My goal this year was to read the books that have received the most reviews, but I lost track of that somewhere along the way. Well, I’m probably the last person to read this book, so if I’m going to try to at least partially keep to my goals, this is as good a place to start as any. This has been reviewed 40 times, and has an average rating is 4.51 stars. It’s fair to say that it is well loved. For all of […]
Ruined Cities of the Future
Ruined Cities edited by James Tallett (2013) – I can’t believe I haven’t reviewed this anthology before. I like beginning writers and original stories, so independent publications’ short story collections are right up my alley. I’m not wild about dystopian or post-apocalyptic stories, but this one is large and meaty (420 pages) and has some exceptional writing. I’ll talk about a few of my favorites. “The City Over Hell” by Jennifer Povey – A young illiterate girl discovers her city is actually a dying space […]
Okay, But I Have Questions
So, this series apparently got a lot of hype when the first book, The Passage, first came out. I was, presumably, living under a rock at the time, and so hadn’t heard of it. In fact, I didn’t really hear about the series until the final book came out, at which point I decided to read them all. And, well, the first half of the first book was great, the second half was good. The second book was okay, verging on bad and the third book was […]
Say Hello to My Little Friend
Dreamsnake by Vonda N. McIntyre (2008, but originally published in 1978) – First of all, I’ll admit to being a big Vonda N. McIntyre fan since I read this in the seventies and loved it. It’s one of her earliest works (and a Nebula and Hugo winner). I’ve always enjoyed her Star Trek movie adaptations and consider her to be one of the best writers around. In this post-apocalyptic world (it might be Earth or it might not), Snake, a healer who uses snakes who […]