20 posts tagged “reviews”
Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Scott Sigler's writing style reminds me of a cross between Stephen King's and Michael Crichton's. Sigler has a grasp on modern science and technology, and uses it to invest the reader emotionally in the well-being of his stories' characters, creating gripping tales that leave you wanting to read "just one more page" all the way until the end of the book.
Ancestor, one of Sigler's earlier works, definitely feels a little less polished than some of his later books (e.g. Infected). For a book whose main premise is supposed to be about primordial, ravenous monsters, the "ancestors" don't really show up until about 2/3 of the way through the story. However, Sigler spends this time weaving a web of plot, characters, and settings that play out beautifully once the savage killing-spree begins.
Overall, this is a really engaging story with just enough science to make things seem plausible without going overboard and making most non-biochemistry students' eyes glaze over. It showcases the potential perils of genetic engineering WITHOUT preaching them, and ties it into a plot with decent characterization, engaging the reader and keeping him/her on edge right up until the last page.
Note: This review refers to the eBook version released by Scott Sigler and Dragon Moon Press in March 2007.
Rating: 4 of 5 stars
I really enjoyed this novel. This is one of those rare few young-adult novels that adults will be able to read, appreciate, and enjoy as much as its "intended audience". Like Heinlein's "juveniles", just because The House of the Scorpion's main character is a juvenile doesn't mean the writing, plot, and characterization have to be second-rate.
This book paints a very interesting picture of a quasi-future where Mexico and the US have made "The Devil's Pact"; they have turned over a tract of land between the two nations to a group of drug-lords known as the "Farmers" who grow and harvest poppies for opium in return for curbing all illegal immigration between the two surrounding countries. In the 100 years of their existence, the Farmers have created a civilization of their own, rich and isolated and abusive of its workers, most of whom have computer chips implanted in their brains that turn them into "eejits", or zombie-like workers who won't even take a drink of water without being told to do so.
The main character is a young boy who is a clone, but a very special one: he is the clone and heir-apparent of El Patron, the despotic dictator of the country of Opium. And as he grows and begins to learn about what makes him different from all the servants and other clones in this repressed land, the household cook Celia (his adoptive mother) and El Patron's most trusted and faithful bodyguard, Tam Lin, help him discover some shocking truths about himself and the world into which he has been delivered.
View all my reviews on Goodreads.
I stayed up late last night to read almost the last 100 pages of this book to finish it off. Doomsday Book is a very entertaining read, but it started off so SLOW that it took me almost 6 months of reading in fits and starts to get through it. It wasn't until about halfway through the novel that I found myself drawn back into the book with a desire to put off doing other things to finish the novel. This is the only reason I gave it 3/5 stars instead of a higher 4/5 stars rating.
In one sense, Doomsday Book could be described as the cousin of Michael Crichton's well-known thriller Timeline, but with less overt action and a far more introspective and thought-provoking study of human nature and emotion.
A historical researcher named Kivrin is sent back through time from 2048 to the Middle Ages, circa 1320. An influenza epidemic sweeps through "present-day" Oxford, stranding her in the past just as she discovers that an error in the transport has dropped her into 1348, right before the Black Plague had started to kill approximately half the entire population of Europe. The book jumps back and forth between Kivrin's struggles to survive and care for the family who took her into their home, and her colleagues in 2048 who are struggling with their own version of the plague while still trying to figure out how to rescue Kivrin.
Willis has a talent for imbuing her characters with a three-dimensionality and emotionally investing the reader in their lives. The descriptions of the Middle Ages were fantastic, and it was interesting to see not only the range of wealth and poverty that existed even within a single village, but how Kivrin interacted with these people who had never been exposed to almost anything that denizens of the 21st century take for granted. Willis holds up a mirror of human nature to contrast the behaviors and beliefs of present-day people with those of the past, with thought-provoking and sometimes surprising insights about ourselves and others around us.
Overall, Taken is a fun little action movie where Liam Neeson gets in touch with his inner Jason Bourne and kicks asses all over Paris in an attempt to track down his daughter's kidnappers and rescue his daughter before she is inducted (permanently) into the human sex-slave trade. The film feels a lot like a cross between an 80's action movie (but a good one) and the more recent Bourne series. There's not a lot of intrigue or thought involved, but if you're an action movie fan, you'll get carried along in the flow of the film and enjoy the ride.
Neeson, an ex-CIA agent, badass, and devoted father, is the only actor worth mentioning in the film. Everyone else just fills a role, which is not necessarily a bad thing in a movie of this type. Unfortunately, the film's first 20 minutes are an attempt to build unnecessary characterization and leave you wishing the action would start already. Once it does, however, it's almost non-stop action and plot development all the way through to the end.
The film is a little gritty, but avoids (for the most part) the shaky handycam sequences that so many directors seem to feel makes for "in-your-face" action. The hand-to-hand action sequences and car chases sometimes move a little quickly, but in these situations there was definitely an effort made to pull back and let the viewer understand what just happened. The dialogue is only there to carry Neeson from one scene to the next, and sometimes made me wince. But if you can ignore this and the plot holes, and just sit back and enjoy the engrossing-but-brainless hour-or-so of action, I think you'll come out feeling entertained by the flick.
3.5 / 5 stars
I'm not an overly big fan of the social networking and/or 2.0 websites, but I do use a few of them. The big ones (Facebook, Last.fm, Delicious, Flickr, and Twitter) have already been rehashed in great detail, but there's a couple others that really do what I need them to do, and are worth a mention here - namely, Goodreads and RunningAHEAD.
Goodreads
Goodreads is my favorite book-related website. In essence, it's a way to catalog and organize books. You can use it any number of ways - as a way to log what books you read, categorize books in your library using "bookshelves" (essentially tags, so you can put one book on multiple "bookshelves"), review & rate books, and then add friends so you can view all of this information on other like-minded people's accounts. I find it a great way to keep track of what I'm reading, how many books I'm reading a year, whether I already have a book in my library and whether I've read it, whether I'm borrowing/lending a book from/to someone else, and even my wish-list of books (hint: make a bookshelf called "wish-list" and then you can direct people to the books on it directly).
In addition, everything is hyperlinked, so clicking on the author of a book will bring up a list of his/her works, clicking on the title of a book will show links to pages where you can read reviews and/or purchase the book, cover art is imported automatically, and you can subscribe to a feed and/or summary email of someone's activity, if you want to see what they've read/rated lately.
Goodreads is completely free, with no limit on the number of books
you may have in your library. They even have easy ways to import books
from a spreadsheet or from ISBN numbers, if you already have them in
some other format. If you join or are already a member, be sure to add
me as a friend - I love to see what other people are reading and how
they rate the books they've read. My profile is here, and it's easy to sign up and start keeping track of your own books!
RunningAHEAD
Recently, I've gotten back into running regularly for exercise, and as part of my efforts, I find it interesting and motivational to log my running activity. Prior to signing up with RunningAHEAD, I used to keep all my runs in a spreadsheet on my computer. The biggest issue with this was I never seemed to have a copy of the spreadsheet on the computer I was near after finishing my run. Now I have a single, centralized location where I can enter my workout information, track my running shoes and the mileage I've put on them, and even map routes and add extra information about my run. The website also has some decent graphing and trending tools to allow you to visualize any of the data variables you choose to record regularly. The site even has capabilities to join or start a training group - all members that join are listed together under the group heading, and you can then chat in a separate group forum, share running reports, etc. Overall, a very nice little site that does what it should do, and is free to boot.
If you want to see my RunningAHEAD info, my info is here.
Be aware I only update on a weekly/biweekly basis with all of the runs
I did that week, once I download them from my Forerunner, so it may not
show the most recent run status for me.
[NaBloPoMo 2008 - #29/30]
Please note this book is available for a free download as a .pdf file here. The .pdf also includes a short story that follows the novel: "Parasite Awakens". If you like it, or just want to support the author, you can also buy this book from Amazon.com.
Hang on to your tights and secret identity! Playing for Keeps by Mur Lafferty is an imaginative and entertaining new superhero story that will leave you looking at caped crusaders in an entirely new light.
The story revolves around Keepsie Branson, a bar owner in the shining metropolis of Seventh City, the birthplace of superheros. Keepsie is also one of the group collectively known as the "Third Wavers", those second-generation super-citizens whose powers were not strong enough to make the cut as a Superhero Academy-recognized Hero. Only recognized heroes are allowed to use their powers to stop crime, and furthermore, the majority of them are just plain jerks. The Third Wavers try to get by as ordinary citizens, but there's a fair amount of friction between them and the holier-than-thou heroes of the Academy.
When some super-villains come back into town and try to manipulate Keepsie and her special power to help them accomplish their agenda, Keepsie and some of her fellow Third Wave friends find themselves caught in the middle of a city-wide war between egotistical heroes and cold-hearted, manipulative villains.
This book is a real treat. The plot moves along rapidly, carrying the reader along for a great ride through the creation and evolution of the hero culture in Seventh City. The resentment the Third Wavers feel for the heroes adds another dimension to the story, and as the plot unfolds and the characters are drawn further into the tangle of lies and deception that lay beneath the superhero regime, one gets a peek at the political and sociological elements that run beneath the surface of the novel.
The characters themselves have more depth than one might expect from a superhero story, too. Lafferty does a great job of defining truly distinct personalities for almost all the players of the novel, each guided by their own thoughts and emotions. The dialog further aids in bringing the characters to life, drawing the reader into the world of Heroes and Villains, and the grey area that exists in between.
There is some adult language and content, so I can't say I'd recommend this for anyone under about 14-15 years old. However, the book really is a page-turner, and if you're not careful, you'll find yourself staying up all night to find out exactly how it all will end.
[NaBloPoMo 2008 - #12/30]
Ok, I'm cheating a tiny bit here because in a sense, this is a guest entry. But only because it was written by me, over 16 years ago! Back in 8th grade, my English teacher was big on using book reports as an educational tool. But ours were not standard reports - oh no!
We wrote "Literary Letters" to the teacher, with 2-3 "letters" written per book. Each letter was on a different literary aspect, such as the use of foreshadowing, characterization, setting, etc. in the novel. We'd type up the letter, paste it into a composition book, and turn in the book for the teacher to grade. We'd get it back a few days later, in time to see what we did wrong and prepare for the letter writing for the following week. This was a completely novel approach to all of us students at the time, and a welcome change from the standard book-report format.
The letter below was written on Watership Down by Richard Adams shortly after I read the novel the first out of what has become many many times. I'm re-typing the letter exactly as I wrote it back then, including all typos, spelling, and grammar mistakes.
In Watership Down by Richard Adams a group of rabbits leave the main warren to seek safety because a rabbit has prophetic dreams. The book is about their struggle to survive in a strange world, a world of men, predators, and militias evil rabbits.
There are many aspects of realism in a novel. Some of these include setting, characters, and conflicts in the book. Watership Down uses many of these aspects.
The setting of Watership Down is very realistic. It mainly centers on the group of rabbits' new home in a patch of beech trees on the down. Other settings include the warren of the Efrafa, the fields at Cowslip's Warren, and the farm in which three rabbits are rescued from hutches. These settings are all described so realistically that they could be just over the hill past my house.
Even though the characters are rabbits, their could be real. the speech, however, is not very real. It is english mixed with the rabbit language. A glossary of the language of the rabbits is in the back of the book. I think the author used the rabbit language in the story to keep the animals from becoming too human-like, among other reasons. This language reminds the reader the personalities he/she is reading about are animals and not humans. However, the behavior is very realistic. The book explains what kinds of running paces the rabbits use - headlong run for the bushes when chased by enemies and easy lope around the warren - and how they eat. Using these explanations with the not-so-obvious reactions of rabbits such as jumping at every sound and sniffing for enemies, the author makes the rabbits seem like rabbits that live in the wild today. I know this because I did some research on rabbits.
My next topic for criticism is conflict. Most of the conflicts in the book are not realistic. These include leaving the warren because one rabbit says so, rescuing rabbits and getting shot by a rifle, and getting captured by evil rabbits. Judging by what I know of rabbits, I would say none of these conflicts were really happen to rabbis. On the other hand, these conflicts could happen to people. This is because the rabbits are personified, as are their conflicts. We find these sort of books interesting because they show how human life is and other people are very interesting. If one was to just write about rabbits as they truly are, the book would be very boring.
Therefore, this story is interesting because it compares humans with rabbits; making what the rabbits do and what is done to them human-like. But, these conflicts are a little far-fetched and exciting for regular life, and I think this story has "a little too much juice"; there are too many adventures than rabbits can handle. In The Hobbit; Bilbo got tired of the adventures after a few exciting things happened to him. On the other hand, the rabbits never seem to tire from their many adventures, so the book is not as realistic as I would like it to be.
Ross Goldberg
Just so you know, I got an A- on this letter. Note my overzealous use of punctuation and my mixture of tenses; I struggled with these a good deal even in my high school years. It's definitely fun to go back and see how I have improved in my writing over the years, though. One of these days I'll actually try to work up something showing my progression of writing from elementary school through college. I'm so happy my parents loved to save all my papers and reports from when I was in school. I'll definitely be doing that for my kids as well.
Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie, is the first Christie novel I've ever read. Surprisingly, it's one of those stories that I've always heard the title of but never knew anything about (never seen any of the movie-versions either).
In the book, Detective Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective, is a passenger on the fabled Orient Express train as it travels from Istanbul to Paris. During the lengthy train ride, someone murders a much-hated millionaire, and all 13 of the suspects on the train with Poirot may have had reasons to commit the crime. When the train is stalled on the tracks due to inclement weather, Poirot takes advantage of the isolation to investigate the crime, vowing to determine the identity of the killer before the train gets to Paris.
The novel was quite interesting. I'm sometimes in a mood for a mystery, although I haven't read any of this style (apparently it's a variation on the theme of the English house-party mystery) The style seemed a little dated & quaint by today's rough-hewn murder mystery plots, but it was well done.
The book definitely left me guessing all the way up until the very end. Minutiae mentioned in passing are somehow mentally tucked away by Poirot until he can make sense of them all and come up with a reasonable explanation for the events that have occurred. The ending itself left me with a lot to think about as well, bringing up issues of morality, justice, and society in a way that left all judgments on the issues to the reader.
Orient Express was a quick read, as I'm sure most of Christie's mysteries would be. I'll be looking into more of her stuff when I go on trips or to the beach, as it's very suitable for times you just want a lighter, but still entertaining mystery.
Rating: 2 of 5 stars
I was surprised to find another book in the Phule's Company series in the bookstore, as I hadn't heard anything about it. Apparently it was published in 2006, which makes me the latecomer to the party, but I expect I didn't hear much about it because it's such a lackluster addition to the Phule series.
The novel itself follows in a similar vein to the others in the Phule's Company series, but just doesn't have the same sparkle or life to it. In all the other novels, the whole Omega company of the Space Legion (composed of misfits, in the most worthless branch of the military) has to adapt to a new assignment on a new planet, and succeeds, thanks in part to a bit of dumb luck and the willingness of their Captain (Willard Phule) to spread his inestimable wealth to give his company the best operating equipment and facilities in the new location.
This novel focuses less on the Omega Company and more on only a handful of its members. Phule has to rush offplanet in attempts to catch his butler, who has gone on vacation but didn't leave his security-code for Phule to access his financial records. A couple of his soldiers surreptitiously follow to aid Phule in his efforts, but always end up a step behind their commander, who in turn is always a step behind his butler Beeker. This departure from the typical Phule novel might not be so bad except that the execution of the subsequent events is done in such a way that the story itself is not enough to retain the reader's interest.
The hijinks on their tour to four new planets are reminiscent of an old Marx Brothers movie (but not in a good way) and leave the reader wishing Phule would just catch up to his butler and end the "suspense". The parallel plot of Phule's commanding officer, General Blitzkrieg, performing a surprise inspection while Phule is gone is almost as uninteresting, although it is tempered a bit by a little interaction with various members of the Omega Company.
As (I'm assuming) this is the final book in the Phule's Company series, this was a sad way to cap off the stories about Captain Jester and his ragtag band of misfits. I know it may not have been planned to be the last in the series, but it still felt like it was a "straight-to-video" addition to the series tacked on just to take advantage of the name and characters Asprin worked so hard to develop in the early 90's.
Just heard about the new feature for Flickr Pro members - the ability to upload video to your account and tag/organize it just as if it was a picture. Decided to test it out for myself to check out its capabilities, drawbacks, etc.
Pros:
- The video quality is much better than YouTube, and by default is bigger than the default YouTube size. Also includes a full-screen option without any hacks!
- You can organize/tag the videos just like you do your photos, including adding it to a set/collection.
- You can embed the clip in a blog or webpage very easily through the "embed" option, which allows you to set parameters such as size of the clip.
- Has the same public/private sharing options as your photos, so if you already have these set up for family members, they'll be able to access the videos the same way they do your photos.
- Videos are uploaded the same way you upload photos, and can actually be uploaded in a batch along with photos.
- No limit on number of videos you can store in your Pro Account.
Cons
- Video size/duration is limited to 150 MB or 90 seconds (whichever is less). Not a big deal for little clips, but it would be nice if this got bumped up a bit for longer videos.
- Video uploading is limited to Flickr Pro members. Free members can view publicly-shared videos, but cannot upload them to their accounts.
- No Vox integration yet, so no tagging, linking, etc on Vox. You'll have to use the "embed" code to insert a video into a page, for now.
Even if Yahoo/Flickr isn't touting this as a YouTube killer, it's still a very nice application and one that I'll definitely be using in the future.
And a comparison test, for you to see for yourself:
