drews

I loved this book. If you are a Star Trek fan this is a must read for you. Written by Brent Spiner of LT Commander Data fame this is his Mem-Noir inspired by true events

Brent Spiner tells us the tale of a mid tier hollywood celebrity that finds himself being stalked and harrassed by a crazy fan and has to get the FBI involved. With a full cast of characters and Star Trek favs such as Michael Dorn (LT Worf), Jonahthan Frakes (Commader Riker), Patrick Stewart (Captain Picard), Marina Sirtis (Counsellr Troy), Gates Mcfadden (Dr Crusher) and of course Mr Gene Rodenberry creator of Star Trek

This is not only a entertaining read into the life of a celebrity but a funny hilarious book that had me laughing all through the book! a must Read 5 star easily

This is the 3rd book in the Terry Goodkinds sword of truth series.

The storyline revolves aroud a group called the blood of the fold and the continued conflict between our main characters Richard, Kahlan and Zed and the Imperial order that is hellbent on taking over the world.

The blood of the fold is a extremist group that wants to abolish magic in the world and thus poses a threat to Dhara, and all those like Richard, Kahlan and Zed that use magic, Meanhile the Imperial Order lead by Emperor Jagang is determiend to dominate the world.

Jagang is a dreamwalker able to take control of your mind in your dreams and bend you to his will

Overall I did enjoy this book, but there were some drawbacks, specifically in one part where we see some anti LGBTQ ideology present. The character involved tries to rationlize but does not work very well.

With regard to overall story line and plot I did enjoy seeing continue world building and introduction of new characters and magics to the world that has been built and created. I like how Terry Goodkind has arranged for the Prophecies to be fulfilled and using plot or narratives to make it appear as if the prophecies will be fullfilled by means other than how they are done.

good read overall, not great but not terrible 3.5 stars for me

I had heard alot about this book from booktube and have been wanting to read more scifi.

As the title alludes to this is a book focused on physics as the basis for telling the overall narrative.

I love reading up on physics and what the math tells us and always find that a intersting topic to read up on. That being said however this is for sure a hard scifi with alot of math and physics involved in the book. Virtually and entire chapter is essentially a science paper and I would say about half this book is all about explaining these scienctific concepts and ideas which for me really detract from the narrative progession overall. It almost feels like if you took all the science explanations out of the book what you would be left with is a summary of the narrative

I do however love the overall big ideas behind this story and plot. The books ideas focused around progression of civilization and enviromental ideology are explored in this work and are a focus for much of the narrative.

I did enjoy getting some insight into the chinese communist cultural revolution and how that movement in china impacted or influence science in china

I have heard this book described as influenced by classic scifi, big ideas but not alot of character development, which is certainly true for this book. it was a very narrative driven story, not character but could have spent less time on the science and more time on plot development and story progression would have made this better for me personally.

Plus: big idea scifi that makes for a compelling and good read

Minus: long winded science based explanations and info dumps and flat 2 dimensional characters

This is Brandon Sanderson 1st of 4 secret novels

This book is set in the greater Cosmere of Brandon Sanderson but on a new world which we have not yet visited until this book.

This story is told in hoids voice and has a much more YA feel that other cosmere books and as Sanderson has said was inspired by Princess Bride and it certainly has that feel.

This books magic system is certainly different based around these spore seas but feels more like the natural biology of the world more than magic but still having that magical feel to it, its kind of hard to explaine lol. A very magical feeling world without alot of magic

Throughout this book there are numerous cosmere referneces to other worlds, lifeforms, magic systems and technology. I would argue that this is a great introduction to the cosmere, Fans will recognized the references and new readers to the cosmere don't need to know the references

Overall I really enjoyed this book and loved it but falls short of a 5 star review for me personally

only a few complains really. Mainly that there a few references to things that just would not be in the Cosmere including things from Earth, a non cosmere world but also HP Lovecraft references which while cool and awesome as I do like HP Lovecraft, Lovecraft does not fit in with the cosmere. And I don't think Hoid our narrator would know HP Lovecraft

Full reivew coming soon to my youtube channel, will updated review with link when that goes live

I have to say I love this book, what a great way to end the yr of reading!. I love the idea of power and magical foces being obtain via drugs. and overall just such a good read

I first read this book yrs ago and actually ended up naming 2 of my kids after characters from this book series. Kahlan and Cara. I loved it then and still really like the book now, however my views and reading preferences have certainly evolved since then

While I did not know it at the time Terry Goodkind was very much influences by Ayn Rand and it does come through alot in this series and book in general. This is not to say that it is a bad book by any means I sitll love it it. But it also has a very black and white objective right and wrong philosphy, Richard, Kahlan, Zed are inherently good guys while our big bad Darken Rahl and his minions are inherently Bad guys

That being said it is epic fantasy to a high degree, big world, big ideas and big book over 800 pages. The magic, division of the world and powerful magic of life and death is epic in scope and generally a enjoyable read for that epic fantasy fan.

I still enjoy this book and series and look forward to continuing my read of it and while I am giving it 3 stars it is still among my most loved book series that I have read. Richard and Kahlan among my favorite fantasy couples

This book is all about the search for a theory of everything. I was not expeting to like this one to a 5 star rating based on previous books I have read by Michio Kaku, but this one was actually really really good

The history and evolution of physics and the search for the ultimate theory to explaine everything really was a good and entertaining read

I especially enjoyed learning about Edgar Allen Poe and his role in helping to answer some fundelmental questions of physics in his day despite not being a scientist but a amature astromer and author. You will have to read the book to find out what that is

See my Full video review here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewHucmtbO4o

Have you ever wondered if there were multiple universes or alternate dimensions

In this book Brian Greene explores these ideas in a thought provoking entertaining way, He has knack for exploring complex scientific ideas and concept in a way that the layman can understand and comprehend.

I loved how he anticipating questions and objections to some of the ideas put forth and overall was just an amazing read from start to finish and I highly recommend this book if you are interested in the hidden reality of quantum realms and parallels universes

Have you ever wondered about the science behind science fiction?
Are common Science Fiction elements such as time travel, phasers, teleportation, force fields, Wormholes etc.. possible?

In this book Michio Kaku explores the science behind these science fiction staples and explains how they might be possible using a classification system of 3 different classes of impossibilities. To determine possible but we don't have the tech, laws of physics allow for it or virtually impossible

The book certainly is a interesting exploration of these ideas and overall I did enjoy it. However the writing style does come across in this book as a bit dry compared to Brian Greene and a few things I did not align with as well.

Michio Kaku perpetuates the myth of the Apple Logo as a tribute to Alan Turing which has been debunked numerous times as well as the idea of fine tuning of the universe for life. I am of the mindset that life evolved to fit the universe, not the universe is fined tuned for life, kin of like the puddle analogy of Douglas Adams.

overall it was a fun read exploring how the physics of science fiction could work but I would not say its a amazing great and influential read by any means. Its very much hypothetical analysis and speculative.

If you are wanting to learn more about physics and how the universe works, this is no the book for you however if you just want to explore possibilities this is a good one to start with.

Gardens of the moon by Steven Erickson
I picked up this book as part of the Read along on Mike's book review YouTube channel and likely never would have gotten around to it if not for that.

Many People have found this book at least to be confusing and difficult to follow the story line. I will say that I can understand why that is the case. While I did not find it too difficult to follow there are a lot of characters to follow so keeping track of who is doing what can get confusing at times.

This is a world at war with the malazan Empire and one city (Darikjostam) is left for the Malazan empire to conquer and only one stands in his way Lord of the moon's spawn Anomander Rake

It seems however the Gods are also getting involved in the war as well and have their own plans and agendas

The magic system is pretty basic, sorcerers, allomancers, sorceresses etc.. and I found the world of Malazn to have a very dark shadowy feel which I love! The Shadow hounds particularly peaked my interest and I have no doubt that they will make an appearance in other novels of this series as well

My only real nitpick is the Jaghut Tyrant. The payoff for this characters story arc was not really there in terms of the set up for me, lest I get into spoilers I will leave it at that

I will have a full video review on my YouTube channel in the next few days https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkUMtTLktLQ9BrbI0LRJVdg so check that out if you want

Meh, i liked much of what this book had to say but much of the examples used and data provided are at this point 20-30 yrs out of date.

This book was published in 1995 and while the underlying concepts and message is very relevant with how much has changed over the past 25yrs its hard to say how the state of our education system now is relative to then.

As an example sagan laments the lack of science based educational media but today we have things like curiosity stream, numerous science baaed non fiction books, youtube science channels, many tv networks devoted to educational programming, improved science education in schools etc...

While there is for sure a segment of society that is willfully or otherwise ignorant of scientific literacy they are the small vocal minorty.

Overall I still enjoyed this book but for sure not feeling it much more than a 3

I tend to get a bit OCD when it comes to #dnf a book and have a really hard time doing so.

This book is testing the limits of that for me. Dr. Lanza seems to be taking the position that life created the universe by simply percieving its existence, and does so using #quantumphysics principles such as superposition and particles appearing once measured

In addition to that he uses the common religious apologist argument of #finetuning combined with out of context quotes from physicst like einstein, bohr, planck, shrodinger as an appeal to authority all in a effort to support his conclusion without any actual evidence.

He is trying to sell his philisophical position as science and has even brought in metaphyisics into his arguments and treating it as legit science rather than the abstract concepts it is

I am only halfway through but 1 star for me

I honestly feel this may be more of a 2.5 star book mainly because whilw its called money it only really starts out talking about the history of money about halfway through it digresses into discussion of a future AI world

While AI is a very interesting subject that is not what i expected this book to be about.

Loved it!!! Video review coming soon

I received this book as a ARC for a review, for which I am truly grateful

This book follows the story of Charlie Brand, a young man who enlisted in the Navy after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor bringing America into WW2.

I will say that If you are a military or WW2 history buff you will probably enjoy this book. Much of the narrative follows Charlie and his experiences in the Navy. Charlie is a Radar operator which at the time was classified military Technology.

The Good
For me personally, I enjoy the what some might term info dumps, not being all that familiar with WW2 military technology, ships and planes I would not have known anything about the types of planes mentioned, their armament or capabilities so for me at least this was a good thing as it helped understand the context of the tech

I enjoyed learning about some of the battles that took place in the pacific during WW2, and the challenges that the U.S. Navy had their battles with the Japanese, this for me at least, provided a new perspective on the naval aspect of WW2 that while I am certainly aware that the navy was involved I never really thought about the war in terms of naval battles, I typically imagined things like dday and the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima

Charlie as a Character was someone I was able to come to care, at least a bit about, within this story. His love interest and family connections certainly made me want to cheer for him to get home.

The bad

Other than charlie, none of the other characters really stood out to me, I just found I did not really care for them all that much. Overall this was a very plot drive story rather than character driven story.

During the battle scenes, much of these moments in the story was focused around Charlie and his operation of the Radar. This often was focused on just reporting Radar data and the back and forth communications between officers on the ships, With the occasional mention of what the fighter pilots were doing on both side.

I certainly understand telling the story from Charlies POV however I would have loved to have more action writing, from others POV during the battle. It just seemed to really lack the intensity and battle drama that would have been occurring at these moments.

I just would have loved to see more character POV, and more battle action from those directly involved in the fighting. It just felt more like reading a battle report than being in a battle itself.

It just would have been so much better to get into the minds, and show me what the soldiers were experience in the heat of battle, show me what is going on around them, on the ships, in the sky.

overall I would say its not a terrible book, I did enjoy it, but would have loved to see so much more that would have made this book so much better.

3 stars because I did enjoy learning more about the Navy role in ww2. I enjoyed Charlie's story, and really overall it is a good story. After reading this book I do want to learn more about WW2 but at the same time it could have been so much more

This book is well named.

The second book in the legacy of the force star wars series deals with 3 families. The solos, the Skywalker's and the fetts.

All 3 families in turmoil as the battle lines get drawn. And at the heart of it all Jacen solo.


Jacen continued exploration of the dark side of the force I felt makes for a interesting storyline as he is slowly seduced by the dark side, however like others have pointed out the idea that he must sacrifice someone he loves for the greater good of the galaxy seems a bit ludicrous and serves no purpose

While others disagree I did enjoy fett's story line. I dont think being a clone detracts from his individuality because even clones are not identical, while genetically the same their own unique experiences makes them individuals. I enjoyed learning more about his backstory and what happenned after geonosis

All around good book and I did enjoy it.

Like many of the star wars books I have read this one was really enjoyable.

This is the star of jacen solos path to becoming a sith. The theme of betrayal is covered from a few different aspects of the story and is not all connected to Jacen

Good read

Dawnshard book 3.5 of the storm light archive. I love this book!!

Dawnshard follows Rysin, a disable character who has lost the use of her legs. She takes a comissiom from the queen to sail to a mysterious island hidden from the world behind a storm that has been raging forever

She is joined by the Lopen and Cord, wind runners to investigate and discover the mystery of these islands. And of course the Dawnshard is part of the mystery as the title suggest.

However the gods who do not sleep will stop at nothing to prevent them from discovering the secret of the islands

All around great read especially if you are a cosmere fan. You can find a more detailed review on my YouTube channel.

I loved getting to know Rysin more as previously only introduced in a interlude from previous books. I feel that Sanderson did a great job portraying the thoughts and feelings of someone from a disabled perspective

Lopen also gets some good character development that I really enjoyed.

Many hints are dropped of things to come “the cosmere is at stake” metals and their effects, allomany maybe? This book is like a trailer for rythim of war

This is the second book in Dan Simmons Hyperion Cantos

First lets talk about the world Dan Simmons has build with Hyperion Cantos. This book series is set about 700 yrs in the future when the galaxy has been colonized by humanity. Old earth has been destroyed or is missing and the galaxy is organized into a galactic Hegemony with a technocratic government ruled by a CEO

At some point in this history of this civilization there was a split between artificial intelligence and humanity. This core intelligence formed their own society after rebelling against the idea or reality of being conceived to be in slavery to humanity. AI got too smart for our own good essentially The AI Technocore now rules via the Hegemon but has also split into 3 main factions of AI (Though humanity likes to think otherwise)

The stables wish to maintain symbiosis with humanity
The Volatiles wish for the utter and complete destruction of humanity
The Ultimates defer any all all choice in the matter until the next level of awareness, or supreme ultimate intelligence is realized

Picking up right where Hyperion left off we are introduced to a Character of Joseph Severn who is having dreams of the pilgrims we met in the first book. These dreams are of the real life events going on at the Time Tombs of Hyperion and the dealings or encounters with the shrike and the Shrikes purpose and why it was created in the first place

In the mean time the the WorldWeb, linked together by a network of Farcasters, essentially portals in space time appears to be under attack by the Ousters, a mysterious group of people from the depths of space but all is not as it seems.

These books play off some interesting themes that I love seeing within the writings of the books and something that I find good science fiction does.

For one, The idea that humanity is by its nature destructive and will destroy all life that does not suit its own purposes. The book discusses the idea of terraform planets that already have an abundance of life but not the kind of life that humanity needs to live and human settlers has destroyed it without care for the life and natural species destroyed in the process, including any and all sentient intelligent species that may serve as competition for humanity. This is certainly a very grim and dark perspective on the nature of man whether it is true or not I guess depends on the reader but this idea is explored, not just in naturally occurring life but also in terms of AI life and its blend with human life, the Cybrids are a good example of this, resurrected personas merged with AI within the techno core and are generally seen as outsiders by humans who had sought to destroy them and so those that still live must keep their identity as a CYBRID secret.

The other main theme of this book, and the series so far anyway, is focused on religion and its role in human society. The book does a decent job of contrasting the diminishing ancient old earth religions, primarily with Catholicism as a central church used a focus for this particular theme and the newer what would be modern religion of the Shrike church, or as I think of it the Shrike death cult. There is the Catholic priests and the questioning of his own religion and the interplay of his god vs the Shrike and what it all means.

Part of this religious discussion you could say revolves around the Cruciform parasite that essentially resurrects its host over and over again. it In beds itself in the body in the form of a cross in the chest.

Then we have the shrike the the Idea of a sacrifice being needed to be made to what has become a death god or lord of pain. Its victims are impaled on a shrike tree almost in a way representing this tree of life, while impaled the victims do not die but suffer in eternal agony wishing, praying for death.

Sol Weintraub's story of his daughter aging backwards in time and having regular dreams of Abraham and God's command to sacrifice his son. He feels that God is calling him to sacrifice his daughter but fights against this as he struggles with the idea of God being truly God making such demands. Desperate to find a cure for his daughters backwards aging sickness and exploring his own religious convictions leads him on a pilgrimage to the shrike where he must choose if he will obey gods commands while facing the shrike

The AI intelligence in the mean time are seeking to create god in the form of a ultimate intelligence and these 3 explorations of religion intersect in a fascinating read while the book at times reads almost as a allegory of a twisted, dark alternate version of religiosity and god and overall was just a fascinating read from start to finish.

Easily 5 stars for me loved it!

A hit man, a dancer, and a orphaned asian girl. You can't get more unconventional than that.

Marvin, aka azarael (the angel of death) is on a mission to avenge his family, meanwhile his on again, off again girlfriend Carmen, is ready to give up on their one sided relationship till Keiko , a orphaned asian girl joins them in a un-expected way.

Lots of action, high stakes and entertaining ready. Visit my youtube channel to see a full video review.

I really enjoyed this one. Good read all around.

I dont normally read romance books but after the author sent me a copy to review I was happy to accept

I really did enjoy this book. The paranormal aspect of a demon sent to possess a innocent young blind woman is a concept that I just loved honestly.

The paranormal demonic theme along with Angel's vs demons with the girl being the central point this war surrounds was a lot of fun to read.

The characters were well written and the story and plotline well executed. I found that I could relate to the demon and the story was really about his desire to be more than just a demon.

Good book. Good read. It gets 4 stars only cause is did not care for the sex scene. Not that it was bad or poorly written so this is purely subjective

Overall good book

I had heard a lot of praise for this book. I found that some of it is deserved but the book also fell flat for me in some ways.

Some characters such as william hamleigh we flat 2 dimensional characters that did not show any growth or development while others like Aliena were written well and showed development.

I found the story to be very cyclical and repetitive in many ways and while each new problem was different it was a constant build a church, something gets in the way, build some more, something stops them etc

So for me it loses some points for repetitive writing and flat characters it wins points for the good characters and their individual stories.

There was good opportunity to wrap things up probably 200 pages before the end of the book but I felt follet failed to do so.

So it was ok. Not terrible but not great. To be honest I am split 50/50 I have certainly read worse books but I have also read much better.

You can check out my video review on youtube

https://youtu.be/MT7BmKqCn6o

This is the second book in the skyward series and I love it!

Spensa is a cytonic who can see into the nowhere, an alternate dimension or realm where the delvers live. Space travel and communications via the dimension of nowhere calls out to the delvers and puts all life in the known universe at risk

This really is a fun, fast paced action packed series. Spensa is a strong character faced with impossible odds and is ovrrall just a great read. See my full review on youtube

This will likely be the last Larry Niven book I read. Not because this one is terrible but because overall Ringworld is just not that great of a series.

Essentially in this book outside invaders are coming to the ringworld to obtain its tech and in a war for the world and its up to louis Wu and the protectors to avert disaster.

I gave this a 3 star review mainly because it seriously lightened up on rithshara (interspecies sex) which honestly made the story telling better by that fact alone. Which tells you something about how bad it is when simply removing something improves the story .


On the whole I don't think the story is bad as far as a story goes, i just don't think Larry Niven is all that great a writer overall.

I still don't care that much about the characters and in the end its meh.

I got this book as a christmas gift in 2020 and have spent the past yr reading a few stories and poems each month.

And I Love it!! I have a new appreciation for Edgar Allen Poes writing and prose. His humor, and macabr story telling. Easily best book I have read all year!