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belgaer's reviews
71 reviews
The Wanderer by Fritz Leiber
adventurous
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
1.5
I found this book incredibly uncompelling. The premise is tired ”Mysterious object shows up in the sky, sending humanity into turmoil!”< /spoiler> and the characters one dimensional. Could have been better if it was about half the length. Sometimes threatened to get interesting, but never really delivered. Would have been a DNF, if I was not trying to read all the Hugo-winning books.
Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
1.5
A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
I really wanted to like this book, and I did really like the politics of the clans and the priesthood, as well as the worldbuilding, but I just couldn’t get into it. The writing style fell kind of flat for me.
Atom Land: A Guided Tour Through the Strange (and Impossibly Small) World of Particle Physics by Jon Butterworth
funny
informative
lighthearted
fast-paced
4.0
Very fun! The journey allegory gets a bit tiresome when it’s trotted out chapter after chapter, but the book as a whole is very informative and light hearted. It gets much deeper into high energy physics than I expected. Very impressed by how intuitive the explanations of the W and Z bosons, and the Higgs are. Particularly impressed by how it manages to finish in a fun, if predictable way. Even the tired exploration metaphor is a little bit more fun when calling modified gravity theorists “salty sea dogs.”
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Graphic: Incest and Transphobia
Moderate: Homophobia and War
Minor: Fire/Fire injury
Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.75
Kinda meh. I had high hopes after Falling Free, but this was kind of boring and strangely paced. Not really my favorite, but romance isn’t exactly my thing either.
Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25