Wants to read The Martian Chronicles
book
Rated Stone Blind 8/10
Brilliant different perspective on the Madusa myth.<br/><br/>I really liked how the story was told. I was vaguely familiar with the myth, and did a little Wikipedia skimming to get familiar with the greek gods and the Gorgons.<br/><br/>I loved how Haynes took the myth, kept it, from what I could tell, entirely intact, but told it from the sympathetic perspective of not only Medusa, but the women throughout the mythology.<br/><br/>Very early in the book Haynes writes, which captures the tone perfectly:<br/><br/>> This particular monster is assaulted, abused and vilified. And yet, as the story is always told, she is the one you should fear. She is the monster.<br/>> We’ll see about that.<br/><br/>Excellent stuff.<br/>
Rated Redwall: The first book in the beloved, bestselling saga 4/10
Was one of the first "big" books I read as a kid. Sadly it didn't hold up to the test of time.<br/><br/>A nice story about mice and animals (and a Badger I remember being called Constance), but it smacked of heroes are boys and damsels are girls, which might have been fine back in the 80s, but not so much for me now.<br/>
Rated Born to be Mild: Adventures for the Anxious 4/10
Some laughs but ultimately turned into a journal.<br/><br/>The first series of chapters were really fun and throughout the book there's genuine chuckles from the writing, but the actual content is what left me feeling the book could have either been 150 or so pages, or at least dig a little deeper under the skin of anxiety.<br/><br/>This is supposed to be a memoir of the author's life over a year following some unknown years of possibly being house bound with anxiety and/or alcoholism. As you can see, it's not clear. He also alludes to a marriage break up, and at first I expected he was going to explain the backstory to how he arrived to this year where he's trying to find his (I guess) purpose in life, but unfortunately not. It's more like it's a reference his friends (many of which are casually mentioned in the book) might understand, but not us the average reader.<br/><br/>One thing that is clear is that he suffers from a very high level of anxiety. He's on prescription medication to help but it's always rattling around in the background. Something I can understand (similarly with depression). <br/><br/>The problem is that **all** throughout the book (and year?) he's trying to find his purpose or calling in life, as if it's one thing that everyone has and that's all. At first I can understand that desire, but as he repeats his attempts at adventures to fill his supposed hole it gets repetitive and like he's actively avoiding the lessons that's certainly clear to me as a reader: it's all a bit messy and that's okay. <br/><br/>There is a single chapter that does give an insight into the anxiety - which I appreciated as a reader, but it's over in a matter of pages (literally) and there's nothing further to explain what it's like all the time. <br/><br/>The further the book goes the more it swaps from memoir to journal. We're often treated to a blow by blow account of how he arrives at a field, with shops he passed and roads he walked. <br/><br/>I think I would have enjoyed some introspection rather than the 4 page conclusion at the end of the book. By the 80% mark, I found I was just trying to skim through the pages because I didn't care about what he'd brought home from the shops for his dad and the end of the book was welcomed though I felt it could have come a lot sooner and likely left me with a better impression.
Rated System Collapse 8/10
Great addition to the story of a struggling Murderbot.<br/><br/>I continue to love Martha Wells' Murderbot diaries. <br/><br/>As the years (and diaries) have gone on, SecUnit/Murderbot (and I'm sure they gave themselves a name in one of the books...) struggles to navigate their own emotions, mostly pushing them down, or "tagging for later" - something I'm sure I've done before.<br/><br/>It's this part of the story that makes Murderbot so relatable, and makes me consider that the impending AI uprising is perhaps not a matter for Terminators but a new species that will struggle with existence just as much as humans do.<br/><br/>It's also nice to get a full novel from Wells - just so I can chew on the story and have Murderbot in my life a little longer.<br/><br/>I have to admit there's some points where I'm reading the plot and just going along with it. Sometimes losing track of which human is which (and I'm not sure someone could just pickup this book without having read a lot of the previous books in the series). But this isn't particularly at the detriment of the book - the characters are compelling enough that I want to keep with them (ART and ART-drone included).<br/><br/>I'll continue to recommend the Murderbot diaries. Lovely, human stuff.
Rated A Closed and Common Orbit 8/10
Enjoyed this story - it had a lot of warmth.<br/><i></i><br/>I have to admit, I was fairly upset to realise that Wayfarers book 2 did not continue with the characters I'd grown to love so much from Wayfarers book 1. I'm still secretly hoping to find the crew from the Wayfarer again in another book.<br/><br/>This story however, picks up right after the closing events from book 1 - but instead follows Pepper and Lovelace back to Pepper's adopted world to find acceptance both within and without.<br/><br/>The story focuses on the two characters and bounces back and forth between the two (and along two different periods of time). I didn't find myself laughing in this book (I did in the first which is what spurred me to immediately read this and the third) but it was a touching story of individuals trying to find their place in the world and the loneliness that comes before.<br/><br/>In a way, I felt like the book was a pair of stories about mother and daughter - and whilst I'm neither, I found lots to relate to. And as with Chambers' first instalment of Wayfarers, I find myself wanting this future for our own humanity.<br/><br/>There's something both charming and utterly beautiful about the universe that Chambers has created for us. It was nice to travel to a new place and follow new characters (even though I still want to hear more about Kizzy and Jenks, and Dr Chef and Sissex - I suspect their on their own journey).<br/><br/>Good stuff. Very sweet. Very warm and loving story.
Rated Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory 6/10
Very brief but a good bridging story.
Rated The Thursday Murder Club 10/10
So good on all levels. Utterly polished and wonderfully likeable characters.<br/><br/>Not much to add, except that the story was really well drawn out, and the main characters in the "Murder Club" were interesting, had depth and I could really imagine.<br/><br/>Understandable how this series of books have been such a hit. Absolutely looking forward to reading the rest in the series.<br/>
Rated 84K 8/10
After I got used to the technical aspect of the writing, a really engrossing story.<br/><i></i><br/>The book is written in a way that quite often ends right in the middle of a train of thought. Reading on a kindle it was hard to work out if it was intentional or if there was a problem with the Kindle edition! After a while I got used to it, and learnt to just to either let go of the sentiment or ignore it.<br/><br/>The story uses time jumping *a lot* but thankfully the book is written in a way that it was easy to know when we had jumped back or forwards through time.<br/><br/>The story is set in a dystopian alternative reality, which frankly isn't far from our reality now and it's easy to see how our society could get there. Which makes the entire story even more scary. <br/><br/>The story primarily follows Theo Miller a person who has lived in the world as it becomes worse and just gone along with it because "that's just the way the world works". <br/><br/>He weighs crime for indemnity, of course rape has a power indemnity than sexual harassment (because… Men made the rules 🤦), and the rich can afford to pay of any indemnity including murder whereas the poor can't pay the company taxes and are thusly thrown to the Patty lines - effectively slave labour.<br/><br/>I did wonder a few times in the book whether if I'd completely missed a key chunk of the story, but it did indeed come back together and make sense. <br/><br/>A good read. Bleak, but good.
Wants to read Not in God's Name: Confronting Religious Violence
Rated The Galaxy, and the Ground Within 8/10
Surprisingly difficult to connect with.<br/><i></i><br/>This is still a well written, interesting, continues the Wayfarer universe and prompts some challenging thoughts.<br/><br/>Where I did struggle was connection with the characters. Because they're exclusively alien, and entirely so: 4 arms and a shell, tiny sloth like swinging creatures, laru furball bendy things (though I imagined the creature from Ice Age oddly enough), because they're hard to visualise in my head I found it harder to connect to the characters.<br/><br/>I do also suspect this is a way of putting the reader in a position of a minority, to be unable to recognise oneself amongst the peers, which is what kept flipping back and forth in my head whilst continuing with the tale.<br/><br/>As with other Becky Chambers' books, the story isn't some fantastical explosion of events, but a soft observation of life and interaction of species and races living together - and that's something I'll continue to love about their books.<br/><br/>My favourite is still the first book, I'm not sure anything is going to top that for many years, but this is still a solid entry into the Wayfarer world.
Rated Close to Home 8/10
Solid reading, what I've come to expect from Hunter.<br/><i></i><br/>Having now read three of the Adam Fawley books, albeit in reverse order, I've come to expect a certain level of story telling from Cara Hunter and this as the first book does not disappoint.<br/><br/>Having recently read the 2nd book (though the order isn't crucial) the twist device was a little familiar but it didn't distract from the story, nor did I predict any part of the story.<br/><br/>Enjoyable as a British based modern investigation story that leans more on (what I imagine is) police work rather than glamorous whodunit style reveals.<br/><br/>Looking forward to reading the fourth installment.
Rated Dogs of War 10/10
Wow. I loved this book. I'm not entirely sure how I found it - I suspect Amazon randomly recommended it to me, and it was definitely a random purchase - but so glad I did.<br/><br/>I'd just finished reading Snow Crash which has a small character which is an enhanced dog (called a Rat), and a few years back I'd read <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22358.We3">We3</a> which has animals who escape a tyranny of human kind…so I think I was expecting something like that. I was wrong!<br/><br/>The book opens from the point of view of Rex, a "bioform" dog - part machine, part dog, part human DNA. The first few pages read as a little trite "I am Rex. I am Good Dog" etc - but this quickly falls away as I realised the darkness of what was being described from Rex's point of view. <br/><br/>Then each chapter is told from different individuals point of view, including Hart - the engineer/carer for the bioforms, Honey - a bioform Bear and many other characters.<br/><br/>The story is split over 5 parts that, I can assume, is covering several years. It starts in a war torn country, but once this part is over, the story goes on to raise the question of the bioform's rights, and whether a human-made thing can be human if it can feel for itself. By <em>human</em>, we mean the condition rather than the species.<br/><br/>The story is a mix of the future of AI and augmented lifeforms, fear of different, corporations and their relationship with slavery - and through it, somehow, the protagonist is a dog that I can actually relate to as he even evolves through the book (the author does a brilliant job of evolving Rex's language and vocabulary as Rex is exposed to more of the world and the story moves on).<br/><br/>Other thoughts that this book brought up for me:<br/><br/>- If humankind make a <em>thing</em> and a thing can think for itself, should it have rights? What does that process look like - and how long does it take?<br/>- Can and should humankind survive in it's current state. Is an augmented human less or more human? <br/>- A fully autonomous intelligence is effectively immortal, so it can also outlive generations of humankind until the generations come to accept it?<br/><br/>If you're interested in how technology can evolve in our future with AI, singularities, and the like, then I'd definitely recommend this book. <br/><br/>I loved this story, really great stuff!
Rated Good Omens 10/10
Such good fun. I think my favourite character was actually Dog. I loved the inner monologue that went with the Hell Hound!<br/><br/>I don't think I've read a story with so many characters intertwining throughout a story (though, truth be told: I've not read many stories!) - and this book did a superb job of keeping all the characters unique, interesting and coherent.<br/><br/>The story (for me), started fairly light (in heart) and towards the last quarter it goes rather dark - although this may be to be expected as the Armageddon is at hand. This also did wonders for my nightmares (I had three consecutive nights dreaming about my own End Of The World dreams).<br/><br/>I'm also really impressed that two different authors created the story in a way that feels completely unified (and this edition included a Q&A chapter at the end where Pratchett and Gaiman share their process and thoughts on each other).<br/><br/>Really fun stuff and included some real laugh out loud moments. The entire last chapter could have been highlighted too - beautiful closing message.
Rated The Song from Somewhere Else 8/10
Beautiful story (and printed paper was so nice).
Rated The Afterlife of Walter Augustus 4/10
A bit obvious, uneventful and a miss for me.<br/><i></i><br/>As always this review is based on my experience of reading this book and not reflective of the actual content or story for a broader audience (I say because I'm not particularly glowing in my rating!).<br/><br/>If I had this on holiday then I may have warmed to it a little more. It definitely feels like the kind of book that doesn't require much thinking.<br/><br/>I found the twist "baddie" very obvious but at the same time lots of the story moved forwards without any real reason.<br/><br/>I came away from reading the book like it had been 100 pages or so. Maybe it's because I felt like the characters didn't have any depth - the sister Victoria is cruel and unkind to the protagonist Letty, but it seems for no reason other than to make a bad character (in the living world). <br/><br/>Then there's Walter, living in the afterlife (or the interim, or maybe even purgatory…), it's unclear why he's been there for so long - what was special about his name. He wrote a book of poem, god knows how many hundreds of years prior to the current day, so I'm not entirely sure why he doesn't pass on.<br/><br/>Later we meet Hector. I'm not sure how he's part of Walters "life". Maybe it was explained and I skimmed idly past it, or perhaps it's just some rando that has a larger part to play - and even then, when Hector plays his hand, he kind of just falls off the pages.<br/><br/>All in all, a bit of a miss for me.
Rated A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived: The Stories in Our Genes 10/10
Goodness me, this was a good book! Right from the start, Rutherford states that the book won't be littered with references to research papers throughout and the book reads very much like Rutherford is quite literally telling me _a story_ (I should add that references are added in the appendix of the book if you want to validate and have further reading on the subject of DNA).<br/><br/>I always feel like when I read non-fiction I'm supposed to be a little smarter once I've finished, and somehow retain my newly acquired knowledge so I can wax lyrical later on in the pub in years to come…<br/><br/>The subject of this book is (as the title suggest) genes, DNA and how it all works. The book is fascinating, and although I'm certain that I'm zero percent smarter now (sadly my own failing!), Rutherford's book was littered with fascinating stories from both recent and distant history - which have so far stuck in my head.<br/><br/>I got wind of this book via my own genealogy research, and being able to find every step in my ancestry to William The Conqueror, I posted a tweet and eventually saw a reply from Adam Rutherford explaining "that's cool that you can demonstrate it with genealogy, but it’s literally true for all British people too. Edward 3 is the direct ancestor of every British person". <br/><br/>That snippet reply alone piqued my interest in reading this book, and damn glad I did - I think I highlighted nearly two pages worth of kindle notes, partly to help me remember and partly because there was some superb stuff in there, including:<br/><br/>> borborygmus, which is a technical word for a rumbly tummy.<br/><br/>Rutherford's writing and storytelling is entertaining, informative and even regularly funny.
Rated Sex and Drugs and Sausage Rolls 8/10
Fun stuff. I didn't realise this was the sixth novel of a series, but it really didn't matter - and almost added more depth since the characters had a lot more backstory.<br/><br/>Robert Rankin's writing is really fun too. Lots of quick wit throughout the book, the kind that I wish I could come up with in my daily life!<br/><br/>The story is a kind of comical farce whereby history has somehow shifted and things aren't quite what they're supposed to be.<br/><br/>I'm not quite sure if the story is supposed to have a single protagonist or whether it's more of an ensemble. It certainly _mostly_ follows Jim, John and Soap (great…weird, name!). Then there's multiple side characters that I half suspect might have more story in other Brentwood books. <br/><br/>All the same, it was really fun to read a book that clearly had a wide range of characters with more stories to tell.
Rated Exit Strategy 10/10
I read the first installment of the Murderbot a few months back (as an Amazon single), but after reading it, I decided I was going to pony up the £8 for the following 3 books - although probably the most I've spent on a single book, let alone 3 books - absolutely totally worth it. I **loved** this series.<br/><br/>The series follows Murderbot, a rouge security unit, mostly good at killing but who would rather just watch TV and be left alone. The first book reads easily as a stand alone, and I'd say the second book does too. <br/><br/>The third and fourth pull together all the previous adventures into an overarching story that we see Murderbot learning about itself and struggling with the the concepts of emotions and desires.<br/><br/>In fact, the Murderbot ends with that huge question of: what do you want.<br/><br/>There's so many things I enjoyed about this series: it's a sci-fi that doesn't really require you to understand all the ins and outs of the political systems that exist in the world. I've read a few sci-fi books that really struggle to make the world believable because there's often so much to take in - the Murderbot diaries does this in a way that reads easily and lightly.<br/><br/>The action sequences are really well written and fairly easy to follow - another thing I've struggled with in other books.<br/><br/>Even though we know that the Murderbot is a construct, it exists in a time that emotions can be simulated - and therefore felt - by the Murderbot, which, just like any one of us, they don't relish having to process those emotions, and they'd much rather just shun away and hide away escaping with TV.<br/><br/>Finally the characters are refreshing. As a white man myself, I'm too quick to assume the gender and race of the characters I reading about, Martha Wells does a really good job of keeping me in check, reminding me that Murderbot _doesn't_ have a gender, there's people in the universe that don't identify as one gender, and that not everyone is white. I love this, and I appreciate it in the books I read (in the hope that it shifts my mindset).<br/><br/>Loved it.