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chan_fry's reviews
164 reviews
3.0
There was so much good in this book that it was frustrating to see the inexplicable choices in other areas. The second-person for a third of the narrative and present tense throughout were unnecessary obstacles to my enjoyment. Other point-removers: non-linear storytelling (for no reason that I can see) and the abrupt cutoff at the end (leaving so much unresolved and unanswered).
The good was very good, however: deep and differentiated characters, unique (I think) fantasy setting, and amazing world-building. The writing tends toward sharp and clear, especially descriptions of people and places, without getting in the way. It was enough that I’ll attempt the second book in the trilogy.
(I have a longer review on my website.)
3.0
The good: it’s quick and fun, an entirely unique revisioning of the Snow White story. This is only my second Valente story and I’m blown away by how different her style is here than it was in Space Opera. It takes something special for an author to adopt such a completely different voice like this.
The points-off part: at times the ‘Old West’ lingo was so thick that I didn’t know what was happening, the story switches from first-person narration to third-person about two-fifths of the way through, and the ending was... Well, I’m not sure what the ending was, or why.
(I have a longer review on my website.)
3.0
I rated each of the 20 stories separately (in my longer review), and came up with an average of 2.5 stars for the book, rounding it up to three. Like most anthologies, this one is hit-or-miss; some stories simply weren’t worth my time and others were wonderful. Mostly, I enjoyed the variety, and the kinds of stories I wouldn’t normally find.
One downside of the book overall, for me, was how many misogynistic tropes I saw, especially in a book as recent as 1996 and one edited by two women. Many of the female characters required a man for help or explanation or something else, for example. Also weird: almost all the music mentioned herein was either classical or folk music — possibly an artifact of the authors’ average ages. Almost no mention was made of modern popular music’s many genres: rock, metal, blues, jazz, dance, techno, R&B, hiphop, etc.
One last oddity: both the front cover and back cover specifically use the descriptor “science fiction” while avoiding the term “fantasy”. Yet I counted only five stories that avoided magic, gods, fairies, and so on — meaning 75% of the stories have a hard time counting as “science fiction” by many definitions (and mine).
2.0
3.0
(3.0 stars - average of my ratings of 23 individual stories)
As expected, some stories were dangerously dated, but others stood the test of time. What surprised me most was how many stories seemed poorly written or pointless. I would be very interested in the motivations of Hugo voters for specific years.
In the longer review on my website, I have mini-reviews for each individual story.
(I only awarded five stars to three of the stories: The Big Front Yard [Simak], Flowers For Algernon [Keyes], and Neutron Star [Niven]. On the flip side, I only twice awarded a single star: The Darfsteller [Miller] and Riders Of The Purple Wage [Farmer].)
2.0
Yes, it bugged me to award such a low score to this book. Because I agree with (most of) Gore’s points about how reason and logic have been pushed out of our national discourse and how this harms democracy. And I tend to like Gore as a person, and align with many of his political and social positions — especially on the climate catastrophe.
However, this book is simply not a viable vehicle for the argument Gore is trying to make. Not only are there internal contradictions and “alternate facts”, but the editing is so overtly poor that I began to suspect the manuscript was rushed to the presses hoping to create TV soundbites before the 2008 elections — which would negate most of the points the book was trying to make.
(I have published a longer review on my website.)
5.0
This was just as enjoyable to read as Book 1 in the series (Hominids), and very deftly carried the story along on a few expected paths but also a couple of surprising ones.
Sawyer found in this world-building exercise a perfect framework on which to hang social commentary, and he does an amazing job of representing both viewpoints of us (Homo sapiens) and the other (Neanderthals) as the two cultures begin a deeper interaction.
Speaking of “deeper interaction”, the only part of the book I wasn’t fond of was the sex scene (!is that a spoiler?!), but this is probably due more to my own personality defects than to any fault of Sawyer’s.
(I have published a longer review on my website.)
5.0
It’s no wonder this won “Best Novel” at the Hugos; it’s written expertly, well-researched, funny and poignant, and at times heartbreaking — but most of all triumphant. The couple of (I think) mistakes I found were so minor that they’re not worth mentioning.
Telling an alternate history of the 1950s space exploration effort couldn’t have been easy, but Kowal’s novel makes it look easy.
(There’s a longer review on my website.)
5.0
4.6 : In eleven essays, written by academics but accessible to laypersons, this book lays out the case that the U.S.’s criminal justice system is (and always has been) a system of injustice for black men. The citations are meticulous, with dozens (hundreds, in some cases) of sources listed at the end of each chapter, along with explanatory end notes. I would recommend it to anyone — except perhaps those already deeply familiar with the issues.
Since one can always find a flaw, I’ll say I thought the final essay was the weakest, both in writing style and organization; I wish it had been in the middle somewhere. Maybe a better ending (for me) would have been for Davis to summarize the policy proposals mentioned throughout the book.
(I have published a longer review on my website, complete with mini-reviews of each essay.)
4.0
(3.8 of 5) — This was fun, as expected from Scalzi’s Old Man’s War series. What I enjoyed most was that instead of chapters, there are 13 self-contained “episodes”, each a short story or novelette in its own right. For me, it made reading easier to handle in bite-sized chunks.
Though each episode wrapped up a subplot, my primary complaint with the book is that the overall plot didn’t come to any conclusion. I assume by the time it was published, the ending was being prepared for the next book (I’ll find out when I read the next book).
(I have published a longer review on my website.)