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specs's reviews
101 reviews
The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl
2.0
Bought the paperback in Ireland and read it all on the plane back to the US. If I hadn't been stuck on a plane with only one book I wouldn't have finished this. It actually made me like the authors in this book less, when before I'd had a generally positive impression of Transcendentalism.
Summer Knight by Jim Butcher
Book 4: AKA the first book in which I had to actually keep careful track of what was going on with the faerie courts.
Cold Days by Jim Butcher
Vaguely unsatisfied with this one, especially re: Karrin & Harry. And Karrin in general. She's always felt like a caricature of a Career!Cop!Woman and I was hoping Butcher would write her out of that. She's developing a bit, sure, but I'd like more depth. (And yes, more than we get in Side Jobs.)
Among Others by Jo Walton
5.0
I hesitate to recommend this to other people because this book was so obviously written for me -- and for girls like me -- that telling someone to read it feels very intimate. If you read this and you know me, you will then known an awful lot about my adolescence and how important science fiction & fantasy books were to me then and are now.
The short, obvious review: I love this book. If you read it and hate it, please don't tell me.
The short, obvious review: I love this book. If you read it and hate it, please don't tell me.
Zero History by William Gibson
4.0
I loved all three of the Blue Ant books, although Pattern Recognition was my favorite. This shouldn't be worth noting, but I kept stopping to wonder & try to pick apart why his women characters felt so real to me. Best I can come up with is a) they remind me of myself (so ymm) and b) he writes them as people who happen to be women. I kept finding myself stopping reading to figure out how, exactly, Gibson accomplished (b) but I still don't have a good example or explanation. The best I can do is how Cayce & Hollis get ready for their meetings with Bigend -- they actually put thought into what they wear & how they look, but Gibson doesn't sexualize the process or make them fret over anything. Most of this is his style, which I love anyway, but I especially love how it keeps the characters all feeling like people rather than characters in Scene A or Standard Romance Plot 47.
I'm not explaining this well, but suffice to say that a large part of the reason in love Gibson's books is because of what his style does to his women characters -- it strips away the conventions and annoying tricks that other male authors use to convey what they think is an authentic women's experience and forces readers to meet these characters as logical, thinking, flawed, people.
I'm not explaining this well, but suffice to say that a large part of the reason in love Gibson's books is because of what his style does to his women characters -- it strips away the conventions and annoying tricks that other male authors use to convey what they think is an authentic women's experience and forces readers to meet these characters as logical, thinking, flawed, people.
Professor Moriarty: The Hound of the D'Urbervilles by Kim Newman
2.0
Eh. This was ok. I finished it mostly to see how Newman spun the Reichenbach Falls, not really because reading was all that fun. If I had read more Sherlock, this might have been much more enjoyable.
Under the Poppy by Kathe Koja
3.0
I liked the first half so much better than the second, in which I lost track of the scheming, military British guys.
World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
3.0
I loved how ambitious this was! While I love a good, claustrophobic zombie story, if you're going to really dig into the science and the fall of modern society, do it this way: go big.
Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind
1.0
This was...not good. The first fantasy book I've ever read that I really didn't enjoy. Is this what people think fantasy is like? Can we blame Wizard's First Rule for all the fantasy stereotypes?
I finished this a while ago and I'm trying now (a few months later) to remember something I liked about it. I liked the dragon? And the first few chapters weren't bad. But there's some bizarre, transparent S&M side story, and then the author gets all libertarian and "PEOPLE ARE SHEEP" and ugh. UGH. Nothing here is unconventional or interesting enough to get over the bad writing and the inane political philosophizing.
I finished this a while ago and I'm trying now (a few months later) to remember something I liked about it. I liked the dragon? And the first few chapters weren't bad. But there's some bizarre, transparent S&M side story, and then the author gets all libertarian and "PEOPLE ARE SHEEP" and ugh. UGH. Nothing here is unconventional or interesting enough to get over the bad writing and the inane political philosophizing.