John Wilker

feudal settings in space opera are a turn off for me. DNF’ed

A fun series for fans of action first space operas. I enjoyed each book.

Not sure how I feel about this one. LOTS of action which is nice, but not sure about the overall story. Will have to wait and see what the next book holds.

A great book for anyone curious about complex money topics. Some things I knew, plenty I didn't. As you'd expect from the Planet Money podcast, the book's content is delivered in clear and often humorous language.

An intriguing start to the series. Definitely interested in seeing where it goes from here.

A fun read with a novel story. Definitely worth a read.

Wu provides an engaging read on how we got here and how we can fix it. We really are in a tech oligarchy gilded age but more importantly we have the tools to fix it. We just need the will.

It was... cromulent... I just like that word. Seriously though, the story was fine. Nothing earth-shattering or deep. Which to be fair, I wasn't expecting. My only complaint was the wrap up. There really wasn't any, and it made a jump that I assume leads into the game or something but leaves non-gamer readers likely scratching their heads.

Urban Fantasy isn't my jam typically but was curious. I had very little foreknowledge of Harry Desden other than remembering there was a short-lived TV show. That small bit of knowledge still got in my brain though. Harry in my mind was very much Paul Blackthorne. I don't think that hurt anything and gave him a very clear and definitive voice.

I enjoyed this, but don't think I need more Dresden files.

First and foremost: Definitely some "Written by old white straight guy" energy. White male characters just exist. Everyone else gets either creepily sexualized, or stereotypically described. Which considering it was written in the 90s... yeah. You've been warned.

The story was fine, perfectly serviceable. I'm mildly interested in the next book just to see what the build up that was book one, is worth it.

An outstanding collection of short stories from names I knew and even more I didn't.

Definitely worth picking up.

This was far more eye-opening that I expected. And Infuriating if I’m being honest. So much of boomer behaviour slots right into place. It’s amazing how lock step that generation is even without coordination.

If you want a deeper understanding of why the boomers in are lives are doing and saying the things they are, this will help.

Enjoyed but definitely lacks the excitement and adventure of earlier Shannara books

Not for me.

Interesting but too dry for my tastes.

My God, what a crappy book. I mean it's a Star Wars novel so it's not like I was expecting Of Mice and Men, but jeez. The characters were ridiculously flat, every single one of them. There's not a character in the book i cared about at the end. There's so little action it's immensely boring in places. The characters we all know barely (and only 3-4 of them) make an appearance in this. It read like “we need to tell a star wars story, but don't have the rights to the names, so you know have fun with that” except they totally do have the rights and totally could have come up with a story that was even kinda good, but they didn't and this book sold like crazy because we're suckers and “STAR WARS!!!” : If it hadn't taken me so long to get to reading it, I would have tried to return it.I started reading and put the book down, it was that bad. i came back to finish it for two reasons;1. so I could honesty review it2. in the hopes it got magically better, it didn'tThere's some foreshadowing for future books (I assume that's the intent), but even that isn't that interesting and when I finally finished, i wasn't at all anxious to read the next part of the story. I honestly couldn't care less about even one of the characters in this story and certainly have no interest in what happens to them next.

Depressing but good. The historical context for the Democratic Party’s problems was eye opening and useful.

An interesting book. I heard about the authors in a blog post about their 30 years of writing this series. Definitely a “written in the 80s” feel but solid story.

Is this progression fantasy? If so. Not for me.

Wow. Did not (maybe my bad) realize this was gonna jump right into right-wing anti government propaganda. Calling anti-vaxxers "Heroes" is... nope. No thank you.

not for me. By the end of a long read, everyone was pretty much where they started and had little to no growth as people.

There was zero payoff.

tl;dr; Just not for me.

I've read most of the adult focused High Republic and whatever the prequels were called, books. They're just not that engaging and rely way too much on the reader having read the comics, and the YA books.

I knew going in they'd do that so, so that's not part of my rating, just a general gripe. :)

My rating is because the story just took forever to not get very far.

Another EXCELLENT entry in my all-time favorite series.

I went in not knowing what to expect. How could I? I'd not read much of anything from African diaspora authors before. 

These shorts were all engaging and interesting. Some I liked more than others but all provided interesting perspectives and stories from backgrounds so different from my own.

Definitely recommend.

Well that was a gut punch.

Should be required reading for anyone on the left (I mean, really all over, but you know...). There's so much that isn't right any more and can be fixed.

Don't read this if you like Kindle Unlimited, Spotify or just about any big tech/big content.