Why Can’t Elephants Jump? Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom A Hymn Before Battle Buying Time The Dolphins of Pern Asterix the Gaul Polar City Blues Gust Front Agent to the Stars When the Devil Dances Hell’s Faire The Fifth Element
Author: mikal
The Fifth Element
I liked the movie, and the book was cheap, so how bad could it be I thought to myself. The answer is terrible. Its in a big font with large margins, and still only a little over 200 pages long (in other words really short), however its not very well written either, which means that’s…
Hell’s Faire
The final book in the Earth based Posleen war series. This should really have been part of the previous book (When the Devil Dances), but that would have made it a 1,100 page book. I’ve seen some complaints that these two books needed editing, but I feel that’s not totally fair. They didn’t feel padded,…
When the Devil Dances
The humans are still getting their arse kicked, and it seems like the Posleen might be learning something approximating reasonable tactics. If this book was just that, then it would be a disappointing addition to the series (A Hymn Before Battle and Gust Front come before this book). However, there is also some interesting science…
Agent to the Stars
There is something a little bit annoying about Scalzi. Take this book for example — it is his practise book that he wrote to see if he even could write a coherent book. He didn’t even intend to ever publish it. Yet it is really really good. Oh, its not his best book, but it…
Gust Front
This is the sequel to A Hymn Before Battle, and its a better book to be honest. That’s fair enough given Hymn was Ringo’s first book. This book spends less time on the politics of incompetent officers (although there is a bit of that), and introduces a little bit more of the political intrigue running…
Polar City Blues
My first Katharine Kerr science fiction novel. There is a lot happening in this book: an inversion between the expected racism in our society; multiple alien species; political intrigue; murder; disease; and a first contact with a new alien species. The book could have included fewer plot elements and still have been excellent. Regardless, this…
Asterix The Gaul
This is the first book in the Asterix comic series which I loved as a child. I’ve decided I’m going to re-read them over the next little while, assuming I like the first few. This book introduces the characters, and covers the attempted infiltration of the village by a Roman spy. He learns the secret…
The Dolphins of Pern
This is quite a different book from most of the recent Pern books because of its leisurely pace. Its a nice read, although it feels like not much actually happens in the book. Unfortunately the plot is pretty much a cliche at this point — child has special affinity for animal X, parents don’t understand,…
Buying Time
This book isn’t Haldeman’s best work (checkout The Forever War, The Forever Peace, or Marsbound for examples of his really good stuff). I found the characters largely unsympathetic, and the plot quite slow. The book is also odd in that it was written in 1989, but is full of stuff you’d expect to see from…