Review: Notes from Underground & The Double

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Tom

Notes from Underground & The Double by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The problem I have with Notes from Underground is the same problem I had with Demons: Dostoyevsky hits a philosophical notes and then rambles for three or four pages. Once one finally got to the meat and potatoes of the story it was pretty good, and he did raise some interesting points in it, but overall Notes wandered on and on, going in circles that never found a point to get to. The Double was a bit better, as the schizophrenic breakdown of the main character is rather interesting, but also easily hate-able. It takes a bit of work to get through it, although less than Notes from Underground.

In the end, it’s a Dostoyevsky book. There are worse things, but this is not his best work.

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Review: Clans of the Alphane Moon

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Tom

Clans of the Alphane Moon by Philip K. Dick

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Everyone, from the clans to the Rittersdorfs to Bunny Hentman to the aliens are interesting characters, all driving the story forward with mind bending amounts of intrigue. Philip K. Dick has all the players on the board almost from the start, and you get to watch their dramas unfold, by the end wondering if an interplanetary war will explode based solely on a single shattered marriage. A great book by a great author.

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Review: Deadline

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Tom

Deadline by Mira Grant

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

You know, when I had originally started Feed, I wasn’t sure what to make of it. The characters were pretty easy to like, but there was too much pop culture referencing that felt forced in. That is not a problem with Deadline. It hits the ground running and doesn’t stop – hell, it opens with a scientist that fakes her own death and the firebombing of a city (I would warn about spoilers, but that’s in the first couple chapters. That’s just the SET UP of this book). It also doesn’t stop – I haven’t spent that much time tense during a novel in a while, and when I finished it I immediately found myself wishing that Blackout was out, just so I could finish the trilogy (and not have to wait until June for it).

Let me be straightforward. If you like zombies, you will probably like this series. If you like conspiracies that just keep going further down the rabbit hole, you’ll probably like this. If you liked World War Z, you probably should have read this by now. So go check it out. You won’t regret it.

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Review: Dandelion Wine

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Tom

Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love Dandelion Wine from Page One clear through to the end. Bradbury weaves a wonderful series of lives together into the life of a town over the course of a single summer, much of it told through the eyes of a twelve year old boy and his ten year old brother. Even though the story takes place in 1928, I found myself repeatedly reminded about my own childhood, and the summers my younger brother (also two years younger than I am) and I would spend outside, taking in the world around us and drinking as deeply from life as possible. Dandelion Wine reminds you what it’s like to be a child, and how you never truly know the lives that surround you each day.

It’s no wonder there’s a crater on the moon named after this book.

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Review: Let the Great World Spin

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Tom

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this book on the recommendation of my girlfriend, and I can say I completely trust her taste in literature now. Let the Great World Spin is a fantastic book, by turns beautiful and tragic. The different characters and disparate lives all affect one another in a myriad of seemingly random ways, both large and small, eventually coming together in a way that showcases an excellent command of storytelling. And, above it all – above the ghettos and high rise apartments and teenagers on the forefront of a technical revolution and mothers dealing with the losses Vietnam forced on them – balances one man holding a pole, dancing on a wire between the not-quite-finished Twin Towers.

Colum McCann wrote a fantastic story, and you’d be doing yourself a disservice by not reading it. It’s that simple.

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Review: God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Tom

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Kurt Vonnegut never disappoints. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater focuses around a well-meaning but seemingly bumbling son of a very wealthy man, and Vonnegut uses the character to go after American greed and excess, lampooning both quite successfully while putting forth the notion that perhaps the rich should be taking care of the poor. A notion that seems sadly revolutionary in the story, and one that seems sadly revolutionary in our own times as well. But this particular story has more hope than I was expecting, partly the result of Vonnegut making it all his own.

If you’re a fan of Vonnegut (or good books in general), I highly recommend this.

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Review: Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter

Posted on February 1, 2012 by Tom

Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

The more time I spent with this book, the less I enjoyed it. Reading the summary on the back, one would think that it would go down a fairly unused path, somehow straddling the line between a steamy forbidden romance and mind bending as a different character exerts his influence even as he loses his mind. Sounds exciting, right? I thought so too.

What actually happened was around 370 pages of disappointment. Continue reading →

Review: Feed

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Tom

Feed by Mira Grant

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Feed impressed me. Normally, I stay away from blatantly apocalyptic novels, especially ones involving popular tropes (zombies, vampires, so on and so forth). The big notable exception has been World War Z (I don’t count The Zombie Survival Guide, given that it wasn’t a story). Without resorting to comparing the two books, I have to admit that Feed impressed me.

It took a little while for this to happen, though. At first, the world that the characters inhabit felt forced, as if Mira Grant kept standing up and waving her hands and shouting “Look at me! I’m referencing pop culture, how clever is that?” It starts with the characters Continue reading →

Review: Now Wait for Last Year

Posted on January 18, 2012 by Tom

Now Wait for Last Year by Philip K. Dick

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book is a mind bender, but one with more hope than seems to be generally customary for a Philip K. Dick novel. The war between the reegs (large insect aliens) and the ‘Starmen (from the planet Lillistar, the original home planet of the species that would eventually become to be known as “humans”) has enveloped Earth (now called Terra), and Eric Sweetscent is about to be dragged right into the center of the whole thing. He has a new job keeping the Secretary General of the UN alive while at the same time dealing with a wife who is addicted to a new drug that dislodges a person in time. And that’s just the bare bones of the story.

Sweetscent spends the entire book trapped between a rock and a hard place, and you begin to really feel the tension as Dick slowly builds problem upon problem, adding in more and more details to complicate things even further for his characters. The entire book was a wonderful read from beginning to end, and the further I got the further I wanted to go, to find out how it would all end. I was actually surprised by the ending, and not a little bit impressed.

If you’re a Philip K. Dick fan, or just a fan of sci-fi that goes after your sense of well being, you will definitely like this book.

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Review: My Uncle Oswald

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Tom

My Uncle Oswald by Roald Dahl

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

My Uncle Oswald was a pretty amusing read. It didn’t feel like anything particularly special, but it was fun to read a ridiculous story featuring ridiculous characters in ridiculous situations. And it was a quick read, making it an excellent palate cleanser.

This is also the book where Dahl used the term “Snozberries” for the first time, a word that would re-appear in Charlie & the Chocolate Factory. Just learning the origin of the term was enough to justify reading the story.

If you like quick humor, this is a great book to pick up for a bit.

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