![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Dec. 22nd, 2003
Book Review - Maverick
Dec. 22nd, 2003 10:59 pmaka
Isaac Asimov's Robot City, Robots & Aliens, Maverick by Bruce Bethke (Fifth in the bold new adventure!)
the title alone should tell you one problem with this book. this is a shared world series which lends itself to a bit of confusion. even worse, the series 'Robots & Aliens' is a sequel series to the 'Robot City' which contains 6 books by different authors, but wait! there's more. the main character starts off in the original book with *gasp* amnesia. this book, in fact, both series should absolutely suck with all of the strikes against them. however, the continuity has held up fairly well and the characters have been developed in more or less reasonable ways. ok, in many cases it's obvious that author G felt he needed to fix something that author A did and the continuity took a strong hit. i delayed reading this book for so long, because i wasn't sure if i'd already read it and didn't feel it was worth the effort of cracking it open. i was pleasantly surprised to note that the story was new to me, until i got 3/4ths of the way through the novel and one particular chapter seemed very familiar. now, i'm completely unsure what is going on. maybe, dazed and half asleep, i read just one part of this book. who cares, it was an enjoyable chapter. in fact, this book was probably the best of the lot so far. i'm giving the author full marks and will be keeping an eye out for 'Bethke' stories to see if i can confirm my theory. i have left most of the plot out of this review because this is the 5th or 11th novel, depending on how you count it, and the explanation would be too long/spoil too many of the other books. i will say that these stories are heavy on asimov's 3 laws of robotics and this series probably contains more robot stories than asimov ever wrote. for a very prolific author, he didn't write nearly enough robot stories for me. enough blathering on, here's my recommendation: buy these books at random and keep them on hand for reading when you really just want to relax. i would attempt to read them in order, but as the main character is a recovering amnesiac, you shouldn't feel too left out if there are things in the novels that you can't quite remember.
p.s. i took this book with me to charlotte and thus moved it to the 'at bat' position. it is so much lighter than shardik that i finished it while taking breaks or when it happened to be closer to me than shardik.
Isaac Asimov's Robot City, Robots & Aliens, Maverick by Bruce Bethke (Fifth in the bold new adventure!)
the title alone should tell you one problem with this book. this is a shared world series which lends itself to a bit of confusion. even worse, the series 'Robots & Aliens' is a sequel series to the 'Robot City' which contains 6 books by different authors, but wait! there's more. the main character starts off in the original book with *gasp* amnesia. this book, in fact, both series should absolutely suck with all of the strikes against them. however, the continuity has held up fairly well and the characters have been developed in more or less reasonable ways. ok, in many cases it's obvious that author G felt he needed to fix something that author A did and the continuity took a strong hit. i delayed reading this book for so long, because i wasn't sure if i'd already read it and didn't feel it was worth the effort of cracking it open. i was pleasantly surprised to note that the story was new to me, until i got 3/4ths of the way through the novel and one particular chapter seemed very familiar. now, i'm completely unsure what is going on. maybe, dazed and half asleep, i read just one part of this book. who cares, it was an enjoyable chapter. in fact, this book was probably the best of the lot so far. i'm giving the author full marks and will be keeping an eye out for 'Bethke' stories to see if i can confirm my theory. i have left most of the plot out of this review because this is the 5th or 11th novel, depending on how you count it, and the explanation would be too long/spoil too many of the other books. i will say that these stories are heavy on asimov's 3 laws of robotics and this series probably contains more robot stories than asimov ever wrote. for a very prolific author, he didn't write nearly enough robot stories for me. enough blathering on, here's my recommendation: buy these books at random and keep them on hand for reading when you really just want to relax. i would attempt to read them in order, but as the main character is a recovering amnesiac, you shouldn't feel too left out if there are things in the novels that you can't quite remember.
p.s. i took this book with me to charlotte and thus moved it to the 'at bat' position. it is so much lighter than shardik that i finished it while taking breaks or when it happened to be closer to me than shardik.
book review - shardik
Dec. 22nd, 2003 11:15 pmShardik by Richard Adams
that's right. i finished it. the whole damn thing. it's the longest book on my list until i get to moby dick. if it had been 620 pages of badness, i would have quit. but it wasn't, it was 200 pages of badness. the first part of the book was heavy slogging. there's a bear, it's god, except you know it's not god and people are doing dumb things in the name of god and it's all going to end in ruin and we know this not only because of the VAST AND HEAVY FORESHADOWING, but because it's a fricking enormous bear that kills with a casual swat. but that's just where the book starts getting good. it does end in ruin. all the sudden, the bear isn't god, and then he is in the most marvelous ways, and again he isn't, but that's ok. you see, adams once again pulled off the magic in watership down, but this time you could see the strings and mirrors. the descriptions were wonderful, but he would throw in too many analogies and it felt forced. the first part of the story was way too long, but i would really love to see what happens next. however, the worst problem is that i just did not like the way adams drew his humans. the primitive society he describes for most of the novel does not feel consistent. many characters undergo vast psychological torments and recover in ways that are not so much wonderful, as extremely unrealistic. the last chapter written by someone on the outside of the society looking in was wonderful and i only wish the whole book could have been written from this viewpoint. and yet, there is enough good in this book that i don't regret reading it. i do wish that he'd had a better editor.
next book, already at bat: Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac. my dad got this as part of a summer reading project while i was still in high school. he passed it to me and i think i had the crazy idea that i'd read it in english and then in french. i'm not sure that my dad actually got through the novel, himself. i'm up to page 9 or so and it's growing on me.
that's right. i finished it. the whole damn thing. it's the longest book on my list until i get to moby dick. if it had been 620 pages of badness, i would have quit. but it wasn't, it was 200 pages of badness. the first part of the book was heavy slogging. there's a bear, it's god, except you know it's not god and people are doing dumb things in the name of god and it's all going to end in ruin and we know this not only because of the VAST AND HEAVY FORESHADOWING, but because it's a fricking enormous bear that kills with a casual swat. but that's just where the book starts getting good. it does end in ruin. all the sudden, the bear isn't god, and then he is in the most marvelous ways, and again he isn't, but that's ok. you see, adams once again pulled off the magic in watership down, but this time you could see the strings and mirrors. the descriptions were wonderful, but he would throw in too many analogies and it felt forced. the first part of the story was way too long, but i would really love to see what happens next. however, the worst problem is that i just did not like the way adams drew his humans. the primitive society he describes for most of the novel does not feel consistent. many characters undergo vast psychological torments and recover in ways that are not so much wonderful, as extremely unrealistic. the last chapter written by someone on the outside of the society looking in was wonderful and i only wish the whole book could have been written from this viewpoint. and yet, there is enough good in this book that i don't regret reading it. i do wish that he'd had a better editor.
next book, already at bat: Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac. my dad got this as part of a summer reading project while i was still in high school. he passed it to me and i think i had the crazy idea that i'd read it in english and then in french. i'm not sure that my dad actually got through the novel, himself. i'm up to page 9 or so and it's growing on me.
