dllh's reviews
674 reviews

The Underwater Welder by Jeff Lemire

3.5

I expected color based on the cover but grayscale sort of fit. I liked it well enough.

Contact by Carl Sagan

adventurous

3.5

I hadn't read this in many years and remembered many things from the movie that were not in the book. It's a good book.

The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

4.0

I took my time with this one. It was very good but it felt pretty sluggish much of the time, and I often found myself preferring to do other things than to spend more time with Shevek.

Seveneves by Neal Stephenson

2.0

I wanted to like this, but it was terrible. The story was a neat idea, but Stephenson seems a lot more interested in showing off the things he knows than in writing a readable story. Characterization is god-awful, descriptions of fascinating-sounding devices and structures opaque, repetition frustrating. When it finally starts to get more interesting, it's suddenly over. Probably would make a pretty cool movie, though.

Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell

medium-paced

4.0

After The Bone Clocks, I was just about ready to write Mitchell off. This one was a good return to longer fiction, a well written story minus ham-handed thriller/fantasy elements that didn't work (I liked the thriller and fantasy bits in Cloud Atlas well enough. I was ok with the fantastical elements in this one too. Mitchell seems maybe to be back on the rails.

Shadow Speaker by Nnedi Okorafor

adventurous fast-paced

3.5

This was a good read. I liked the premise of

intersecting worlds

and the varied cultures, even though some of the cultures felt sort of hand-wavy. I liked some of the trappings of Ginen (e.g. the idea behind the architecture) but also felt like these things didn't make much sense. That's ok to a point -- it's speculative, futurist literature -- but as world building, I felt it lacked depth and felt simply stated rather than established in a way that felt earned or real within the world of the story. Still, I enjoyed it and will read the follow-up. I've liked all of Okorafor's work so far.

A Memory of Light by Brandon Sanderson, Robert Jordan

3.0

Thank the ever-living Light I'm done with this series and this book in particular. I find war scenes to be pretty dull, and half or more of this long book was war. I know Jordan and Sanderson set up a bunch of dominoes that had to be toppled, but it was a lot. I read the series aloud to my family (so skimming quickly when things felt repetitive or dull wasn't a great option), and mostly I'm glad to be done. I liked the series overall and found Sanderson's writing to be less onerous to read overall than Jordan's. I think maybe eight or nine books would've been plenty.

The Lies of the Ajungo by Moses Ose Utomi

3.0

I enjoyed this one but it felt underdeveloped, sometimes making annoying leaps in story or logic that felt like sloppiness. Probably these would have been less evident in a longer story that permitted more full development of the material. The concept was neat.

Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward

medium-paced

3.0

Didn't like this one as much as I've liked several other of her books. I didn't read super deeply or search for links to the Inferno, which I suspect might've made it a more satisfying book.

Perestroika in Paris by Jane Smiley

adventurous lighthearted fast-paced

4.0

Having read Smiley's Horse Heaven a few years ago, I wasn't sure what to expect in another horse book. This one offered some of the same appeal -- fairly fully realized characterizations of animals -- but was lighter (though not without sadness) and a quicker read. Horse Heaven is the better book, but I enjoyed this one quite a lot.