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New Reviews: Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident and Diana Wynn Jones's Howl's Moving Castle
May 29, 2004 (5:15 AM) ( link ) ADDED reviews of Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time and Diana Wynn Jones's Howl's Moving Castle.
I actually finished Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky, which turned out to be really excellent--after taking two or three days to read the first third of the novel, I finished the thrilling last two-thirds in a single day (almost a single sitting). I'm likely to give the novel a 9; the fact that I gave Haddon's novel only an 8, despite the fact that it's won a lot more awards than Vinge's novel, says something I think about my tastes (fun more than serious; thrilling more than cerebral--unfortunately these do not describe my personality, only my reading interests).
I'm undecided about what to read next, for a couple of reasons. In particular, I'm trying to decide between a short novel (likely Octavia Butler's Wild Seed) or another long one (likely C.J. Cherryh's Cyteen). A lot of factors go into this decision: how much time I'll have to read either (I start work on Tuesday), whether the books will be good (I liked my last long novel--Vinge's--more than my last two short ones, which I will be reviewing shortly), Cherry's very poor track record with me, etc.
The truth is I'll probably read both before I start work, but then the amount of reading I'll be able to do will drop very swiftly.
New Reviews: Robin Hobb's The Tawny Man Trilogy and Steven Brust's Agyar
May 27, 2004 (1:25 AM) ( link ) ADDED reviews of Robin Hobb's The Tawny Man Trilogy and Steven Brust's Agyar. Unfortunately, neither was that great.
It's unfortunate that Robin Hobb's last trilogy was so disappointing: I loved loved loved The Farseer Trilogy, and The Liveship Traders Trilogy was also a doozy. I also felt that Brust's Agyar didn't live up to the expectations I had of him from reading his previous books--in particular, the very fun Jhereg.
I'm still trekking through A Deepness in the Sky right now. It's actually decently interesting. I think, though, that I am in desperate need of a wiz-bang space opera, or a good literary novel.
New Reviews: Adam Roberts's On, Walter Wangerin's The Book of the Dun Cow, and Dan Simmons's Ilium
May 25, 2004 (8:59 PM) ( link ) ADDED reviews of Adam Roberts's On, Walter Wangerin's The Book of the Dun Cow, and Dan Simmons's Ilium.
So it's been a long time. Sorry--I've been very busy. I have an enormous backlog of books to review, but I'll hopefully get to them in the course of the next week.
I'm now on summer break from law school. Summer should be a free time, but it turns out that this summer will also be horrendously busy for me--so although I'll try my best to read for fun, there's no guarantees that that'll actually happen. :(
Currently I have decided to take advantage of a week at home to sink my teeth into Vernor Vinge's A Deepness in the Sky, a sequel of sorts to A Fire Upon the Deep. So far it's ok; my brother warns me, however, that it's not as good as his first book.
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