Sci-Fi & Scary

Review Excerpt Overall the pacing was nice, the characters were fantastic, the story well-written and the tension kept building.

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Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the author for review consideration

The premise IS interesting, and the story is good. Wayne is an realistic character, and I don’t think his obsession is as much symptom of a mental illness as it is a symptom of his extreme desire to Be Someone Important and NOT be dirt poor.

Okay, 2 cool happenings to point out: 1. MechaGodzilla makes an appearance (which, out of everything, made me giggle) and 2. There’s a really, really cool one sentence mention where the main character calmly accepts gender-bending without even batting an eyelash. Both of these occurred after I’d pretty much given up on the book, so it definitely brought forth an surge of affection that had been missing up until this point.

When I first heard about Ready Player One, of course one of the first things I heard about was the 80’s trivia. Here’s the thing, trivia is cool but literal lists of one 80’s game or movie after another is NOT. Actually, toward the end of the book I found myself wondering if this, along with his penchant for being way, way too descriptive where its not needed was the author trying to reach a magical word-count. (Have no way of knowing, not interested in really finding out. Just what I thought.)

Cline nails the annoying emo-drama of the teenage male. Circe, does he ever. So this is not a fault of the author as it is just a trait of an extremely annoying character!

Final Thoughts: There are definite elements of Fahreneit 451/1984 prophetic elements of dystopian futures, but I don’t read this as almost prophetic powers of extrapolation (as Bradbury,Orwell) but simply above-average keen observation. I do have to give him this, though, in many ways his dystopian future is more believable (I mean, consider our obsession with technology) than the dystopian futures laid out by authors like Suzanne Collins.

I believe I made a mistake in getting this as an audio book. Given the lists, the texting, etc, it would normally be hard to carry over, but when you add a narrator like Will Wheaton in – who has very little ability to do different voices – it makes the experience a bit worse.


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"Everyone dies at the end” definitely has potential. No doubt about it. I would love to read a version of this story that has been professionally edited. That, more than anything else, is my main issue with this story. It could be very, very good, but until the wording and descriptive issues are fixed, it borders on being annoying.

There were certain places where the writing just didn’t make sense. If the author says that x slammed their pistol into someone’s head, I assume they pistol-whipped them. Not that they jammed the barrel against the person’s forehead. So when the author immediately says that they pulled the trigger then, and blew the person’s brain out, my brain skittered to a halt and went “What? Wait…what?”

Another weakness of the author is the tendency to get stuck in a rut with descriptions. One character’s drug addiction is always referred to as his demon (which, even if it is actually a demon, the descriptions still need switched up a bit. A heavyset male is always, always called the fat man.

The ending was definitely a surprise, and as I tend to write reviews while I read, it made me go back and erase portions of what I’d written down. Ultimately, though, i think the base of my review stands. The author needs to work on some basic wording as well as try to avoid over-using the same descriptors. I look forward to reading more from her in the future once she gets the kinks ironed out of her writing.


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Review Excerpt: "Aside from the obviously preternatural element, nothing about the story was something that I couldn’t – in this day and age – believe wouldn’t happen."

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Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from Netgalley for review consideration.

Well, I can't say as I'd ever pick up another book in this series, but I *did* enjoy this book.

I haven't read a lot of Pratchett or Baxter, so I had no true standards or expectations going into it. I think that helped.

The one big thing that bothers me about The Long Earth is that it... rambles. You end up wondering if its ever going to get to the point, and when it does get to the point, its so anticlimactic that it feels like it didn't actually happen.

It was a good book. It was just not a book that gave you a feeling of satisfaction or accomplishment when you were done reading it.

Sorry I can't be more specific. The premise was fantastic, the execution was just a step or three above mediocre.


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I do not understand the 4 star reviews.

Female character displays strong traits – someone responds to this with a ‘is she available/too bad she’s taken’ remark. Repeatedly. I understand its near a TEOTWAWKI situation, but come on. Have some diversity of response in there. Yes, self-sufficiency is attractive, but must we leap right to commenting that we’d like the chance to claim those who demonstrate it?

Oh, lookie, another character talking about/referring to/being a part of love at first sight. Color me shocked. Well, not really, because it just happened in the last bite sized novella.

Grammar.

Okay, so I might be being a bit harsh because I had a chance to read some really excellent work last night, and this pales in comparison, but at this point I don’t think I’m going to bother reading the rest of the ‘series’ if this going to continue in the same vein.

Its an interesting premise, just needs refinement.


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I hate it when authors spew out tiny snippets of a book into multiple books to try to make money or whathaveyou, as Mr. Craven (like so many others lately) does. Don't nickel and dime your readers to death.

The only reason I am reading (and going to review) his The World Burns "series" is because its free on Kindle Unlimited.

So, here goes...

I like post-apocalyptic fiction. I like reading about prepping and homesteading. I even like romances. So it should be no surprise that I liked what I read in this first installment. However, the...speed...with which this particular romance moves is a bit unbelievable. I won't say more because I don't want to spoil anything.

This is not particularly well-written (word usage, etc), but the author does have a way with words so most of it is easy to overlook.

Its interesting enough that I'll read the next installment, but just barely. Time will tell (and since the installments are so small that I read this first one in under an hour...)

I wish I could say that I enjoyed this book as much as I did the first in the trilogy, but... I didn't.

For some reason, I struggled to keep my attention on the book for at least the first half. It was mildly interesting, but not enough to keep my focus on it.

I didn't really start, I think, to pay attention to what I was reading, until Squeak and the Airweed got involved.

The problem that I have with Clarke seems to be that he's a wonderful writer for the FIRST book in a series, and that after that, as he tries to add more depth, to flesh out characters more, etc, he seems to struggle, and gives too much attention to these aspects, and less to what he truly excels in - which is the hard sci-fi writing itself.

I might read the third book, but can't say I have any great desire to.

I would not recommend this book.

Slogging through this book was like pulling teeth. Only occasionally was there a brief rest where it didn't hurt, before you went on to the next tooth.

I know this novel is a BFD to a lot of people, and maybe I'm just lowbrow and don't get it...but you would have to pay me upwards of 5 figures to get me to read it voluntarily again.

This was a solid piece of work, but nothing amazing. It was not memorable, the prose was not fantastic, but it was a pleasant way to spend a few hours. I doubt I will ever re-read this book.

I will say that I had watched the movie before I was even aware there was a book, and therefore kept comparing the two in my mind. The ending surprised me, since the movie re-orders certain events, and I had thought that perhaps the movie had just invented a rather large piece of the story, but no.. suddenly in the last chapter, that piece materializes.

The book was definitely better than the movie (but who can be surprised about that?)


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Well, I struggled, but I finally finished it.

My overall impression is "meh". Its not a bad book. Its just not a good book.

The author, I think, tried too hard and fell just short. The *idea* was good, but the execution was poor.

I would not recommend this book to anyone.

The Haunting of Hill House was an ... interesting read. I'm not entirely sure what I think about it. I will say that when I had originally watched the Haunting, I didn't know it was based on a book (though what decent movie isn't based on a book?), and I rather liked it. So when I started reading Haunting of Hill House, I was surprised to recognize the characters and the settings immediately.

I think Shirley Jackson has a very, very good way with words. Her nonsensical dialogue is quite amusing, and she manages to get you lost in the mental break of Eleanor very easily.

The book ended a bit abruptly, but I can't say as I think that's a bad thing.

The one thing I didn't understand about reading this book is that I could not just zoom straight through it like I normally do a short read. I'd read for a few minutes - thoroughly appreciating what I was reading - but then end up sitting it down and wandering off, only to be attracted back to it a few minutes later. It tripled the time it normally takes me to read a book.

I think it has a re-readability factor , but I can't say I'd do it anytime soon.

Review Excerpt: Overall, 14, once it really got going, was a book that kept me on my toes. I would expect one thing to happen, and something else would happen instead. I would think "Oh, that has to be a stopping point" only for the wave to start cresting even higher from there. (I do think he took a little too long on some of the scenes. They didn't need quite as much description as he gave them (aka: space scene.) It kept me interested and puzzling. The characters were unique yet believable. If you can stand the slow pacing in the beginning, it’s definitely worth reading.

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Since I can only remember this book as in "Ah, scarlet mote! I remember this book! I've read it!" I have to say I probably can't strongly recommend it.

The title is very accurate to this book. There were several times when listening it that I found myself stopping what I was doing and going "Huh! Whodda thunk it?" If you like trivia, you'll probably love this book.

Review excerpt: "One of the things that I really like about “The Beam” is how well the relationships are written. Nothing is floating-on-clouds perfect. People do bad things. People do good things. Sometimes bad people do good things, and good people do bad things. Just like it should be."

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