This book was really fun. Its a collection of 115 questions sent into New Scientist magazine, and the answers provided by other readers. Sometimes the answers and sarcastic or funny, and sometimes they are incredibly detailed. I found this book really interesting to read, and I certainly picked up some trivial to annoy my wife…
Author: mikal
Bolos 2: The Unconquerable
This is another collection of short stories involving Laumer’s Bolo artificially intelligent super tanks. None of these stories are written by Laumer, but they are written by some very good SF authors. I enjoyed the collection, although I do think Honor of the Regiment was marginally better. Title: The Unconquerable Author: Keith Laumer Genre: Fiction…
Books read in May 2009
Friday Logan’s Run Deathworld One Deathworld Two Dragonflight Dragonquest Deathworld Three Galactic Dreams A Time of Omens Bolos 1: Honor of the Regiment
Bolos 1: Honor of the Regiment
I’m quite partial to the idea of artificially intelligent super tanks. I think they’d simplify my social life quite a lot, for example. I’m also partial to short story collections, and this book is both of those. The short stories are written by some excellent authors as well, which certainly helps. This book continues on…
A Time of Omens
This is the sixth book in the not-very-finished Deverry celtic fantasy series. This one is pretty good, especially because it has several subplots, which makes it feel more like a few shorter books in one volume. That means you don’t lose your place in a 400 page story line as you go along. I’m a…
Galactic Dreams
This is a relatively short collection of Harry Harrison short stories. They are: I always do what Teddy says: what happens when we abdicate teaching our youngsters moral values to machine, and then don’t test that the machine is working correctly? A short story about unit testing? Space rats of the CCC: this story is…
Deathworld Three
I thought this one didn’t sound as good as the others, but I was wrong. Its quite different from the other two in its setting, but its still the same romping Harrison style that I like. A little bit unlikely, quite sweeping in scope, and interesting. I liked it. [isbn: 0722144180;B000OFKKP6]
Dragonquest
This is the sequel to Dragonflight. To be honest, I think Dragonflight is a better book, although this one is by no means bad. I suspect part of my problem with this book is that I found Kylara insanely annoying (which I was meant to). Every time her character popped up it made the book…
Dragonflight
This is the first book in the Dragons of Pern series, which I read a small part of as a child. Given that they’re still being written, its not surprising that I’m pretty out of date on this series. This book is excellent for a few reasons — the idea is unique and well implemented;…
Deathworld Two
This book is possibly better than Deathworld One, although I find Mikah’s character intensely annoying. That’s probably ok though, because he’s meant to be annoying. Oh $DEITY is he successful. This was another good fun light read, the kind of Harrison I enjoy. [isbn: 0722144849;B000OFKKP6]