this little story was funny and well done.

The other stories were fair to good but it was worth my time to explore a few more authors from the genre.

I gave this three stars after I read it; I think I was being generous. At one time I thought Irving was the greatest and surely he couldn't write a boring book, right?

Well, this book was quite boring with flat, uninteresting characters.

The point of it is for Irving to repeat “abortion should be legal, abortion should be legal, abortion should be legal.” Everything that happens in the book is in support of that.

I completely agree with this view but that won't make this a good read.

This never really got off the ground for me. I don't require being dazzled every five seconds; I can appreciate a moody-and-atmospheric psychological tale. But this wasn't it. Things never got any weirder than say, Lewis Carroll's [b:Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There 83346 Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, #2) Lewis Carroll https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1359299332l/83346.SY75.jpg 45962572]. The author seemed to avoid taking any risks, anything actually happening that would have to be worked out.I did like the “unreliable” main character, she had a brain and a sense of humor. I was interested in knowing more about her relationship with her girlfriend. As presented, the emotional climax of that storyline wasn't earned. There was a jarring bunch of typos. This isn't why I gave the book two stars, I'm strictly going on content here. But there was a noticeable page with glaring mistakes, like using “they're” when they meant “their” etc., that any proofreader would have caught. Since it was the character's journal we were reading, maybe this was supposed to be a clever way of showing her mental disintegration? If so, it was way too subtle and was only distracting and annoying.

“Yet perhaps fear is no good thing. Perhaps it is only we, the fearful, who attempt to instill our own sense of urgency into others, who avoid reality, who deceive others into believing that only conflict and unhappiness leads us to the truth.”

This was a real pleasure to read. It's got humor, fun, adventure, romance. It's also weird and psychedelic, which I adore.

Moorcock starts us with a group of amoral humans from the far future who need nothing, can create fantasies at will, and have no responsibility. Ttheir lives are all sex and parties (incest is not off the table). As empty as it sounds, the good part is there is no want or or hate or violence or jealousy. Their world is a big toy until an alien arrives to alert them that the end of all time is coming.

With the arrival of a time traveller named Amelia from the Victorian age, it becomes a love story between her and end-of-time dweller, Jherek. Amelia is all about morality, purpose, responsibility. Jherek decides he must court her until she returns his affection. Much of the humor comes from the culture clash between the two of them. Amelia is an awesome character, clever, no nonsense, resourceful.

Eventually, Jherek and his fellow end of timers travel to Amelia's time as well. Wild, hilarious, and dangerous times ensue.

My only criticism of the book was that the end seemed a bit dragged out. Odd because this is actually three short (about 200 page) novels put into one volume. For the most part they moved pretty fast. But once the characters solved their problems, the denouement seemed stretched.

Micheal Moorcock has been around for a long time, but he's new to me. I'm really enjoying discovering his books and digging his humor, style, and imagination.

Fascinating world-building revolving around humanity evolving with the technology, and then adding some aliens.

The story itself though started out well enough but after a while, it was a pattern not a plot. Fast-talking Shaper, Lindsay, finds himself in various difficult situations but talks his way into successful enterprises (some fraudulent) and gets all the major power players on board. He jumps ship when the going gets tough.

All of his adventures are structured this way and it happens about half a dozen times before finally wrapping up. The novel was actually quite short so I'm not sure why I should have lost interest since I liked the character, I liked the premise. Even the conflict with his frenemy Constantine didn't give the novel enough tension.

Big love for the short stories at the end though, especially “Spider Rose” which was both a heart-breaker and a mind-bender.

Holy Fire explores possibilities of the unnaturally long or never-ending lifespan. What if humans finally beat the aging process all together, staying healthy and youthful forever, etc. Sterling demonstrates the possible drawbacks of this for the young.

Mia, a 90+ year old, participates in a rejuvenation process that reboots her brain and hormones, allowing her to be artificially young again, regaining sex drive, energy, and a youthful body. Instead of sticking around to be monitored and protected under medical advice, she heads for Europe.

Mia creates a new identity called Maya and becomes the reader's tour guide through the world. She is homeless and relies on others for shelter/money etc. All the young people are living like this unless they inherited money from older relatives. The older generations who stayed healthy enough to work, like Mia did before the transformation, have all the financial security, while the young are in a hopeless struggle.

The story isn't about the technology that allows people to live longer and healthier lives, but rather about a stagnant society blamed on the elderly. This is a pop culture phenomenon my husband refers to as, “Youth is cool. Old is stupid.” Even the older characters think aging is bad and they use medical technology to fight it, but they don't consider consequences for the future generations.

The successful people Maya meets are over 100 years old and still the top in their field. The twenty-somethings have no way of getting experience and moving up when old-timers refuse to step down. One aspiring fashion designer says of a 121-year-old one:

“He has everything, and he's going to keep it forever. There's just no way to challenge him.”

The effect of this Gerontocracy is that everything in the world is heavily controlled by a “benevolent fascism,” free from guns or plagues or other dangers that the older set survived. This would also lead to a lack of risk. Isn't taking risks what creativity comes from? All this security protects the elderly but harms the twenty-somethings.

“You see my darling, in order to make this world safe for the very old we have changed life for the young in ways that are truly evil.”

This is a highly thought-provoking and engaging novel as we observe Maya's character arc, and she takes us through the polarized world of youth vs. experience Sterling created.