No MessagesNo Chucks SentNo Chucks ReceivedNo Quiz RankNo Tags
Eric's reviews
| My Reviews - Page 1 of 7 |
|
|
Eric posted a review at 2012-03-06 01:57:34 for Market Forces.
(Language: English)
 
In the near future, business executives resolve disputes and win contracts in Mad Maxian muscle car road duels. One up-and-comer joins a prestigious firm and must navigate deadly corporate politics--including a partner orchestrating his downfall--without losing his lavish lifestyle, his marriage, or his conscience.My biggest fear was that the setting would feel hugely contrived. I mean why the hell would executives really need to battle to the death? But Morgan pulled it off with strong internal logic. MF is replete with Morgan's trademark action, sex, and violence. 
|
Yes (0) 
No (0)
 |
Eric posted a review at 2012-02-24 11:49:12 for The Uncertain Places.
(Language: English)
A 1971 Berkeley student starts dating a girl from a very old family, and has to deal with a fairy tale curse/blessing that has followed them for centuries. There are consequences to bargaining with fairy-types. One aspect of the book that I particularly enjoyed was the protagonist's changing perspective as he got older. As a youth he charges around trying to fix things and he scorns the older family members for their apparent hesitance and seeming apathy. Later, his responsibilities grow and he starts to grasp the more subtle and far-ranging consequences of his actions; he becomes more thoughtful, he begins to step more carefully himself. And he sees others' actions and decisions in a whole new light. Jeesh, that could be me. The title is well-chosen. 'The Uncertain Places' ostensibly refers to those locations where the barrier between the real world and the fairy realm are thin, easy to cross. But everything in the story is uncertain, right down to the final triumph. Good stuff.
|
 |
Eric posted a review at 2012-02-15 02:38:35 for The Steel Remains.
(Language: English)
Martinesque fantasy novel with a twist: the protagonist is a gay hero ex-soldier in a world currently awash in anti-gay fervor. The fighting is brutal, the sex is graphic, interesting characters are introduced only to be summarily deleted 'offscreen'. After a slow start, I really had trouble putting The Steel Remains down. Looking forward to the sequel.
|
|
|
Eric posted a review at 2012-02-02 12:32:05 for Rule 34.
(Language: English)
Set in not-too-distant-future Scotland, Rule 34 envisions a host of quite-plausible and often subtle social and technological advancements. Like Stross's Halting State, it's riddled with Scottishisms and a second-person pov which takes some getting used to. Late in the book, a character sits in "slack-jawed near-comprehension, at the sheer novelty of it all." That's how I felt reading Rule 34. The hypothetical technology alone is enough to stuff a good science fiction novel; the police-procedural, political, social, and economic concepts are enough to make one dizzy. Rarely does a book beg for re-reading like this one.
|
 |
Eric posted a review at 2012-01-16 10:03:48 for Achewood: The Great Outdoor Fight.
(Language: English)
"Dude, you didn't fugue, you were just berserk. That's like comparing a lunatic to a pissed guy with goals." The Great Outdoor Fight tells the story of a long-running toughest-guy-around tournament, and a pair of friends who weasel their way into it. The animation reminds me of South Park, not so much in the look of it but in the way it's simultaneously awful and amazingly expressive. A lot of information is conveyed in every inexpertly drawn panel. It surprised me how much I enjoyed this book. I actually laughed out loud at least a dozen times. Totally worthwhile.
|
 |
Eric posted a review at 2012-01-12 07:33:58 for Fables Vol. 16: Super Group (Fables (Graphic Novels)).
(Language: English)
Pretty good. Conclusion to the Mister Dark storyline. The superhero stuff was…interesting…I think Willingham is running out of corners of fabledom to explore. It reminded me of the Scream movies in the way that he kept explaining and defining superhero tropes even while acting them out.
|
 |
Eric posted a review at 2012-01-11 12:12:07 for Fables: Rose Red (Vol. 15).
(Language: English)
Totenkinder makes herself young then duels the Dark Man; it ends badly. The Fables abandon the Farm. In the meantime, we get Snow White and Rose Red's backstory and learn the cause of the bad blood between them.
|
 |
Eric posted a review at 2012-01-10 06:50:58 for Fables Vol. 14: Witches.
(Language: English)
Three dozen plot threads advance a quarter of an inch. Mr Dark consolidates his power in the ruins of Fabletown.
|
 |
Eric posted a review at 2012-01-08 10:59:16 for Halting State (Ace Science Fiction).
(Language: English)
Halting State purports to be a gamer novel (a la Ready Player One) but it's actually more of a near-future tech thriller with a side of politics. It opens with the Scottish police being called in to solve a sort-of bank robbery in which a horde of orcs (with dragon support) have looted a virtual bank in a World of Warcraft style VR game. Before long it morphs into spy-vs-spy suspense with the financial security of the world at stake. I had a tough time plowing through some of the Scottish. I'm generally pretty good at extracting meaning from context, but I was stumped a few times here (Bampots? Neds? Chilblains, nonce, bairns?) and even the words I solved were interruptive. Another hurdle was the point-of-view: this is the first book I've ever read told from SECOND person (through the eyes of three POV characters). It took some getting used to, but I stopped noticing it after a while. All told it was a solidly entertaining read. The tech and spycraft were believable (to my layman's ear); the author appeared to know his stuff. And the epilogue was really funny, a nice touch.
|
|
|
Eric posted a review at 2011-12-20 02:29:29 for Ready Player One.
(Language: English)
A nonstop nostalgia-palooza for generation Xers. In the future, a soft-apocalypse energy collapse has sent the world spiraling into poverty. Most people find refuge in the OASIS, a mammoth World-of-Warcraft style virtual reality game that is so much more than a game. Its creator has died and willed his $100 billion empire to the first geek who can solve a massive series of riddles, games, and puzzles. The fat, pasty nerd protagonist squares off against an evil corporation bent on winning the contest at any cost and spoiling the OASIS. The first thing I noticed about Ready Player One was how poorly it was written. I was wincing by page 2. It ranged from clunky and monotonous to downright awkward. I doubt that the writing actually improved over the course of the book, but after a while I discovered that I was so engrossed in the story and the I-remember-that! moments that I had stopped noticing it. For the last few chapters I couldn't put the book down (I came into work all bleary-eyed and underslept this morning after staying up much too late last night to finish it.) So don't be scared off by the early stumbles. Stick it out, the payoff is worth it.
|
 |
Eric posted a review at 2011-12-07 02:21:09 for Altered Carbon: A Takeshi Kovacs Novel (Takeshi Kovacs Novels).
(Language: English)
500 years in the future, people are functionally just software, uploaded and downloaded into new "sleeves" (bodies) at will. Dead? New sleeve (if you can afford it; it's like buying a house). Business trip? Have yourself broadcast into a clone or synthetic body on the other side of the country, or world, or galaxy. Altered Carbon is about a mercenary hired by a 300 year old rich guy to investigate his own murder, which the police insist was a suicide. It's an interesting blend of science fiction and detective noir. It has a grungy techno feel, sort of like the Blade Runner movie. There's intrigue, kidnappings, official corruption, gunfights, even a couple of femme fatales. Morgan takes full advantage of his hypothetical technologies to play around with questions of identity. How much of a person is defined by the body he wears? If you copy yourself into another sleeve, at what point are you no longer really the same person? Right away? Never, since your two copies shared 100% of their formative experiences? It's fascinating, and the philosophical questions somehow don't slow down the well-written action sequences. Possibly the best book I've read in the last couple years.
|
 |
Eric posted a review at 2011-11-28 03:45:50 for Soon I Will Be Invincible.
(Language: English)
A what-if-superheroes-were-real story along the lines of Watchmen, Wild Cards, or The Boys. This one goes full Marvel, touching on I think every silly villainous plot from Superman in the last fifty years or so. Chapters alternate between Dr. Impossible, an evil supergenius Lex Luthor analog, and Fatale, an up and coming cyborg hero. It's fun. And well-written. But not as serious as I'd hoped. Grossman fully embraces all the dumb aliens/magic/supertechnology stuff that makes mainstream comic book heroes so hard to swallow. There appears never to have been a science experiment that didn't end with the creation of a new superhuman.
|
 |
Eric posted a review at 2011-11-18 01:11:20 for Fever Dream.
(Language: English)
Pendergast is back, and this time...it's personal. The genteel FBI agent discovers that the untimely hunting accident that claimed the life of his wife was--gasp!--no accident. The lion that ate her was--double gasp!--TRAINED. (The authors are maybe grasping for plot ideas a little.) After that it's pretty formulaic Preston/Child. Pendergast is unorthodox and brilliant, the villain--whose identity you'd NEVER suspect--is dangerous and almost but not quite as brilliant. A serviceable airport thriller if you're a fan of the series.
|
 |
Eric posted a review at 2011-11-10 02:05:19 for (FORT FREAK ) BY Martin, George R. R. (Author) Hardcover Published on (06 , 2011).
(Language: English)
The Wild Cards universe as seen through the eyes of the Jokertown precinct's police force. Good stuff. It got off to a fast fun start but finished a bit limp. Storylines included the rookie, the end of Oddity, Minal, Kavitha and Michael, Infamous Black Tongue, with a decades-old mass shooting tying everything together.
|
 |
Eric posted a review at 2011-11-10 02:03:24 for The Magician King.
(Language: English)
The sequel to Grossman's fantastic "The Magicians" follows the Godfather 2 model, following up events in its predecessor (Quentin--now a King of Fillory--and Co. set off on a quest to save his adopted home) and giving Julia's backstory in alternating chapters. The tenor of the story is different from the first book; the conflict is a lot more external in "The Magician King". Quentin's struggles with his place in the world are still present but far less pronounced. Possibly darker and more depressing than the first book. Still very very good but it lacks that spark of originality that "The Magicians" possessed in spades. A typical sequel failing.
|
|
|
Eric posted a review at 2011-11-09 01:25:45 for The Passage.
(Language: English)
A reasonably solid vampire apocalypse novel. The story occurs in parts: first the government experiment that precipitates the end of the world, then the breakdown of the Colony, and finally the save-the-world quest across the ruined landscape. There is some interesting sociological theory here: the author explores how different groups of people might cope with such a cataclysm, based on group size, access to technology, location, etc. The complete lack of religion was an interesting take. I would have expected at least one "prophet" with a following, but none of Cronin's survivors wonder if they're being punished by God. A very self-sufficient lot. Toward the end of the book the story starts to fall down. [Spoilers ahead.] The little girl is presented as the Key to Everything, the one who can end the vampires, but she doesn't really do anything. She basically provides comfort to vampires who are about to die anyway. And why, after almost a century, are people suddenly turning into "smokes" for no reason? They're succumbing to a kind of vampire psychic assault, but that assault has been around for decades, and besides, it's supposed to be a virus that causes the transformation, not a series of nightmares. It didn't make sense. The Passage has a wonderfully epic feel and a lot of interesting, fresh premises, but a seriously weak ending.
|
|
|
Eric posted a review at 2011-10-12 11:34:10 for Ghost Story.
(Language: English)
Butcher follows up his best entry in the Dresden Files series ("Changes") with this, his worst. Our longsuffering hero took a sniper bullet and died at the end of the previous book. In "Ghost Story" he comes back to solve his own murder. Assorted ghosts and spirits and other ethereal nasties threaten his friends and town and he must find a way to save the day in a world that he can barely influence anymore. What bugged me most about this story was the squishy internal logic concerning the author's version of the spirit world. It felt like Butcher was making it up as he went. The ending was pretty satisfying though.
|
 |
Eric posted a review at 2011-10-06 07:34:14 for The Hunger Games: Book 3.
(Language: English)
 
Book 3 of The Hunger Games. The Districts finally rise up in revolt against the Capital.Mockingjay is by far the weakest of the three books. Collins writes emotional reactions extremely well, and she shares George R R Martin's gung ho willingness to sacrifice characters in service to the story. But her political constructs are absurdly simplistic, her characters' strategic and tactical choices are implausible, and (with one big exception) she telegraphs her plot turns. There was a half-hearted attempt to capture the feel of the first two books by making the Capitol's defense dependent on "pods"--traps like the ones found in her Hunger Games arenas. It came off lame.
|
 |
Eric posted a review at 2011-10-01 12:13:04 for Catching Fire (The Second Book of the Hunger Games).
(Language: English)
Book 2 of the Hunger Games trilogy. Evil president Snow is pissed at Katniss for defying the government by forcing them to accept two victors in book 1, so he rigs it so that she's back in the arena the following year. More of the same. The characters are great, the internal logic is inconsistent, the politics are unsophisticated, and I can't wait to get my hands on book 3.
|
 |
Eric posted a review at 2011-09-27 10:20:17 for The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games Trilogy).
(Language: English)
Twilight meets 1984. In a dystopian post-apocalyptic future, all that remains of North America is a wealthy, authoritarian "Capitol" located somewhere in the Rockies, and twelve "Districts" which are deliberately kept poor, starving and weak. One of the tools the Capitol uses to maintain control of the Districts is the Hunger Games, in which randomly selected children from each District are forced to fight to the death for the amusement of those in power. My impression is that the author is not a very good writer but she's a great storyteller. The battle and survival skills she describes don't ring true, the tyrannical government feels simple and unconvincing, and she telegraphs what she intends to be her plot twists. But maybe my expectations for a young adult novel are unreasonably high. The characters are great, her world is inventive, and the story flies by. I shot through The Hunger Games and couldn't wait to get the second book in the series.
|
 |
Eric posted a review at 2011-09-21 09:37:26 for The Heroes.
(Language: English)
The story of a three-day war between the well-equipped, well-organized "Union" and the savage, Vikingesque "Northmen". No world-building, little politics, just a 540-page exploration of the horrors of battle. Abercrombie is a huge believer in war-as-hell, though he does throw in a couple battle loving point-of-view characters for contrast. Cowards, sociopaths, profiteers and incompetents abound. It's high in moral grayness and low in heroism. My favorite quote: "People think that when death comes to them there will be a lesson, a meaning, a story worth telling. That death will come to them as a dread scholar, a fell knight, a terrible emperor. Death is actually a bored clerk, with too many orders to fill."
|
 |
Eric posted a review at 2011-08-24 08:33:12 for Jack of Fables Vol. 9: The Ultimate Jack of Fables Story.
(Language: English)
Meh...all the characters converge on a cave in Manitoba. Everyone dies. Very Shakespeare, as they note. I usually like this tongue-in-cheekish style but here it just feels flat and lazy. If I'd paid for this volume (I borrowed a friend's) I'd have felt ripped off.
|
 |
Eric posted a review at 2011-08-14 08:29:17 for A Dance with Dragons (Song of Ice and Fire).
(Language: English)
Daenarys rules Mereen, Jon rules the Wall, Arya trains, Tyrion travels. Six year gap and not a bit of drop-off. Wonderful.
|
 |
Eric posted a review at 2011-07-19 08:14:26 for On Stranger Tides.
(Language: English)
Swordfights and sorcery abounds in this swashbuckling pirate adventure set in late 17th century Caribbean Sea. Wonderfully fun book. The bad guys were really bad, not merely mustache-twirling-dastardly-laugh bad. Powers' magic was extremely logical, wonderful, and flavorful. In fact the entire story's internal logic was very strong (with the possible exception of how quickly the protagonist became an expert in weather and rigging and all other things ship). On Stranger Tides is a very easy read; it caught me off guard how quickly I finished it. Great book. I was a bit disturbed to find out three-quarters of the way through it that the plot had been stolen for the Johnny Depp Disney movie (which I haven't seen).
|
 |
Eric posted a review at 2011-07-15 07:15:02 for Dracula.
(Language: English)
Dracula was a mild shock for my contemporary-fiction soaked mind. There were a lot of cultural anachronisms to get used to, a lot of old language to interpret. Having said that, I was very pleasantly surprised. It was quite a thriller. The eponymous antagonist was far more dangerous, far more evil, than I had expected from such an old story. And it was pleasantly free of most of the ubiquitous cliched fiction and horror tropes of today.
|
| My Reviews - Page 1 of 7 |