When I decided I needed a blog again, rather than start fresh, I decided to convert old book review blog to something more general purpose. I deleted all the posts that didn’t age well and in the interest of OCD, I decided to consolidate the old book reviews into batches. This is the ninth batch, they were posted in January 2009 reviewing/commenting on books I read the previously.
Title: West of Honor
Author: Jerry Pournelle
Read: January 2009
Edition: Mass Market Paperback
See The Mercenary for review (below)
Title: Go Ask the Spartans
Author: Jerry Pournelle
Read: January 2009
Edition: Mass Market Paperback
See The Mercenary for review (below)
Title: West of Honor
Author: Jerry Pournelle
Read: January 2009
Edition: Mass Market Paperback
See The Mercenary for review (below)
Title: The Mercenary
Author: Jerry Pournelle
Read: January 2009
Edition: Mass Market Paperback
This is a “novel†that was originally two short stories. It’s set in Jerry Pournelle’s Co-Domininon (CoDo for short) universe so it’s a bit dated (CoDo was billed as an uneasy alliance between the USA and the Soviet Union) but it was written in the 70’s so we will give it a pass. The CoDo was basically an armed UN. There was a space fleet and a Marine Corps based loosely on the French Foreign Legion.
In any case, the stories revolve around the career of John Christian Falkenburg. He started out as an officer in the CoDo Fleet Marines and the early (chronologically) stories chart Falkenburg’s career. Apparently, later collections of these stories condense them into fewer books and possibly place them in chronological order. These are not, each of the three books have 2 or more stories in them and in no particular order. Well, maybe there is a order to Jerry, I don’t know. That’s not to say you have any trouble following the story.
In later stories Falkenburg is driven out of the Marines and he starts a mercenary regiment based around his old Marine regiment.
The best parts of the stories are the innovative solution Falkenburg comes up with to solve the large problems of running too few men in too large an endeavor.
Title: Dust
Author: Charles Pellengrino
Read: December 2008
Edition: Hardback
Pellengrino is one of the scientists turned fiction authors that cropped up in the 90s. This story took several year from deciding I wanted to read it to actually getting a copy in my hands. In fact, the book came off my Amazon wish list for Christmas this year. I had read a collaboration of his with another author and saw a sample of this one and decided to read it.
The science is excellent and I like that. But the characters are a bit flat and the politics hard to ignore. As far as story plotting goes, I would call is doom and gloom. And slow. I kept yelling at the book to speed up. He sets out all these side, throw-away characters to illustrate whats happening to avoid coming out and saying it, but has to anyway in the end. I can’t imagine what this plot looked like before editing.
I give it 3 stars and was slightly disappointed with it really. I had hoped for a better story.
Title: Breaking Dawn
Author: Stephanie Meyer
Read: November 2008
Edition: Hardback
See Twilight Review (below)
Title: New Moon
Author: Stephanie Meyer
Read: November 2008
Edition: Hardback
See Twilight Review (below)
Title: Eclipse
Author: Stephanie Meyer
Read: November 2008
Edition: Trade Paperback
See Twilight Review (below)
Title: Twilight
Author: Stephanie Meyer
Read: November 2008
Edition: Trade Paperback
I am going to do these as a group because I read all four in a two week stretch. Which, for me, is a light speed read. Although, it’s easy because the books are, like Little Brother, YA titles, so the plots aren’t that complex and the number of characters is manageable. My wife is now on her 4th or 5th read through these, not sure why she does that. They are good and all, but there are so many books for me to read, I don’t reread that often. Though she reads really fast and I have found, with fairly low retention, so I guess it takes a few reads to get out of a book what I generally get in one slow pass.
In case you have been living under a rock, this series revolves around a high school junior (Bella) that falls in love with a 17 year old (looking) vampire Edward who is slumming in high school in an attempt to fit in with the community. Inexplicably, Edward also falls for Bella. And thus the story moves forward. The rest of the series revolves around their managing this fairly unusual relationship and keeping the locals (including Bella’s father) unaware of the true nature of Edward and his family and a few other things that people think are myths.
Yes, they are aimed at teenage girls. Yes, nothing of note blows up and yes, there is no on screen sex (in fact none at all until the 4th book), but it’s still compelling. If you are looking for a good airline book, these are it. In analyzing my likes for the series, I think it comes down to compelling characters. As I mentioned, the plot line is fairly linear with just a few sub plots for keep the pot stirred, but though you can guess how things are going to turn out (it’s YA after all), there are a few wrinkles along the way. It’s getting into the heads of the characters that make you identify with them strongly and care what happens next. Most accounts of teenage girls that I have read, even from female authors, have felt inauthentic. Naturally, I am not sure how they really think, but this one is the most compelling so far.
I think this is the reason I liked Little Brother as well. The main characters in that novel also felt real,even the female character.
It’s brain candy, but sometimes after plowing through arcane API documentation all day at work, it’s just the ticket. 5 stars.
Title: Forward the Federation
Author: Issac Asimov
Read: November 2008
Edition: eBook on the Kindle
This is the second prequel to the original trilogy and was written 30 years after their publication. I am not sure if Asimov was intentionally keeping the style and voice of the original series to aid in continuity or not, but it seemed like it. As a result, it was a bit of an awkward read. Actually, it felt not unlike the YA titles here with it’s linear plot and simplistic character motivations. Overall this bridges the gap in the story from Prelude to Foundation and the original series and inevitably fans of the series required this novel written, but I am not sure it added much to the canon.
The Federation series was a brilliant idea for it’s time and was the precursor to exactly the sorts of sweeping, world building that I prefer in my scifi universe, but this falls a bit flat in my opinion. I give it 3 stars, mostly on the strength of it’s world vision.