Kyle Erickson
Glad that's over with. Not as bad as people suggest but I will never think about it again unless The Duffer Brothers or Sarah Reads (the only three fans of this book, I heard) somehow do something to make me remember it exists. And then I'll say, “oh yeah, that book”, and then forget it right after.
The most middle middle to ever middle. It's not even a middle. It's an iddl.
There's a season of The Walking Dead where, after the heroes have been holed up in a prison that is attacked by enemies, they are then scattered in many directions. And the show spends episodes upon episodes upon episodes dealing with them all separately wandering around until they get to the point in which they all meet again.
This 800 page book is an elongated version of those episodes, but if every character stopped and talked about the history of every town and zombie and raccoon they wandered by.
I was gonna try to finish this trilogy before the end of the year, but I need a break. I'll read To Green Angel Tower next year.
Can someone tell me an attribute of Simon? Any attribute. Not being picky here. I can't think of anything. Alive? Is being alive an attribute?
This book started so good! The premise is fantastic and I liked the opening chapters and the two lead characters. The story builds tension in an excellent way and the themes of technology gone awry and human consumption were worked into it seemlessly.
The book did start to drag for me in the second half, and I found the romance to be...just not very good or believable. Some of the lines were cringy, but also I just didn't buy that these two people would fall for each other. And it took up a LARGE portion of the book.
I will read the sequel!
This book started great. I read the first 40% in one sitting. The sense of mystery was really intriguing as set up.
But once we get to the main plot...I just found the joke to be played out. This book ends up being a big nothing burger. There are some bits I liked the whole way through - like the dolphins, which are a delight. But I absolutely, completely, hated the last 15-20% and it retroactively made me dislike a lot of the rest of it too. Not a great first try for Scalzi.
I loved this way more than I expected. It was quite a page turner. My takeaway from this book is just how hard it was to actually make something like the MCU and how Kevin Feige really deserves a lot of the credit for it. This book in general is pretty pro-Feige; for good reason - a large portion of the book sets up a conflict between the scrappy, entertainment-minded underdog Kevin Feige and billionaire toy-minded, petty Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter who is basically a real life cartoon character.
The difference in philosophy between these two makes the behind the scenes drama really compelling, and made me really respect Feige as a conciliator with great patience and his eyes on the goal. Ike Perlmutter is the worst.
Beyond that, though, there was also just a lot of cool information about the various MCU projects; and the book offers a pretty compelling reason why Post-Endgame has not been working out very well for them. In fact, Robinson et al made me cautiously optimistic for upcoming MCU content for the first time in a little while due to how recent changes have affected Marvel. We'll see how it goes.
Overall, highly recommended for MCU fans, film fans, or just people who want to know about how Hollywood/the film industry etc works.
DNF 40% in
Really found the main character to be stupid and insufferable. And 40% in and he has just been eaten by the whale. But also it took forever for him to be eaten. I bet 7% of this book is just him being like:
“Oh n-n-n-noooooo! A whale! Whoooooooooa I'm gonna be eaten if I don't do something!! I must do something! This reminds me of something my father once said. Wh-wh-whoa, I'm eaten!”
Really entertaining and fun memoir! Henry Winkler seems like a great person and his stories are very good. I feel like he has tried to maintain integrity in a cut throat business and people think very well of him so I'm happy for all his success and this book was very readable.
Winkler read the audiobook himself and was a delight, injecting a lot of humor and pathos into the material.
It is humbling for your sense of individuality to realize that every aspect of a cultural phenomenon that was marketed towards you, hit you the exact way it hit everyone else. Each event mentioned in this book, I had the exact reaction described. I got the exact games at the exact times and saw the exact films on the same days and moved to Digimon briefly and had the same opinions that is described here and then fell off it for the same reasons, and I abandoned Pokemon for Yugioh at the same and for the same reasons. I am, I am sad to tell you all, a basic bitch.
Anyway this book was really interesting. I had never really learned much about the origin of Pokemon and various other Japanese anime/manga sensations around this time and how they all interacted with each other and were largely responsible for ushering in a very different era of gaming.
Also pokemon Crystal is the best
7/10
This book has a great opening, and a pretty good ending. I liked the characters, and it was a nuanced and imaginative take on the Water Margin. I do feel it was way too long, it definitely could have been cut down in some places. The fights were entertaining, but I found some of the dialogue very stilted.
Ultimately, glad I read this book as its an interesting experiment, but it wasn't a favorite.
“If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole.” - Raylan Givens
There are aspects of this book that were interesting and I learned some things about productions on specific shows but I heavily disliked the author the entire time. She had grievances with every single person in this book, mostly for dumb, inconsequential, or pure conjecture reasons. She was never asked back for any job, and at a certain point, you get to understand why - everything is always everyone else's problem, she is always the only virtuous one in the room, the only one willing to stand up for what's right. There are moments where she is very critical of Hollywood culture but then turns around and lashes out at people who try to help her.
I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt to a degree because Hollywood is a known difficult place and some situations were unambiguously unfair/terrible for her to be in, but I reached my limit of grace with the Breaking Bad stuff. She wrote for the first season and while I obviously do not know Vince Gilligan and he could be totally different than his media portrayal, everyone seems to think highly of him and he is always praising other people. And Patty Lin didn't like him, which, fair enough. I don't know the story. But she doesn't out him for crazy behavior. She tries to paint him as a rude, aloof, selfish person for things like not using a whiteboard, forgetting to tell her about revisions, the irredeemable sin of procrastination, not being sure the direction he wanted the show to go in, and wanting to get some last minute writing in for the show before the Writer's strike. And for having the audacity to fire her, of course.
Maybe she is completely in the right and every person she ever came across in Hollywood was insufferable and she is a writing genius who just was underutilized by everyone. Or maybe not.
This book was great. I think Yasuke is an awesome character to showcase in a novel and Shreve did an excellent job making his voice very distinct and the story emotional.
The book is told in alternating chapters for a large portion of it, with Yasuke's time in Japan with Nobunaga Oda and when he is first taken as a slave. The flashbacks were less interesting to me, but always provided relevant poignancy to the Japan timeline.
For a book about samurai, I expected more action, but Shreve kept a reserved hand here. The action is good, but it's way more about character introspection and Yasuke learning who he is and how Japan works, as well as his place there.
Really liked the ending! Highly recommend checking this out.
This book is awesome.
Near the end of the book, some characters are proclaiming their loyalty to Mara, and I'm sitting there like “me too!!”. Mara is one of my favorite protagonists ever. The way she uses her cultural upbringing, her own perspective and intelligence, and the perspective of others to challenge the status quo and fight her enemies in ways they don't expect is just SO good.
I'm giving this 9.5/10 because it did feel a bit overlong in spots and there was a minor issue I had with the ending. But without a doubt one of the best political fantasy books I've ever read.
When people hate this, I totally see why. When people love this, I see why. So it's right in the middle for me.
But damn. Herman never learned a fact he didn't tell you, never recalled an anecdote he didn't spring on you, never used one word when five would do. Ishmael is one overly verbose mofo.
You could read Moby Dick, or you could take a crackhead sailing, and it would be mostly the same experience.
This was easily my favorite of the Three Kingdoms Chronicles books so far. Dynasty Killers picks up where Heroes of Chaos left off, and it's adapting some of my favorite parts of this history. Wu does a fantastic job mapping the various political factions and situations when China was perhaps at its most split; things started to coalesce at this point. And that could provide a big hurdle, because there is a lot of important material to get through, and I think it was handled pretty well.
We continue to follow Liao Hua (called Chun still) and by now, Hua is an adult in both timelines. Which means he is fully capable and willing to be in the thick of things, but it also means his flaws are full on display. There are times when our protagonist is deeply unlikeable, there are times when I think he pushes his luck with his lord Cao Cao to an unbelievable degree (real Uhtred/ King Alfred energy), and there are times where Liao does the right thing and you're rooting for him. I think that makes him a pretty complex character.
The prose is better in this book, particularly I thought the dialogue was noticeably better, and there were a few scenes with minor, non-historical characters that were really affecting.
The proceedings in Dynasty Killers has Cao Cao dealing with foes in all directions - Yuan Shao, Yuan Shu, Lu Bu, Zhang Xiu, Liu Bei, Sun Ce. This period of years is where Cao Cao really EARNS his reputation and becomes the “hero of chaos” and I love it so much. Cao Cao and Liao Hua's changing relationship in this one was very good, as Liao realizes that power continuously corrupts. If I'm nitpicking, I think the political situation leading up to the battle of Wan was not given enough time in relation to how monumental the results had on the rest of TK history. The battle itself was really good though. DK also featured a lot more concerning Lu Bu, and while I realize it would be tough, I just wish there were more chances to give Bu some page time. Lu Bu traumatized me as a kid and nothing can truly get across just how scary he was in Dynasty Warriors 3, haha.
The reason this book is not a full five stars is because there is a very jarring, dark scene involving rape, necrophilia, and pedophilia that comes out of nowhere about halfway through the book. The girl is not given a name or any character, she exists just to scandalize the main character, and the scene just felt very out of place to the relatively tame “action-adventure” style we had gotten for the last 2.5 books. For additional context, I had just read Dark Age by Pierce Brown shortly before this, and that book has pages and pages of some the darkest, most heinous shit I've ever read, and I didn't dock that book for it, because it felt tonally appropriate and was handled with care. I just can't get behind the ratio of “dark” to “necessary” in this case. It also continues to make Xiahou Dun a monster, which...hey, I like Xiahou Dun, stop it
The worst book I have ever read.
Not my least favorite, though, because Catcher in the Rye and Ready Player Two exist. But this book is definitely worse.
Beyond the real world repercussions, this book is just utter garbage. It is an affront to literature. To art. To the written word. It's an affront to the actual feeling of rage. Rage deserves better than to have this book named after it. I cannot believe Stephen King wrote this. I also can't believe the rating for From a Buick 8 is like .4 less than this paper concussion. This should never have been published, this should have never been shown to publishers. This should have embarrassed King too much to ever show someone. Before the real world repercussions.
As for those, well. King was absolutely right to let this be out of print. Normally when people shoot up schools and the media points out everything they've ever owned as a possible cause, I roll my eyes. “What, the shooter liked Hubba Bubba Max?! Burn it all!”. But this book glorifies school shooting in such a fucking insane way that I am just completely perplexed at the decision to write this. Zero stars. Negative one stars, actually, for causing real world harm.
This book made me a worse person. Prior me had hope in humanity. It's gone now
I basically liked absolutely nothing about this book but out of respect for my enjoyment of these characters and this world, I will give it three stars instead of two.
This book lacks any tension whatsoever and I think the structure of this series just ended up being really poor. Most of the main goals in the series have been dealt with by this point and major revelations have changed the status quo, so most of this book is just trying to get Lindon's friends to the same power level as him, which I don't like on principle. If everyone (even with a lot of help) can get to the same insane power level as Lindon in just a few chapters of grinding then why did we follow Lindon struggling to do it for 11 books? If you're commited to this, Why can't we just start the final book with a time skip and have everyone powered up to what you need them to be for the plot so that the final book can have some sense of momentum?
I also just think the consequences in this series were so low. The stakes are sky high and the sacrifices necessary to defeat these insanely overpowered, staggeringly awe-inspiring powers is not high enough.
The ending does not feel like an ending at all. We are still being introduced to new characters and new concepts and things in the final two chapters, and the ending of the book is basically a cliffhanger. My brain autofilled in,” Find out in the next episode of DRAGON BALL Z” after the final line. Meanwhile, Wight is still playing coy on if he will ever return to these characters. Which is terrible - either he intends this to be a genuine ending and if so it fails in almost every way to be a satisfying conclusion to me, or he knows he's going back and is not saying anything to try and make people feel like this is really the end. I don't like either option.
Also the best character continued to not really be in this book, which is a structural problem I can't get into due to spoilers. But basically I feel very strongly that this character was just wasted, especially with how important they were overall, they were just barely mentioned. It's like if Dumbledore was just for whatever reason only mentioned like three times in the final Harry Potter book.
I know Wight has a few completed series and I think I will go back and read one or two of them before trying anything else new from him, because I've lost confidence that he knows how to end something.