Jonathan Palfrey
This is a work of high-quality fiction, well imagined in considerable detail and well written.
I give it only two stars because it leaves me feeling sad and depressed. It's about the early life of a royal bastard, whose life is persistently difficult and perilous; and he lives in a kingdom in crisis. We know he'll survive, because there are more books about him; but that doesn't guarantee him happiness, and he finds little of it.
It's realistic, I suppose: this is probably what life in that kind of world would be like. Although I think strict realism would require his death at one of the various points where it could easily have happened.
But I read fiction for my own enjoyment, I want some positive result out of it. What good does it do me to become sad and depressed? Almost any work of fiction must surely contain some conflict or struggle or problem to be solved, and there will be probably be moments of unhappiness. But I want moments of happiness and humour as well, and above all I want it to end on an upbeat note. I don't insist that every book should end with everyone ecstatic and living happily every after, but I want to come away from the book feeling good about it.
I don't think I'll read the other books set in this world, because they seem likely to be about as depressing as this one. It's a pity, because the author is talented, but from my point of view her talent is wasted on books like these. However, fortunately for her, plenty of other people apparently manage to enjoy them. Taste in fiction varies so much from person to person.
This book occasionally shows vague traces of promise, but overall it's a dud, a failed attempt, and not worth reading unless you're a Douglas Adams addict with a compulsion to read everything he ever wrote. Be warned that it's mostly dreary, depressing, and pointless.
I don't know what had gone wrong with his life at the time, but it must have been something pretty awful. Instead of writing this dud, he should have taken a nice holiday, or a bunch of happy pills, or something.
I read it a second time after almost 32 years only because I'd forgotten all about it. It is best forgotten.
This is a collection of five short novels—novellas, really—and a few other bits and pieces. Each of the novellas is preceded by an introduction written by, respectively: Russell T. Davies, Terry Jones, Simon Brett, Neil Gaiman, and Dirk Maggs. The introductions may be of some interest to Douglas Adams fans.Apart from that, only three of the novellas are any good, and if you already have [b:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams 133781708 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (2009-09-01) Douglas Adams https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1698005239l/133781708.SY75.jpg 3078186], [b:The Restaurant at the End of the Universe 123957372 The Restaurant at the End of the Universe Douglas Adams https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1680044961l/123957372.SY75.jpg 145358152], and [b:So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish 6091075 So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #4) Douglas Adams https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327873354l/6091075.SY75.jpg 3078120], you don't need this collection unless you're a Douglas Adams completist or like to have everything in one package.
With this book, the author's inspiration ran out. In its pages, his characters continue to have mind-boggling adventures all over the galaxy, but somehow they've ceased to be memorable or funny.
It's not so bad a book that I can't finish it. It's not actively unpleasant, and it's more entertaining than watching paint dry. However, having finished it, I wonder why I bothered.
It reminds me of the aimless adventures of Rincewind, the least entertaining of Terry Pratchett's principal characters. Arthur Dent differs from Rincewind in some ways, but he has much the same function of escaping from each pointless adventure only to land in another.
Like the first book in this series, this is chaotic, rambling, and short. However, along the way, it's quite entertaining, and it features a few memorable ideas that you may find referenced here and there in other places:
1. Arthur locking up the computer by demanding a cup of tea.2. The Total Perspective Vortex (and Zaphod's reaction to it).3. The spaceliner delaying takeoff for 900 years, waiting for supplies of damp napkins for the passengers (in suspended animation).4. Milliways, the restaurant at the end of the universe; and the Dish of the Day.5. The Golgafrincham B Ark.
It remains basically a radio comedy series rather than a novel (or novella).
I tried this as my first experiment with Brandon Sanderson, having read nothing of his before, and I found it readable and mildly entertaining, but far too long, and rather cold throughout. On finishing it, I don't feel motivated to read the sequels.
In fantasy, I like a hard magic system, which functions according to known rules and limitations; and here we have a hard magic system. However, this magic system has little in common with traditional magic: it doesn't feel like magic as I know it from other stories. It seems more related to superhero stories from 20th century comics, in which particular people have special powers. I repeat: there is something cold about it.
On first reading, the story is not bad, but I have some problems with it.
1. I don't believe the scenario. The author just asserts it without doing anything to make me believe in it. What is the Deepness? How did the Ruler come to be the Ruler? After reading through the whole over-long book, I still don't know, and I don't really care. To hell with it. I can go away and read something else.
2. Characterization is good enough, it's not bad, and yet it's fairly superficial. I don't care very much about any of these people. I quite like Vin, the heroine, but even she isn't enough to persuade me to read more books in the series. The whole situation strikes me as unreal.
3. The story drags. I plodded through it reluctantly, wishing for it to end sooner. It's an unusually long novel, but I have a few other novels in my collection of similar length, and they don't drag quite so much. A novel shouldn't normally be this long, it's an excessive length, but occasionally a novel may have enough story in it to justify the length. This one hasn't. I kept wishing for it to get to the point and finish. Thank God it's over at last.
4. The way people keep gaining strength by gulping doses of liquid-with-metal reminds me irresistibly of Popeye and his spinach. Did the author think of that, I wonder, or is he too young to remember Popeye?
5. As a man, I have no claim to be a feminist, but I suspect that the last sentence of this novel will not appeal to feminists. If you read through all the pages, you'll get there in the end.
I delayed buying and reading this book for years, because it sounded rather long and unpleasant, from the little I knew about it; and also because I'm not very keen on Miles's military career, nor am I very keen on his clone Mark, and the story is big on both.
However, in the end I decided to put myself through it, and it wasn't so bad after all; although there are some unpleasant patches in it. After just one reading, I can't give it a proper review or rating, so this is just a placeholder.
The story is certainly gripping, and I didn't want to put it down, but real life intervened; I rarely read a whole novel at one sitting these days.
It remains a book that I'm glad to have read not so much for itself, as for the background it provides for the later books: Miles's civilian career, in fact, most of which I've already read, and which I enjoy more.
It strikes me as odd how many diverse women are attracted to Miles, and in fact seem to fall in love with him. It happens again in this book. I can understand that his personality may be fascinating, but from the descriptions we get I'd have thought him physically quite unattractive to women; and the text never gives much explanation of what the attraction is.
Mark looks similar to Miles but fatter, and seems to have a less fascinating personality. He doesn't attract the same number of women, but Kareen seems to fall in love with him almost at first sight, and again there's no attempt to explain this phenomenon. I suppose you could say that love is inexplicable; but as a reader I prefer the plot of a story to seem plausible.
I became a Bujold fan on reading her fantasy stories set in the World of the Five Gods, and I'm catching up only slowly with the Vorkosigan Saga, which suits me less well on the whole, although I do like some parts of it.On first reading, I found this book readable and gripping, although it's part of Miles's military career, which I like less than his later civilian career. It also introduces his clone Mark, a tormented and difficult character, because of his unfortunate upbringing.Its main value to me is as background history to some of the later books ([b:A Civil Campaign 12779339 A Civil Campaign (Vorkosigan Saga, #12) Lois McMaster Bujold https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1446998868l/12779339.SY75.jpg 1093445] in particular), which I've already read and which I like better.
I bought this book in 2019 and started it, but it didn't grab me and I put it aside. However, I recently noticed that it seems to be surprisingly popular, so I resolved to plod through it regardless, and here I am, having finished it. I didn't hate it, but it felt too long a novel, and I'm glad to be done with it. I don't plan to read the sequels.
The characters are mildly congenial and somewhat memorable, but not great. The plot is basically a simple quest with a lot of little complications thrown in. The writing is adequate.
It's what I call a wild fantasy: no rules, anything goes. The author invents whatever magical effects and weird creatures he pleases, ad lib, as he goes along. I don't approve of wild fantasy: I prefer magic to have rules and limitations to it.
The heroes of this tale get knocked about a bit, but improbably survive whatever conflicts they get into, no matter how outnumbered or outgunned they happen to be. It becomes hard to take these conflicts seriously.
I've never played Dungeons and Dragons, but I suppose this story vaguely resembles a game of D&D run by a childish dungeon master, who throws in hordes of frightful monsters but never allows them to kill anyone.
The author has some potential and he may learn to write better books as he goes along, but I've read plenty of first novels that were better than this one.
This is a rather delightful little book that's good for a series of chuckles every now and then, and will doubtless cheer you up, unless you're a sour chocolate-hater with no sense of humour. It's also somewhat informative on the subject of chocolate. The illustrations and the text go well together.
I'm tempted to give it at least 4 stars on the basis of quality, but I give it only 3 because there isn't much of it, it doesn't take long to read, and I don't reread it often. I don't think it would stand up to frequent rereading, the humour would go rather stale. However, it's certainly worth rereading on an occasional basis.
I bought my copy in 1983, and I've probably read it more times than I'm aware of, because it takes so little time to read that I may not have bothered to note it in my diary.
I may have read this long ago, when I was a child, but I don't remember. Reading it in 2024, I really enjoyed it: it's better than I expected. William's allowed to get away with far too many outrages, but his point of view on life is often amusing and sometimes hilarious.
I'm vaguely reminded of Nigel Molesworth, but William is younger and more... primitive? And he doesn't go to boarding school, but lives with his parents and elder siblings, none of whom seem to have thought of keeping him in a cage, which would be safer for everyone.
I enjoyed the book well enough to give it four stars, but I'll give it three for now; because, although I enjoyed it, I rather doubt that I'll be rereading it often. If I do, I can add another star later.
This is a provisional review after first reading, but it seems a worthy sequel to [b:Shades of Grey 2113260 Shades of Grey (Shades of Grey, #1) Jasper Fforde https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327563734l/2113260.SY75.jpg 2118671], and I found it gripping throughout.Rather to my alarm, it's even more dystopian than [b:Shades of Grey 2113260 Shades of Grey (Shades of Grey, #1) Jasper Fforde https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327563734l/2113260.SY75.jpg 2118671], but I was pleasantly surprised to find that it seems to have a happy ending. I say ‘seems' because this is the second volume of a planned trilogy, and novelists write “they all lived happily ever after” at the end of a story, not two-thirds of the way through it.From the first volume, I couldn't tell whether the series was intended to be fantasy or science fiction. As more secrets are revealed here, it begins to seem more like science fiction: although the scenario is extremely weird, we're beginning to uncover rational explanations of it all.It's difficult to uncover the secrets of a novel without a feeling of disappointment creeping in: to travel hopefully is better than to arrive, and to wander in a land of mystery is more wonderful in a way than to find the mysteries explained. However, so far I don't feel too disappointed by this volume, and I still hope to read the third volume someday and find out more.I note that one of the characters is named Violet Elizabeth deMauve: Fforde has mischievously taken the first names of Violet Elizabeth Bott from [b:Still William 742818 Still William (Just William, #5) Richmal Crompton https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1358746731l/742818.SX50.jpg 728971], and there is some degree of similarity between the two girls.
I found this one more gripping but less amusing than usual. The mystery element is as usual contrived and over-complicated, but at least I didn't find it tedious this time.
The story is set mostly in Egypt, but Ramses and Nefret have been left behind in England with Walter and Evelyn, so for amusement we mostly have to rely on the occasional but verbose letters from Ramses, bringing his parents up to date on events back home.
The Master Criminal Sethos (whom I dislike) returns in this story, but he remains either offstage or well disguised throughout, so at least we don't have to deal with him in his own persona.
After a blow to the head, Emerson suffers from amnesia for a large part of the story, forgetting his marriage to Amelia, so for a while they're back to dealing with each other as near-strangers again.
I first read this book in 1982, when no Discworld books had been published, and Terry Pratchett was an unknown author. As far as I remember, I thought it wasn't a bad book, but it was an obscure oddity; I put it aside and didn't think again about the book or its author for years.At last I decided to read it again in 2024, and it's better than I remembered; indeed, it seems surprisingly better thought out and more coherent than the first two Discworld books. The story has a beginning and an end, and the plot travels from one to the other with only minor digressions.It's vaguely reminiscent of Larry Niven's [b:Ringworld 7987601 Ringworld Larry Niven https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1270514178l/7987601.SY75.jpg 924711], and could be considered as a sort of Terry Pratchett cover version of the same general idea, like the Jimi Hendrix version of Bob Dylan's “All Along The Watchtower”.[b:Ringworld 7987601 Ringworld Larry Niven https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1270514178l/7987601.SY75.jpg 924711] is quite a good book, but it's not my favourite of Larry Niven's books. This cover version is not necessarily better, but it's interestingly different. We're not talking about plagiarism here, but about creative reworking of a roughly similar idea.The early chapters are promising. The later chapters have a plot and a central concept, but they don't come over clearly enough, being somewhat obscured by details. At this early stage of his career, Pratchett didn't have quite the right skills to make a success of this kind of story, although he made a good try at it. Would he have been able to do better later on? I don't know. Although he started off writing science fiction (which this is), perhaps he was always better suited to fantasy.
As usual with this series, I don't really enjoy the crime/mystery element of the story, but the dialogue is amusing and the characters somewhat entertaining.
Unusually, this one is set in London rather than Egypt, but the change of scene doesn't make as much difference as you might expect (except to the weather).
I enjoy this one somewhat less than the preceding book, [b:The Mummy Case 9810644 The Mummy Case Elizabeth Peters https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1396184059l/9810644.SY75.jpg 2570337]. It's mildly amusing, but even Ramses is less funny this time. There's another convoluted mystery, I'm not particularly keen on the new characters we meet, and in particular I'm not keen on Sethos—who will, unfortunately, appear again later.Although Ramses is only 8 or 9 years old, he seems to be starting to take a tentative interest in the female of the species—specifically, in Miss Debenham, who's young but adult.The book gets its 3 stars by being sufficiently entertaining to be rereadable occasionally. However, if I wanted to read the highlights of the series, I think I'd skip this one.
This is not one of my favourites of the series. Much of the story consists of a convoluted murder mystery that doesn't fascinate me. However, the character interactions are mildly entertaining, and the brief appearances of Amelia's young son Ramses in Chapters 1 and 2 are hilarious—although he doesn't appear again until the next book.
Initially I found this story readable and pleasant enough; I liked it less towards the end, as the amount of magic in play became excessive.It's set in the winter of 1909/1910, and mostly on a remote Norwegian island. Strangely, the mortal humans in it seem too modern, while the faeries are too old-style for my liking.Most of the text is supposed to be the journal of Professor Emily Wilde, introverted 30-year-old academic and expert on faeries. However, it's written as a normal first-person novel, in modern English, not at all like an academic journal, and with no feel of the period in which it's supposed to be written. Nor do I get any feel of the period from the behaviour of the characters or from the dialogue.The faeries are divided into common fae and courtly fae, of which only the common fae (smaller, less powerful) are normally seen by mortals. The courtly fae seem to have almost unlimited powers, which I'm not comfortable with. Power without limits unbalances a story and also makes it harder to believe.The faeries seem to be based on traditional tales. I don't know whether the author, Heather Fawcett, has read any modern fantasy novels written by her competitors in the field; if she has, they seem to have had little or no influence on her.On reading about Emily Wilde, I soon realized that she reminded me of Amelia Peabody, the heroine of [b:Crocodile on the Sandbank 40881649 Crocodile on the Sandbank (Amelia Peabody, #1) Elizabeth Peters https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1532091568l/40881649.SY75.jpg 2570338] and sequels. Both are British women written about by North American authors; Emily is obsessed with faeries while Amelia is obsessed with Ancient Egypt; Emily starts her adventures at the age of 30, Amelia at 32. Emily was born in about 1879, Amelia in 1852. Both are initially single and have little or no sexual experience. Their personalities are somewhat different: Amelia has more confidence and competence at dealing with people. However, Emily reminds me of Amelia mainly because their ‘voices', writing their first-person accounts of their adventures, seem rather similar to me. As a fictional character, I think I prefer Amelia, although Emily is OK.
This is an interesting and charming story and I have difficulty in finding any fault with it. Unusually, I gave it 5 stars on first reading.
It's about a young girl (Otta) going through traumatic experiences; fortunately, she's strong enough not to cave in completely, and she soon receives help.
It's interesting partly because of Otta and her experiences, and partly because we meet a new kind of demon that isn't quite like the ones we've met before, and it's new to Penric and Desdemona too. They react to it differently and in ways that I didn't expect, but which are nevertheless credible and throw some new light on them as characters.
We also get some exposure to the three-way relationship between Penric, Desdemona, and Nikys. Years have passed since the last story: Penric and Nikys are now about 40, and their children are Rina aged 7 and Wyn aged 4.
Since Penric married Nikys (about 10 years ago), each story has taken him away from his home and family; but this one, for a change, is centred on his home and family. So we get more family life and almost none of the regular characters outside the family.
We do meet Learned Sioann from the chapterhouse (but not Lencia or Seuka, who must be teenagers by now); the elderly sailors Laxo and Symo; and Blessed Iroki. But Duke Jurgo, Adelis, Learned Dobro, and many others remain offstage throughout.
It's always nice to see more of the regular characters, but this is a story about Otta and Penric's family, and it would be superfluous and distracting to clutter it up with characters that don't fit naturally into the story.
I quite enjoyed this on first reading, it's entertaining and somewhat amusing, and it has pace. It's the story of a former journalist down on his luck, whose dead uncle propels him into bizarre adventures and into confrontation with a bunch of rich and unscrupulous people.
Unfortunately, it seems that Scalzi doesn't really do characterization; or, at least, he didn't reckon to for this book. Most of the characters are either just names, or they could be described in a few words. They don't have any depth, they don't engage the reader.
We spend the whole book in the company of the first-person protagonist, Charlie Fitzer. But I don't come away feeling that I know him well, or with an active desire to read more books about him. He seems a decent enough guy, fairly intelligent, likes cats; but that's about it.
I suppose the story counts as science fiction mainly because of the intelligent computer-using cats, but apart from that it's not very science-fictional.
This is a somewhat longer novel than [b:Legends & Lattes 63277682 Legends & Lattes (Legends & Lattes, #1) Travis Baldree https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1698323369l/63277682.SY75.jpg 94968745], and there's a bit more story to it, but it's basically the same kind of thing. This is a prequel, so we meet Viv the orc earlier in her life, and she gets involved with a bookshop rather than with a coffee shop. It's not her bookshop, but she gets involved with it anyway.She gets a wounded leg in the prologue and has to spend most of the story recovering; she's more or less fit for action by the end, having made a bunch of new friends meanwhile.I don't think this is first-class fiction, but it's readable and quite congenial.
I decided to try this because it seemed popular and inoffensive, although it's not well suited to me because I don't drink coffee!
It makes pleasant light reading. It's a very simple story similar to children's fiction, although not about children. The story might normally make a novella, but it's filled out into a short novel by including all the details of building and setting up and running a coffee shop, as it might be handled in a computer game on the subject.
The coffee shop is made a bit more interesting by being placed in a typical fantasy setting, so that most of the main characters are non-human, and there are some magical effects.
I think the book is somewhat overrated by other readers. Very little happens in it. The friendly characters are reliably friendly and also talented and useful; even the unfriendly characters turn out to be not so bad after all (with perhaps one exception). In the course of the story, Viv experiences one disaster, but she gets over it with the help of her friends, and apart from that everything goes pretty smoothly for her.
In which the evil and all-powerful Alberich, renegade Librarian, is threatening to destroy everything and our heroine Irene dashes off almost alone to fight him, without a plan and without resources, making it all up as she goes along, as usual.
It's all dramatic and exciting, but the drama strikes me as overdone, and the excitement is muted because I know that Irene is going to emerge somewhat battered but intact from every apparent disaster, after finding the right commands to utter in the Language.
I find these books quite entertaining at first reading, but they leave me unsatisfied, because the events and the characters don't quite become real to me, and it's hard for me to take seriously the spectacle of a world-destroying monster being stopped in his tracks by a junior Librarian. I think the author is trying too hard to pile on the drama.
I wish fantasy novelists didn't feel the need to create these exaggerated villains: Alberich, Voldemort, Sauron, Acheron Hades, and so on. An ordinary bad guy feels more like real life and is more believable. Yes, I know this is a fantasy novel, but as a reader I prefer to be able to believe in the fantasy while I'm reading it.
This short story is a little snippet of Murderbot's life as a secretly rogue SecUnit before meeting the Preservation team in [b:All Systems Red 32758901 All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries, #1) Martha Wells https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1631585309l/32758901.SY75.jpg 53349516]. It's quite an agreeable addition to the Murderbot Diaries, completists can be pleased to add it to their collection, but no-one needs to have it: it doesn't tell us anything that we didn't already know.