I’ve been reading this book for ages, but finished it last night. It feels a bit trivial to be writing this now, but I tend to read more when I am stressed, and I finished this while waiting for the kids to go to bed last night, so I may as well quickly write it…
Category: Book
Runner
I bought this book on impulse, and I am glad I did. The book is very Buddhist in its outlook, and characters believe in reincarnation, which makes it ok for people to die. There sure is a lot of that happening in this book, perhaps more so than in Dietz’s combat books. The underlying story…
Red Storm Rising
I had read this book many years ago, and remembered it fondly. I wasn’t disappointed reading it again — its certainly a classic techno-thriller, even if it is a little dated now. I imagine it would make less sense to someone who hadn’t grown up with the cold war, but within that context its a…
Rise of a Merchant Prince
I didn’t really like this book, but I persisted with it because I want to keep reading the series. I thought the previous Serpent War book Shadow of a Dark Queen was weak, but this book was weaker. The book follows the rise of Roo as a merchant, and is improbable at best — Roo’s…
Shadow of a Dark Queen
I read this book before LCA 2012, but never had a chance to mention it here. It was the first return to Midkemia for me since I read the Krondor’s Sons books. This book is set a lot later, and there is very little reuse of characters between The Riftwar Saga or even Krondor’s Sons….
The Ghost Brigades (2)
The second time around I think my opinion has changed a little. I found the plot a little hard to believe (perhaps I am scarred by other book’s twee explorations of the motivations of alien species), and overall the book not as good as Old Man’s War. Then again, its far from the worst book…
Red Mars
This is another book on colonization. To be totally honest I enjoyed the first half of the book more than the second, and I rather thought the book dragged on and could have done with a more vigorous editing. There are sections which are deeply descriptive, but it doesn’t progress the story. Overall, I was…
Speaker For The Dead
This is the second book in the Ender’s Game series, and is better than the novelized Ender’s Game, although it is impossible to beat the short story version. Ender has grown a lot over the time between this book and the last, and the story is compelling and believable. I really enjoyed this book. Title:…
By Blood Alone
Maybe I’ve been reading too much combat fiction recently and need a change of scenery. Or perhaps its just that this book isn’t as good as the last two (Legion of the Damned and The Final Battle). The characters aren’t the strongest, and the plot is weaker than the previous two books. On the other…
The Final Battle
I somehow forgot to make a note about this book when I read it, I suspect because I was travelling at the time. This book was as good as Legion of the Damned and an enjoyable read. The book continues straight on from the previous one, and possibly should have been inside the same volume….