Simon MacDonald

A military warfare SF book, heavy on the warfare. The plot is a little contrived, human-kind's first starship, on its first voyage, immediately makes contact with an alien race, who happen to be long lost human cousins, who are in conflict with another alien species. Warfare, ensues.

The technology and hardware is quite believable, apart from some quaint references to “rumbling of the reactors” and space fighter planes “roaring to the attack”. Perhaps an ironic hat-tip to early SF?

I enjoyed the book, and have just started the second one.

This was a very short book, which gave no opportunity to develop any plot or characters. Lots of gratuitous sex and violence, from one dimensional characters.

A continuation of the story in book #1. More development of the main characters, and good plot, which started of well, but I felt tailed off a bit towards the end. Looking forward to the next in the series.

In some ways similar to the Nexus series of books, but with less emphasis on the technical, and more on the psychological impact of brain implants on the cyborg protagonists. Some of the dialogue is a little ‘cute' for my liking, but the general story theme based on murder and political corruption is good.

Somewhat better than the first A. Shaw book, The Whole Truth. Better characterisation, and a decent plot, but not up to the standard of his other books. I wonder if there will be a third in the series?

Not one of Baldacci's best novels, but I quite enjoyed it. A good spin on perception management and how the public can be manipulated using the news, social media and the Internet.

My main issue with the story was the lack of depth to the characters. I'm going to read the second of the series, mainly because the reviews I have read have been widely divergent and I'm curious to see if the next book is so good/bad.

Another excellent episode in the trilogy. Increasingly machiavellian political intrigue and lots of action.

An excellent and enjoyable book. I have read some earlier David Gemmell books, but not the Troy trilogy, which I am reading as a result of a recommendation from my friend Phil. The book has a great plot structure, believable characterisation, plenty of action, and seems be pretty accurate historically.

A period map would have been useful - I pretty much worked out where the various protagonists came from, but I wanted to confirm it. I read the Kindle version - there wasn't one in it, but maybe there was in the paper version. Still Google came up with a couple.

I am just about to start volume 2 - Shield of Thunder.

I really wanted to enjoy the 4 books in this series, but to be honest I found the prose rambling and tediously verbose.
Perhaps it's me but I'm astounded that this is considered one of the best fantasy sequences of all time

Short, but quite interesting. Such a short book can only give a superficial view of Turing's life and work. Being an computer geek for over 40 years, I've always been interested in Turing. I've seen the reconstructed Colossus at Bletchley Park, although that wasn't his work. So, this has given me the impetus to read a more detailed biography.

This series gets better as you get through it. The first book initially read like the script for a video game, but it gets better in numbers 2 and 3.

I thought Crusader #4 was overly long, but this one was about right. The characters have little more depth, but for my taste there is too much emotional introspection from the main character, Cyrus Davidon.
Book #6, Warlord, is promised this year - I shall probably read it.

I tried really hard to engage with this book, but regrettably it just did not grab me. Other readers have given it great reviews, but I'm afraid I did not enjoy it.

I like the concepts behind the book., but I could not engage with the writing style. There are multiple intertwined story lines, and the story viewpoint flips back and forth between them. Sometimes the same scene is played several times from different perspectives. This was, at first interesting, but quickly became irritating, and eventually boring. I am still deciding about reading the next book.

When I first read this book in the early 70s, I was stunned by power and drama of the story. On reading it again some 40 years later it is still an excellent book, but regrettably it lacked the impact it had on my younger self. Never go back.

The first adult SF book I read at the age of 10. I was amazed by it, and it hooked me into SF for life. I read it again some years later, and I would now give it a 3/5 - but as my first SF book it still rates 5!

I'm having trouble with the book. Perhaps I should not read the two prequels first, but I'm about halfway through, and I'm finding it unbelievably tedious. I stopped, left it a week, and then read some more, but it's not working for me.

I'm going to park it here and try again later in the year. I don't like leaving books unfinished.

I started this book, but had to put it down as it boring me to tears. It was compared to work by China Mieville - from what I read, I don't think so. I may try this again in the future.