Reviews and Comments

Just a laugh-out-loud parody of classic, epic space opera ever written. A pair of All-American young high-school geniuses invent an interstellar drive and head out (unintentionally) into the cosmos, along with a couple of unforeseen stowaways. Far out in space, they stumble into eons-long wars between alien species of unimaginable power - and malevolence, in some cases. But our plucky heroes are indomitable in the face of certain doom.

If you've read any of the stuff from the good old days, you'll find yourself laughing again and again. It re-reads well, too!

It's not the most enjoyable reading experience, but it's a powerful one. Schlosser rips off the curtain covering America's fast food industry and reveals the ugly truths behind it. It's The Jungle (1906) of it's day. After reading it, I stopped eating fast food. It has been decades since I've eaten MacDonald's, Burger King or their equivalents.

A surprisingly good collection of relatively early SF stories by A. E. van Vogt. I first read it in my mid-teens, and it made a big impression on me; when I rediscovered it forty years later, it was with real delight. His stories bridge the Gernsback era of science fiction to the Campbell era; they could be utterly memorable, and in Destination: Universe they mostly were. They express feelings and moments that stayed with me for decades. His later bad habit of cannibalizing his own earlier work shadowed his overall reputation in my eyes, but the fact remains that when he was good, he was very good indeed. Although all of the stories are excellent, "The Monster" and "A Can of Paint" are particularly memorable.

The first five or six books in the Xanth series (this was the third) were cute and enjoyable, albeit silly at times and VERY punny. This one sets up some stories for later books in the series, introduces some major characters, and features an odd form of time travel. It also features a tragic love story ~~with a happy ending~~; credit to Piers Anthony for managing that.

But don't get too attached. As is frequently the case, the series ended up turning creepy. I still reread and enjoy the earlier books in the series, but after Ogre, Ogre the creepiness factor increases with pretty much every book.

This the first of three books in the "Master Li and Number Ten Ox" series, and it won the World Fantasy Award in 1985. Set in "an ancient China that never was", it's the story of a young peasant man who's as strong as an ox, and an ancient sage with a slight flaw in his character. It draws on Chinese folk tales and history, as well as a bit of Sherlock Holmes. It's a mystery with magic, humor, adventure, and it's simply mind-blowing.

This one one of those books that people ask to borrow and never return.

I quite like this one; in particular, there's a page that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. That's a good thriller! It's from the early computer era (1979), a detective story with strong psychological thriller elements. A town that runs everything with computers finds itself held hostage by a hacker; the detective must find the intruder before more lives are lost. I picked up the ebook of it for $2.99, even though it's over 300 pages long. And of course you should be able to get it through your library, although they may have to resort to interlibrary loan. In it’s time it was near-future science fiction, but now it’s just regular fiction. It’s still good though.

This is the first of a three-book series. Alodar, a young apprentice thaumaturge, quests to redeem his family name and marry the princess. It's a classic story, but it's well-written and the interactions between the five different types of magic in that world are fascinating and memorable. Look for the earlier, printed version if you can. The ebook has been revised, and frankly for the worse. The two sequels are also good, but not as good as the first.

I'd give this one 3.5 stars if half-stars were permitted. It was quite involving and well-researched; it gave me new insight into the war between David Letterman and Jay Leno to succeed Johnny Carson as host of the tonight show. But it cuts off abruptly, and at a point that's somewhat misleading. There's a sequel, apparently; I'll be looking it up.

I went on a Wodehouse binge long ago in high school. Read everything of his that they had on the shelves. Having finished and enjoyed it all, I moved on to the next author who caught my attention...I think it was Leonard Wibberly.

40 years passed.

And then I decided to read Wodehouse again. For some reason one title in particular had stuck in my head: Leave It to Psmith.

It's incredibly witty. I laughed out loud on page after page. And Psmith's unique means of expressing himself is unforgettable. I found myself talking like Psmith for days after I read that book. It won't be anywhere near 40 years before I read it again, you can count on that!

It's amazing how Marvel was able to take brilliant source material like Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and Blade Runner and produce such a remarkably lame illustrated "novel". The art, the writing...just astonishingly bad. Do yourself a favor and go to the originals, not this churned-out piece of garbage.

I don't like Orson Scott Card. There was a time when he was a gifted writer, but that was decades ago. And I'm rather glad of that, I must admit, because his homophobia and religious bigotry offend me.

But Shadows In Flight isn't as bad as most of his recent books have been. Yes, it has the usual "genius" children talking to each other in "shocking" ways; Card seems to find them irresistible. There's even some of Card's trademark child-on-child violence, which makes me wonder just how badly screwed up his head is. But for once he doesn't take it too far.

This is no Ender's Game or Songmaster. It isn't even A Planet Called Treason. But it's readable and not annoying, which is a big improvement over Card's other work this millennium.