reviews

Dust (Elizabeth Bear)

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DustElizabeth Bear Just as fantastic and mind-bending as I was anticipating… full of those ideas that just make me shiver in awe. The first punch of the story is the best, when you get hit with all the world’s concepts at once. There were a few things I recognized – shadow panels show up in Ringworld, the term ‘coffins’ for sleeping quarters in Neuromancer – but the vast majority was new territory. I mean, angel Engineers who have machine-oil blood? Jacob’s Ladder a DNA helix? An entire artificial world that’s just as foreign and unexplored as an organic one? That […]

Rollback, Robert J. Sawyer

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RollbackRobert J. Sawyer Appropriately named. Although alien contact happens, the book is focused on its side-effect — Don’s reaction when he is rejuvenated to his youth (rolled back), but the procedure fails for his wife (the one needed to decode the alien message). Well-written, but it didn’t compel or inspire me. I got a brief flash of wonder when Sarah started mentioning the grid, the 3D nature of the message, but was disappointed when that dead-ended. Also, I tend to get impatient with the humanity of the aliens in alien-contact stories. Take this paragraph: "Math and physics are the same […]

Smoke and Mirrors, Neil Gaiman

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Smoke and MirrorsNeil Gaiman A collection of short stories. "Babycakes" is my favorite. It’s very short, but I really love the rhythms and pacing. Also, I like "Murder Mysteries" because I didn’t get the whole thing until I looked back at the American Gods review and reread the tactic I mentioned there… it’s the same thing. The murder mystery of the city of angels is really just a distraction.

The Magicians Guild & The Novice, Trudi Canavan

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The Magicians’ Guild; The NoviceTrudi Canavan Not totally sure what I think about these yet… they’re the first two of The Black Magician Trilogy, and the last book isn’t at the library here, so I’m going to have to wait till I’m back in St. Paul. They don’t have any grand, sweeping ideas or revolutionary concepts, so it would be easy to dismiss them, but this one character, the character of Akkarin, stops me. Basic plot — Sonea, a street girl, is taken into the elusive Magicians’ Guild when they discover her magic is powerful enough to manifest on its […]

Pyromancer, Don Callander

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PyromancerDon Callander An average book… I didn’t check the publication date, but it sounds like Tolkien’s era, when fantasy was tied to a certain set of tropes — cute little fairies, mountain-dwelling dwarves, eccentric wizards… and, of course, stupid, bumbling enemies. You know the sort — every Redwall book has them — the Bad Guys who are egotistical and so cruel to their own followers that said followers defect to the Good side at the slightest hint of kindness. Also part of the equation — romance between two characters that happens just because it seems to be convenient, plastic because […]

American Gods, Neil Gaiman

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American Gods Neil Gaiman After Neverwhere, this was kind of a disappointment. It seemed more like an exercise in showing off the various gods than anything else. I put it aside for several days in the middle of it, and when I looked back at the first 100+ pages, I thought, wait a sec, what even happened? There wasn’t a single disparate event I could point out, for plot progression. (Although, you know, I could be a bit too old-fashioned, expecting plot.) And why bog Shadow down at the funeral home for what seemed like a year? I did appreciate, […]