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bmartino's reviews
1206 reviews
Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie
4.0
The best word I can come up with to explain this series is "solid." It's well written, good plot, all that, but it just doesn't transport me the way some series do. Maybe it's the lack of "epicness," the lack of a complicated backstory that makes it so I just don't care quite as much about the fate of the nations. I mean, there's a little history with Euz and Juvens and Khalul etc., but it just doesn't feel the same as say, the stories of the Targaryens in A Song of Ice and Fire, or the enormous amount of history in WoT that affects everything the characters do today. So while it's a nice read, I don't know that I'll go back to read these books again expecting to pick up more clues and tidbits, or even for the chance to be swept away into a world that I would want to inhabit. This makes it sound like I liked the book a lot less than I did; it's still - well, a solid 4 stars.
Our Lady of Darkness by Fritz Leiber
1.0
I forced myself to finish skimming this. It's safe to say after reading 3 Lieber books that I just do not care for his style. AT ALL. Words cannot say how much I hated this.
Gifts by Ursula K. Le Guin
3.0
3.5 stars, rounded down for not quite getting to the plot soon enough. I will be interested to see how the three stories in this series fit together.
Voices by Ursula K. Le Guin
4.0
I liked this one a lot better than the first in the series. A standalone if necessary, but it definitely gave it more depth to have read Gifts first.
The Terminal Experiment by Robert J. Sawyer
3.0
3.75 stars. An easy read, more enjoyable than I thought it would be from the flap description. But not very deep.
Powers by Ursula K. Le Guin
4.0
I can't believe I didn't realize till halfway through this book that the whole trilogy were really about the power of books, and learning, and stories both written and spoken. When viewed that way the whole thing hangs together very nicely, and I almost want to go back to the first one to read it in that light. Of the three, I liked Voices the best. But Powers is a close second.