Remy Sharp

Pretty gentle and sensible introduction to assembly and machine code. I'm pretty familiar with 8-bit assembly already but this helped to lay some decent foundations.

The pace is a bit weird though. It starts and continues for a good deal of the book as uber simple, almost erring on the side of being patronising with it's weird 16 fingered alien - but it does just about work.

But then, as the later chapters go on, the author suddenly switches from nice and gentle to “obviously”, “just” and “simple” and it feels a bit like you're tossed into the deep end with no orientation. I found I had to re-read seemingly short and “obvious” chapters.

Frustratingly the chapters on audio and graphics were exceptionally short only referring to the out ports which is technically accurate but didn't offer much advice.

Then around 40% of the book is used to build out a Frogger clone which I'll admit I skimmed.

The appendix is very useful though, with a complete index of opcode to pneumonic and visa versa which I've used a number of times already.

Fun stuff, as always, but requires prior knowledge

I'm a big fan of the Murderbot Diaries the first story was so fresh and unlike anything I had before so I was particularly excited to read the full length novel by Martha Wells.

I was actually looking forward to recommending it to friends, but the one thing that surprised me and with mild disappointment is that you would definitely need to read the previous novellas. There's a lot of references to prior adventures, characters, outcomes and learnings - which makes it hard to jump straight into this book (I wouldn't recommend doing so actually).

However, I have read all the prior novellas and was able to pick up from where I left off, and SecUnit continues to be lovable, grumpy and extremely uncomfortable with emotions.

What was a real delight was the return of ART. We met ART in Artificial Condition (book 2) and I remember being disappointed that we didn't meet it again, but in this story, ART plays a main character - and it's beautiful.

I do also love how Wells writes about these characters. Firstly they're respectful of pronouns - somehow whenever I've thought of a robot, I've referred to them as “he” yet robots have no gender. Wells makes it pretty clear that a) this has never been an issue to the constructs, and b) always makes sure we're using the right pronouns, including always referring to SecUnit's mushy clients as “humans and augmented humans”.

If you're a Murderbot fan, then I definitely think you'll enjoy this. If you've not read Murderbot before, then I highly recommend it!

Pretty much middle of the road read.

I had expected some mildly challenging literary content but this wasn't it. The main character, Cormoran Strike is well drawn, but it sort of reads like the name came first and the whole character was built up around that.

Frustratingly the book opens with a back and forth between Strike and, what I thought and hoped would be the relatable character and even the protagonist, Robin - and this lead me to believe the book would be told from both their points of view, but quickly after a few chapters Robin's character is very much tossed aside as very much inconsequential to the story... so why even bother?

It read like I was watching a program on TV, and not one that I'd put too much effort into watching. I had hoped for something more interesting or perhaps more challenging.

I'd imagine this might be useful as a beach read. Maybe.

Solid reading, what I've come to expect from Hunter.

Having now read three of the Adam Fawley books, albeit in reverse order, I've come to expect a certain level of story telling from Cara Hunter and this as the first book does not disappoint.

Having recently read the 2nd book (though the order isn't crucial) the twist device was a little familiar but it didn't distract from the story, nor did I predict any part of the story.

Enjoyable as a British based modern investigation story that leans more on (what I imagine is) police work rather than glamorous whodunit style reveals.

Looking forward to reading the fourth installment.

Innocent and beautiful and left me wanting to take pause when looking around.

I first heard, to my shame, of The Little Prince on Netflix and the short part that I watched (I watched it with the kids and stopped around the 20 minute mark) I felt that it was especially unique. So when I saw it was indeed a book, and a particularly famous one at that, I realised there must be something special in here. I wasn't let down.

I'm not quite sure what the Little Prince is, I want to have this great epiphany about the story but if I had one, I can't articulate it.

The tale is certainly beautiful in a way that makes me remember to forget all the serious stuff (and numbers) of adulthood and remember the time I used to wonder whether an entire universe could exist inside a raindrop.

It's a romantic escapism of a book and I hope to share the book with my children one day soon.

Fun writing but does end up being a game by game review.

I've been taking long walks through nostalgia and revisiting my childhood days with the Spectrum, so this book looked fun.

It's well written and Dan Whitehead has a fun way of writing - very much in the ilk of the spectrum games of the day. There's a briefish introduction to the history of the spectrum that I had wished there was more and then the book goes through some of the poignant games from the 80s that ran on the speccy.

The game chapters weren't so much as reviews but a dig into what made the games interesting either from the player's perspective or a technical achievement for the day.

I would have preferred more stories from the history of the speccy, but that I guess is an entirely different book.

Still, a fun read, some bookmark worthy game titles with some useful web resources at the end.

Good lord I miss this woman. I could read and listen to her stories all day.

The book starts out as Carrie Fisher retelling some of the days leading up to her joining the cast of Star Wars in the late 70s, but then as the title suggests, she found some long lost diary pages and quite literally puts them in the book.

It's very much hearing about her life at the time, but Carrie Fisher is such a huge character with such a way of telling stories that I really enjoyed reading her accounts.

One thing that really suprised me was that she would write poems as part of her diary, and the poems are really good. It amazes me that someone can just throw out a thoughtful and well written poem and it's casually added to a diary.

Everytime I read Carrie Fisher or see her on the screen I wish that she was still in the world. But I am grateful of the legacy she's left behind.

Interesting, well written and some nice ideas, but for me, wow, a long read that seemingly never ended.

What if, instead of monekys evolving, another creature evolved to reach our levels of self awareness? What if that creature were spiders? Well, this book will give you a good run for your money.

Split, mostly, between a new civilization of sentient spiders and a space ark containing (what we presume) the last cargo of earthlings, the story tells itself over centuries, if not millennia (it's not really clear - just enough time for spiders to become astronauts!).

On one side the story looks at an evolving species and dips in and out of time to see how they're getting on, how science evolves, how society evolves and most interestingly, struggles to break free of their DNA wiring.

On the other side, floating away in space a space ark ship, run by “key crew” and carrying a cargo of the last dollop of humanity. Space sleep, stasis, what have you, is used to let the characters jump over centuries of time, and start to slip out of sync of eachother's ages.

The responsibility of carry the last of humanity and even the sheer amount of time on a ship that was perhaps designed for shipping and not generations of the living are examined, and this is certainly interesting.

The book, at 600 odd pages though, for me, took me a long, long time to get through. 2 months in fact. I found it really hard to feel any kind of connection with the spider society and evolution which probably dragged my reading along.

I loved Dogs of War by the same author, and I legally remember it being quite epic. But with this book, it was beyond epic and around the 60% mark I was just wanting it to end.

The end of the book does close off with some really nice and aspirational ideas, but for me, this just too long to get to and fell short of what felt like work to finish the book.

Recommended if you like your space operas. Possibly pass if you're unsure. I'm not sure I'll be quick to pick up another book that spans an epic time period for a while!

Kept me guessing and an easy read.

The subject matter is pretty dark and has similarities to Room by Emma Donoghue (which the story also acknowledges). However, it's an “easy read” as I'd imagine a “holiday read” would be.

The characters are drawn pretty well, perhaps a bit obvious/stereotypical, but that's what makes it easy. I've also read No Way Out by Cara Hunter and I didn't realise, but No Way Out was DI Fawley book 3 (Fawley being the “main” detective) and this was book 2 - and somehow I thought I was reading book 27, thus not realising that I was reading the series in reverse!

Although I've now read book 3 and 2 in reverse order, I don't think it matters too much, and the links between the books aren't necessary to the enjoy the story.

On the story, Hunter does a great job to draw a storyline that seems immediately obvious but then I found myself only half way and thought “there's no way this could be all wrapped up already” and lo there's more twists and turns. Good stuff. I enjoyed it.

Heartbreaking and thought provoking.

I'm fairly sure I saw the film adaptation of Flowers for Algernon with Matthew Modine when I was in my 20s so I had a general idea of the basis of the story: a man with an exceptionally low IQ undergoes an experiment, his IQ soares, crescendos and then descends rapidly.

However the book really explored a much more interesting aspect of the character development: as his IQ increases beyond the level of everyone around him, his emotional level and experience struggles to keep up, if at all.

As Charlie Gordon gets more and more access to his mind and recalls (and accounts) his childhood memories, we see how badly he was treated and how heartbreaking his childhood was. The book is as much a psychological exploration of his childhood as it is a sci-fi - and for that it makes for a really heartfelt story.

There is one, large, aspect that doesn't track. Bare with me because I know Keyes wrote the book was written in 1966 (based off his short story written in 1958), but Charlie's emotional feelings towards Alice (and women in general) doesn't quite make sense.

Charlie had severe learning disabilities. He struggled to understand a lot of context in the world around him and we know that he has an emotional of a child.

If a child, a boy in particular, were to, suddenly, today have their IQ accelerated, their behaviour towards women and girls wouldn't suddenly be that of an adult man. Specifically they wouldn't behave like the men that expect women to pay them attention, or expect women to be sexually available just because they engaged in conversation. This behaviour isn't part of men's DNA.

Yet Charlie's character behaves this way when his IQ jumps. And yes, I'm overthinking it, but the fun thing about reading a great sci-fi is that it lets me ask more interesting questions about my world. And yes, this is rather woke thing to bring up about a book!

On the flip side, something I loved about the book is when Charlie does go back into his memories, it made me ask the question: do we have the ability for 100% recall?

Is it possible that we all have photographic memories but the majority of us can't access that part of our mind. If we do have the ability, doesn't that suggest that memory recall, for the most minute detail, is entirely possible - even to recall the details in something that was in our peripheral vision some decades ago?

If we do indeed have this ability, assuming Charlie's operation can unlock this part of our mind, does this mean we can potentially time travel inside our mind as those recalled memories become so visceral that they become reality during that recall.

Very cool stuff.

Then within the sci-fi and the character study of Charlie's psyche, we have the heartbreaking story of his childhood and whether it's possible for forgiveness all those decades later. Beautiful stuff.

Thought provoking, some interesting ideas, but a tough act to follow.

I had read “Story of your life and others” and I fell in love with the book. Chiang is an amazing creative writer with ideas that are so beautiful I found myself constantly telling others about the stories.

Exhalation is very much the same ilk: beautiful ideas and mostly well executed. My star rating is based in context of “Stories of your life and others” which I know is unfair in some ways, but it's what it is. It's more 3.5 stars rather than 3.

I found I was really craving some more lengthy stories from Exhalation and (I think) there were about four of the total short stories that gave me that. Although each story was inventive, amazing and beautiful, I kept feeling like the endings were falling short, or ending too soon...or maybe just giving up.

“The Lifecycle of Software Objects” I thought approached some really interesting ideas and asked me, as a reader, to expand my mind and preconceptions of what could be, but the way it ended, I felt as if I'd missed something. It felt true to life in that it just ends without any big bang, but as a story, I wanted to come away satisfied, or shocked, or with some emotion, but it just ... kinda ended.

I think “The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate” was my favourite story and I loved the setting and the idea that the past can be revisited in the way described in the story.

Exhalation is definitely a good book, but for me, it just didn't shine as brightly as Chiang's first collection (which was 5 stars). That said, I'll still rush out to buy anything else Chiang publishes - his stories always make me feel like my mind is being expanded!

Brutal.

Having read The Handmaid's Tale in 2017 and watched the TV adaptation (and then the subsequent series 2) - the world of Gilead was still petty fresh in my mind.

The Testaments, as the outline says, picks up 15 years after the Handmaid's Tale. The book uses the records of three characters' account to recount Gilead in it's more mature state.

It's Aunt Lydia's account that I really enjoyed. The character in The Handmaid's Tale was pretty horrible and tricky to relate to, but I felt like the TV series somehow added a much more complex layer to Aunt Lydia and now The Testaments gives her a voice, and I love it.

Aunt Linda tells of the time the Gilead comes into being and how she came to hold such a powerful position.

What's particularly brutal and scary about The Testaments and the stories of Gilead's inception is how it skims so closely to our own reality with its own fear of the different and long time brewing of hatred, racism, sexism and homophobia. It doesn't take a great leap to see our own reality take a turn like this to result in a repressive state such as Gilead.

The real only glimmer of hope is that, like The Handmaid's Tale, the story is being recounted in the future inside of an academic environment and lessons are to be learnt the same way we might study Nazi Germany. The Testaments has the same reflection and study of a society that has ended.

The Testaments both looks at Gilead's time of creation but also it's downfall.

I found the book to be a really enjoyable, challenging read. I also definitely benefitted having had The Handmaid's Tale in recent memory. I'd highly recommend.

Beautiful prose but no idea what it was about!

I've been collecting both recommendations and books that “we should have read” and it's really amazing to find that this book was written in the 1920s, before 1984 and A Brave New World.

The book was originally written in Russian and banned from publication for many decades. The version I've read is apparently a faithful and good translation but I do always wonder if the language has been modified or not (in one section I found a reference to electric toothbrushes - something that was invented some 30 years later).

None the less, the words to this book really are poetry.

The problem I had is that I really wasn't sure where I was in the story. The character thinks he's going insane, but he's actually discovering he has a soul, but often it did read like a madman and hallucinations.

It does end predictably, but only because I've already read the likes of 1984. I can't imagine the impact on a reader reading this back in the late 1920s. It's also worth adding that the writing really does hold up nearly a century later, which is baffling amazing.

So, great stuff for nearly 100 years old, but “just okay” because I struggled to fully follow the character.

Skip Skipping Christmas.

I read this based on a recommendation on social media and somehow missed checking the existing reviews. Also because I hadn't read John Grisham before I expected something even mildly challenging. I was completely wrong.

Skipping Christmas doesn't have a single decent character in it. They're all first class privilege selfish individuals with zero character progression.

The writing is also extremely basic, written exactly as if I were watching a screen - which I'm not doing - and trite to boot.

Aweful. I won't be reaching for a Grisham book in a hurry!

Sad. Heart breaking. Beautiful.

The story of Leon, a (nearly) 10 year old boy who has his family pulled apart. Set during the 80s in England where social services are struggling, the threat of terrorism is present, and racism is still commonplace.

We follow Leon as he moves through foster homes and tries to find a way back to his family.

The writing employs a technique whereby the style is told from perspective of Leon's 10 year old mind, typically I'm not a fan, but it works well for this story. In particular the last section of the story, Leon finds himself in a rioting scene and the torrent of words and fear and confusion roll right off the page - I finished the last 1/3rd of the book in a single (1am) sitting.

I liked that this was something different for me to read, and a relatively short-ish read (without feeling short). I also liked that the story didn't try to wrap a neat little bow on the end of the story, this isn't a fairy tale - but something that feels real and it ends in a way that's tinged with sadness and happiness at the same time.

A lovely read.

Engaging from the very first pages, brilliant writing and ideas with some sci-fi without the need to explain absolutely everything. Loved it.

If I'm honest the title is what attracted me to the book and I had hoped it would be a brilliant read - and it absolutely was!

The story kicks off immediately into the first few pages where people have start to lose their shadows, and the knock on effect is that they forget, they forget all sorts of things, then they forget their name, or forget their parent's names, or that they had a husband or wife or children, then forget how to speak. Then more mind bendingly, they forget that a thing is a thing, an in doing so reality changes around them - such as forgetting that a place exists then all of a sudden that place really doesn't exist taking all it's inhabitants with it.

The story follows a few key characters dedicating chapters to telling each of their story and the effect this epidemic (of sorts) affects their lives. So the story is very much about humans even though it lives inside an almost magical epidemic.

I like that the story doesn't particularly try to explain how the shadows are lost or why and why it affects some people faster than others.

A wonderfully written book that swept me along. Definitely recommend.

Decent sci-fi read, not terribly challenging, perhaps a bit overly grim towards the end, but entertaining all round.

After reading The Three Body Problem, I feel like sci-fi might be spoilt for me if it's not rooted deeply in hard science! Though Recursion does stem from a real world MIT experiment (amazingly) it's more akin to the romantic notion of sci-fi (if that's even a thing!).

The book splits pretty cleanly into three phases: 1. setup and drama, 2. sci-fi, time travel, action, 3. world ending disaster and reconciliation.

I felt like the first part was a little underwhelming, wondering where the story was going and what these two characters had to do with each other: Helena and Barry.

Thankfully this is cleanly answered in the second part where some interesting ideas are at play: specifically being able to travel back to a memory and “fork” reality off into a new timeline. Though it's only mentioned briefly, it feels like this a nod to four dimensions.

The last part when the characters decide they have to save the world - though apparently it's just down to one person not only being responsible for the end of the world but also be responsible for stopping it.

The book does its best to tell some fairly horrific tales of how the world would end - though this is very American-centric, but as the characters are based in the states, I'd imagine this is because it's their point of view. The descriptions of skin melting off and sores and blisters and radiation burning and all of that is fairly graphic. I can't decide if it made this part of the story more harrowing or if it just felt grotesque.

There's also large chunks of scenes where the protagonists are such incredible pain (the skin from a handprint peeling off and sticking to the walls) that I wondered how they were supposed to actually perform anything, instead of passing out from internal failure. But still, it's just a story!

Overall, a decent read, not super challenging and explored some “fun” ideas with time travel and the concepts of what reality might be.

If this were a technical rating, the book would get 5 stars. For me however, the book felt like a bit of a slog. It took me 2 months to read it and the story line, good gosh, feels like it is stretched across time.

I felt like there were large sections of the story that didn't really apply to anything in the overall arch that we were following - or maybe it was so long that I lost the thread of the story!

It also felt like the main protagonist, Cheng Xin, was being constantly punished by the author - although she does admit her own uphill climb in one of the later chapters entitled “The Stairs of Responsibility”.

The ending of the book (last 15%) also describes in detail the end of the Solar System. It's pretty visual and pretty bleak, and one heck of an idea to wrap my head around.

In fact, the book is full of ideas that are hard to wrap my head around - and that's what Liu Cixin does amazingly well.

For me though, as someone who is reasonably new to hard sci-fi, I found this book to tip me over the edge into “whoa, this is a bit much”. I've also read that apparently there's a fourth book in the works (or even finished) and I've no idea how that story would even continue!!!

As for the contents of the story, I'm not sure I can even explain - certainly epic and thought provoking!

A bit obvious, uneventful and a miss for me.

As always this review is based on my experience of reading this book and not reflective of the actual content or story for a broader audience (I say because I'm not particularly glowing in my rating!).

If I had this on holiday then I may have warmed to it a little more. It definitely feels like the kind of book that doesn't require much thinking.

I found the twist “baddie” very obvious but at the same time lots of the story moved forwards without any real reason.

I came away from reading the book like it had been 100 pages or so. Maybe it's because I felt like the characters didn't have any depth - the sister Victoria is cruel and unkind to the protagonist Letty, but it seems for no reason other than to make a bad character (in the living world).

Then there's Walter, living in the afterlife (or the interim, or maybe even purgatory...), it's unclear why he's been there for so long - what was special about his name. He wrote a book of poem, god knows how many hundreds of years prior to the current day, so I'm not entirely sure why he doesn't pass on.

Later we meet Hector. I'm not sure how he's part of Walters “life”. Maybe it was explained and I skimmed idly past it, or perhaps it's just some rando that has a larger part to play - and even then, when Hector plays his hand, he kind of just falls off the pages.

All in all, a bit of a miss for me.

Unexpected scary bits!

It was a tiny bit scary and it had really good descriptions. It was kinda fun and creepy scary. It was about Harry Potter doing the Triwizard Tournament.

(I read this book aloud to my son - aged 7 - this year, so the review and rating is entirely his - personally I would have rated this as 3 star, it was super repetitive and I'm worried about the 5th book being even bigger and recovering all the stuff we already know about the characters and the world!)

All throughout reading this book, I found myself smiling.

This book was published in 1938 and tells the tale of Miss Pettigrew, a failing governess who's life thus far has been quiet, polite and “ladylike”, but, as the title gives away, this day, she lives.

I've never before read a book that I've non-stop smiled whilst reading.

I found myself falling quickly in love with Miss Pettigrew and wanting her to have all the kindness she deserved.

A tough/hard science start, but gets picks up and good gosh, the ideas in this book are...wow, expansive!

The Three Body Problem ends in a way that left me feeling like I had to read the second book in the trilogy, and Ye Wenjie passes on the story to Luo Ji, though as the read we're not sure how or why at this early point.

I found the first chunk of the book (around 20%) pretty tough to read and very “hard science”, but then it feels like the groundwork has been laid and the story kicks into gear.

One thing I found myself thinking over and over as I read through the book are how amazing Liu Cixin's mind is to be able to create these broad, world impacting ideas founded in (what I seemed to think was) real science. The variety and twist of ideas are quite amazing - particularly as the author tells of different ways that the entirety of humanity could be obliterated!

The last 1/4 of the book sped up for me and the story galloped towards a finale that tapered off fairly nicely at the end. Certainly I feel like this ending is enough to stop at (though I'll definitely read the last in the trilogy, Death's End).

Great stuff, if a little heavy at first.

My first “hard science” read, but had me immediately inspired to learn more about physics.

I really enjoyed this book - and I loved the science it discussed. It got me watching youtube videos on physics and asking questions about how things work and made me want to learn more.

The story itself spanned a full lifetime, starting around the 1960s (in fact earlier) and follows through to (what I presume) is modern day. The book is full of historical references (and my Chinese knowledge is practically nil, so this was great) and chock full of amazing, believable physics questions that had me pondering over between reading sessions.

Great stuff.

My first read-twice book. A love letter to humanity.

This is the first time I've read this was 2 years ago, directly after reading Matt Haig's ‘How to stay alive', and as such, it was easy to see the relationship between The Humans and Haig's own personal experiences.

On second reading I really enjoyed the characters perspective and fresh eyes on the world.

After my own personal tragedy, I remember walking through the woods and seeing the beauty of the late summer light shining through the plant life, as if seeing the beauty of everything that surrounds us.

Haig's writing and this story in particular, reminds me of this feeling. Seeing the wonder and amazing around us all the time.

The impossibly unique circumstances that bring us together, and for those lucky ones, share the love with others.

I could describe the story in this review, but instead I'd recommend reading this book and simply falling in love with all the wonder around you.

I loved it; gripping, heart warming, shameful, despairing, brilliant and quite beautiful.

I'd seen the film some years ago and knew it was based on the book but had heard it diverged from the book a lot in the end. But wow, the book was a different beast.

The story centres around Robert Neville, the last man alive in a world of vampires and undead.

He's surviving, but for what he doesn't know. The story doesn't hold back to expose his awful constant sexual frustration and how, somehow, rape is normalised to him.

His survival is bleak and he knows it. He's constantly asking why he continues and fights for his sanity whilst every single night he barricades himself in his home whilst the undead come calling at his door.

Brilliantly written, brilliant story and I only wish it was longer.

When I read the last line of the book, I broke into a smile. Such a good story that holds up so well after being written in 1954.