Category: Book Report

Your Humble Blogger is four behind on Book Reports, so rather than take the time to pound out some comment on having read Memory for the umpty-’leventh time, I’ll just note it and pass lightly on. I had wanted to…

When I read a sequel to a really good book, and it’s good, but it’s not quite as good as the first one, I feel awkward about saying it. After all, how often is a sequel as good as the…

I’ve been a big fan of Kazuo Ishiguro since reading Remains of the Day back in 1988 or so. I thought An Artist of the Floating World was fantastic, and I enjoyed A Pale View of Hills, although not so…

It’s always a bit odd reading a first-in-the-series when you’ve read the other books in the series, and it’s even odder re-reading it when you’ve re-read the other books more often. There are things that just don’t seem correct, sometimes…

It has been a few years since I read The Dain Curse. It’s my least favorite of the Dashiell Hammett novels/series featuring the Continental Op, which means I like it very much indeed. There are plot problems, yes, and its…

Your Humble Blogger finally got around to reading Darwin’s Radio. I enjoyed it quite a bit, actually, although after allowing a week or so to pass before blogging it, I know mostly remember my complaints. My main complaint was that…

I have mentioned in this Tohu Bohu that Prince of Foxes is one of my comfort books, a book that provides a warm and familiar pleasure without requiring very hard work. One nice thing about such a book is that…

The thing that I really noticed this time through Gaudy Night was the ontologically transformative power of The First Time. The world, you see, is divided into Women who have Done It, and Wirgins. And never the twain shall meet….

I really should just get rid of our copy of Bellwether. There are bits of it that I do find very funny, and I think it’s a well-crafted book in a variety of ways, but boy is it depressing. I…

So. It seemed to YHB that Counting Heads was a sort of how-to course in exposition. Perhaps you already know this, Bob, but David Marusek seems to have used every trick in the book to create situations where Bob needs…