Rob
I generally pick up every new John Scalzi book as it comes out, and the Old Man's War series is largely the reason why. I really enjoyed the world he built and the characters that inhabited it.
It's been 10 years since The End of All Things was released, so my memory of things was pretty bad. It seemed like a re-read of Zoe's Tale in particular might have been a good idea. That said I didn't feel lost and there was enough background provided in this book for me to pick up without re-reading any of the previous books.
I really enjoyed the main protagonist (who I guess was a character in Zoe's tale?), Gretchen Trujillo and her assistant Ran. The book has the usual Scalzi banter and a fast paced plot that is light on the science.
The book is self contained but certainly seems to be set up for more books in the series, which I'd welcome.
I loved wrestling as a kid and watched the WWF through most of college. But after a while I got tired of it. Woman's wrestling in particular was not very good. A young teenage boy was titillated by all the T&A and hot woman, but otherwise uninterested in that aspect. So I completely missed out on AJ Lee's run in the WWE.
In the years since, I would periodically read about the goings on in WWE, in particular this group of nerds called The New Day, who would dress up like Super Saiyans or play the Final Fantasy victory music when they won. I also started to hear about how the Woman's division was actually good, if not BETTER than the men's.
2020 started making me nostalgic for the good old days (which maybe weren't that good, but I was younger and things were simpler). I started watching a lot of documentaries on Wrestling, and then started following the storylines while not actually watching the show again.
Then I saw some of the woman's matches and I found myself pulled back in. The woman's division is by far the best thing they got going. A lot of this it turns out was due to what AJ and a few others had done to create the path for this current generation's female superstars to take things to such a high level.
I had watched this sadly cancelled Starz show called Heels. CM Punk had a small role and I knew who he was, even though I had missed his run in the WWE too. When I was looking up who played one of the female wrestlers on the show I discovered that AJ Lee was Punk's wife. And that was all I knew about her until maybe 2 months ago. Turns out that's one of the least interesting things about her.
CM Punk had famously left the WWE on bad terms, but time (and money) heals all wounds and he returned a few years ago. Then they started to set up a story hinting at the possible return of AJ Lee. When it actually happened, I started reading up more about her and discovered she wrote this book.
I mostly do audio books these days, so it was great to see that she read her own book. AJ is very funny and that comes across in her reading.
AJ is very brave in the stuff she admits in this book. Although as she mentions in the book, after some of the stuff she did in her run in the WWE, there isn't anything that embarrasses her anymore.
There is a lot of wrestling in this book (in particular the last third or so), but much of this book focuses on her childhood, family and her (and her mother's) struggles with mental health. In particular both AJ and her mother are bi-polar.
When I was younger my mom had bouts of depression including a stint in mental help facility. I didn't understand it. It was embarrassing. Or so I thought as a young kid. There is a negative stigma on mental health that is only starting to change in recent years.
I also learned many years later as an adult that my grandmother was bi-polar when she went off her meds are started behaving in ways I had never experienced. Our family had never talked about it. No one explained to us when we were a kid. So I can really identify with some of what AJ went through.
I think some of changes in the stigma on mental health has begun to change thanks to people like AJ. Hearing a WWE crowd cheering for Therapy in 2025 was not something I had on my Bingo card.
The book was fascinating, funny and inspiring. I don't know where AJ Lee's stint in WWE will end up, but I'm interested to find out.
4.5 Stars.
I really enjoyed The Art of Prophecy, but found The Art of Destiny uneven and didn't always keep my attention. This one was a pretty solid finish to the series. There were a few lulls keeping me from giving it a 5, but nothing like the last book.
I came to really enjoy the world and the cast of characters and am sad to be leaving them, but I think that's another sign of a good book.
I'll be curious to see what Mr. Chu writes next.
Picked this one up from the library. Did the audio, which is narrated by Tom Felton himself. It's non-fiction, so in general the narrator doesn't matter much, but there was some times when he would slip into Draco or do some accents or whatever to add a little extra to his story.
I didn't know about any of the post Harry Potter stuff (or most of the pre-Harry Potter stuff for that matter). He's had a fairly interesting life and the book had some good stories in it. He also talked about his mental health issues and how that led to his issues with drugs and alcohol.
The parts I enjoyed the most were the Harry Potter bits, something that is a lot harder to do these days. I don't want anything to do with JK Rowling, but I still love the books and enjoy the movies despite her recent crusade to be an awful human being.
Tom certainly mentions her a few times. It's hard to know what he feels about her now, but certainly he comes off as grateful to her for the books and what Harry Potter has meant to his life.
I like to think the best of people and it's not his job to take a stand on someone else's beliefs. I'm also not certain when this book was written vs. when JK Rowling started her crusade.
So if you're all out on Harry Potter, I totally get it and probably will want to take a pass on this book. But if you still love it like I do, and want some interesting stories about his time on the films, this is a good book to check out.
I struggled a bit with this at times. My attention would drift. I'd go several days without picking it back up, often opting for a podcast instead. It got better as it went along and I already bought the final book in the series, so I will probably wrap it up later this year, but there are some other books I plan to listen to first.
Stephen Brand once again does an excellent job with the narration. This really helped me get through the slower parts when I was less interested.
I have mixed feelings on this one. I struggled with the characters, including Mickey. His view on people doesn't vibe with my own. His choices that lead to him becoming an expendable are not ones I'd make, but I guess I understand. Most of the supporting characters are worse, except maybe Nasha.
For me the thing that kept me picking the book back up was the story itself. There is a bit of a mystery and I wanted to know what happened. Mickey did grow on me as the book went along. He had some interesting character growth. The book explores a lot of ideas about what is self.
I guess there is a sequel, but I'm not likely to pick it up. I am fine with this as a stand-alone.
I will continue the series, but every time I pick up a new book in this series I'm reminded how much I can struggle with the writing. I love the characters, the world building and the overall plot has me interested. That said there are just huge lulls of infodumps or overexplaining things and I just sort of tune out. I want to see where the story goes. This book finished much stronger than it started.
The narration is fantastic as always. I think it's a huge help to get through the slow parts of the series. I was annoyed when the book got delayed, but I'd rather it be delayed than have a different narrator.
For a while John Scalzi was one of my favorite sci-fi authors. Anytime a new book a pre-order was automatic. However I was mostly underwhelmed by his last two novels The Kaiju Preservation Society and Starter Villain. Both had fun sounding premises and both didn't end up being as fun as their premise.
So here comes this book about the moon turning to cheese. In the afterword Scalzi mentions how its the final book in what he sort of considers a loose trilogy of unrelated books. I was staring to think that maybe I'd be more selective of which novels by Mr. Scalzi I'd pre-order in the future.
Thankfully this was a book that ended up being as fun as the premise. If you're looking for a hard sci-fi novel, well you must not have read a John Scalzi novel before. The science is hand wavy at best. But that' not the point.
I'm not generally a fan of short stories. This book is almost that, but not quite. Some characters we meet once and never again. The book explores a lot of ideas, characters and parts of the US with the question of "how would they react if the moon turned to cheese?". It's a silly premise and question, but somehow it leads to some really interesting vignettes that worked well together into a novel length story.
Despite my somewhat low expectations and a style of story telling I generally don't enjoy, Mr. Scalzi somehow pulled it off.
Wil Wheaton does his usual good job with narrations. This book has far less snark than other books by Mr. Scalzi but I still think Wil is always a great fit for his novels.
It's been a while since I read the last book in this series. Apparently that one was set on the moon and featured Nicole instead of Elma and the book I loved the most.
This book returns to Elma and Mars. I'm not sure how much was the return to Elma and how much was just the plot not being as strong, but this one wasn't as good as the last.
Don't get me wrong I still enjoyed it, and would read another one if she writes one, but at points of the book Elma was getting on my nerves and the interactions with some of the other characters did as well.
Once again Mary Robinette Kowal does an excellent job narrating her own book. The audio is a great option for this series.
Similar vibe to the original. I didn't enjoy this one quite as much as that one, but it was still a fun read. In general I don't tend to enjoy prequels, but I thought this one worked well enough. There was a good mix of characters and subplots to make this different enough from the first. Everything here feels pretty self-contained apart from maybe the epilogue that makes this feel mostly like a stand alone.
I guess there is now going to be a 3rd book, though I don't know where that falls in the chronology of the first 2. I will check it out at some point, but I won't necessarily rush to pick it up.
Travis Baldree does his usual excellent job at narration for this. Normally I'm not a huge fan when authors read their own works, but I enjoy Mr. Baldree's narration for a few other series so he's an excellent choice here.
It's been a while (3.5 years) since I listened to Heaven's River, so my memory of the characters and where things left off was fuzzy. I did mostly get back into things after a bit without feeling the need to look for recap.
The book was enjoyable enough that it kept my attention, but it also sort of felt like a bit of a transition book. There were like 4 main plot lines, and all of them felt like setup for more books. I'm good with that, I'll read more books.
I thought it ended in a fine place where I'm looking forward to the next book but not going to be impatient for it to come out. There are lots of loose threads but nothing I'd call a cliffhanger.
Audio narration was fantastic as usual. Ray Porter is excellent.
It was quite good, but not quite as good as the last book. It did finish really strong though and I can't wait for the audio version of the next book to be out next month.
I've been binging this series in audio now for the past 2 months or so and I'm sad I'm not able to jump right into the next one.
The narration continues to be fantastic. I guess they are redoing the series as an audio drama with multiple narrators, but I'm good with just Jeff Hays. He's one of the best narrators I've listened to in quite some time.
This series is a lot of fun. The humor can be a bit sophomoric, which may turn off some folks, but it works pretty well for me.
If you haven't checked this series out yet and you like RPGs/heavy action fantasy series give this one a look.
You know a book is great when you will stare at a wall just to get some extra audiobook time in. Easily the best of the series so far. He's been building up the "6th floor" since early on in the series and he didn't fail to deliver. I really love this series. It's going to be hard to top this book though.
The quality of the audiobooks has gone up with each one. I'm generally not a huge fan of the music and sound effects in audiobooks, but they do a good job of it and don't overdo it.
Very uneven. The first half of this book was painfully slow and I went days and weeks without being interested in picking it back up. The second half was far more engaging, but still slow at times until probably the last quarter or so.
I'm not sure what to rate this book, the first half was 2.5 or 3, while the second half was 3.5 or 4. This book is so long it could easily be 3 books. I'm inclined to just go with it ending strong and give it a 3.5
I'm not sure if the series has just simply grown too bloated (like many epic fantasy series before it), or if it's simply that my tastes and reading habits have severely changed since I first started reading this series.
Some character arcs were far more interesting to me than others. I'll be curious to see how interested I am with his planned break between this book at the next. Likely I'll be excited to pick it back up again, but probably far less excited than I was after the first three books.
It's a fine story with the typical Scalzi humor. It may be that later entries in this series (assuming it continues) will be a bit better without needing to take up so much time world building. The world building would have been fine for a longer story, but it felt like the story took too long to get started.
Audiobook: The audio is fantastic. Amber Benson does a fantastic job with a variety of voices. As this is currently the only way to consume this story, it's a nice benefit to get such excellent narration.
This is my first time reading Zelazny. I hadn't heard of this book before. The more popular pick seems to be Lord of Light.
Someone in my book club suggested doing a chapter/day starting on September 30th because each chapter is a day. This worked well for me because most of the chapters were short and could easily be consumed while doing a simple task around the house like making lunch. There are a few exceptions to this including the final chapter which was by far the longest.
My interest in the book was up and down, with some day's events keeping my attention more than others. I'm not a classic monster/horror/literature guy. So while I mostly followed who the various unnamed characters are (The Count, the Great Detective, etc) I'm sure there is a lot of stuff that I just didn't get.
Overall the story was fine, but didn't really grab me. I think if I had tried to just listen to this as my normal book and not doing 1 chapter/day I might have enjoyed it less.
I listened to the audiobook version of this because it was included with my audible subscription. I thought the narrator did a pretty good job with a variety of voices for the different characters.
I liked this one quite a bit more than Nolyn. Farilane is a great character. She has some flaws, but those mostly just serve to round her out. She also seems to grow quite a bit as the book goes along.
The opening chapter was really good at drawing me in. It was almost like a scene out of Indiana Jones or Tomb Raider.
The only issue I have with this is how it ended. It's hard to elaborate without spoilers, but I'll just say it didn't felt earned. It didn't ruin the book for me, because overall I enjoyed it, but it did knock a star off the rating.
I really enjoyed the original Ryria books so I was pretty excited for the First Empire series when it came out. I enjoyed the first few books in that series, but I felt like it lost steam by the end. So when this series was announced, I wasn't as excited.
I did want to read this eventually, but wasn't in a rush. I finally got around to it, and I found it another strong start to a new series. I thought the new characters were interesting, especially the titular character, Nolyn. Some of the supporting characters were reminiscent of characters in Ryria or First Empire, but the main characters felt more flushed out.
Overall I found this a fun listen and will be continuing right on into the second book. As usual, Tim Gerard Reynolds does a fantastic job with the narration. However there was one chapter where there was a lot of repeated text and it made for an agitating listen. If I had been reading the text instead I would have skimmed over that section.
I first heard about this book thanks to an article on Ars Technica. What I found strange was it was the time I heard anything about this. Given the timing (2020-21) of the bulk of the story though, it's not too much of a surprise. I had other things on my mind back then.
I've read a lot of computer history and cybercrime books. I find the topic fascinating. This book is really more about more traditional crime (drugs, guns, money laundering) with a technical aspect (encrypted phones). From a technical perspective I didn't enjoy this as much as other books, but it's still a fascinating story.
It poses a lot of issues as technology and specifically encryption techniques continue to evolve how do you balance our right to privacy against the needs to prevent crimes? I don't have any answers and this book doesn't attempt to answer that question. What it does it instead is to tell a fascinating story that seems like it's right out of a movie.
I think this could turn into a great documentary or possible a movie, but it's probably not flashy enough for the latter. Staring at computer screens reading messages is not exactly big screen cinema. Overall though I found this a great read.
Another fun entry in this series. I still don't enjoy it as much as his cradle series, but still a drop everything and read book for me. As someone who has watched a lot of Gundam over the years, I always enjoyed the Raion/giant mech subplot. As the title suggests, this book focuses heavily on him and Varic's relationship to him.
The audio is great. Travis Baldree does his usual excellent job with the narration
Pretty solid ending to a mostly fun series. After his reckoner series, I had decided I was done with any non-Cosmere books. However the first one in this series changed my mind and for the most part it's been a fun holiday road trip book series for me. When this one came out I was busy with other books and am only now getting around to it. I don't like it as much as the Cosmere books, but still worth the listen.
