Rating: 4/5 Neal Stephenson, Anathem (New York, NY: William Morrow, 2008). This is a book that’s all about the journey. It’s quite long (almost a thousand pages), and I’d certainly classify it as a “slow burn.” The story is set in a post-apocalyptic world (but not your run-of-the-mill post-apocalypse) in which...
Rating: 4/5 Robert Charles Wilson, Spin (New York: Tor Books, 2005). I managed to squeeze in at least one new book this summer. Wilson’s Spin is a sci-fi novel that follows two families (three main protagonists) as the world tries to figure out what happened to the suddenly invisible stars. The narrative alternates...
Rating: 5/5 Patricia A. McKillip, Riddle-Master (New York, NY: Berkely Trade [imprint of Penguin], 1999). The Riddle-Master trilogy is an oldie (1976) but goodie. I read it as a kid and absolutely loved it. I’ve read it a few more times over the years, but it had been quite a while since my last reading. I wanted Adele...
Rating: 5/5 Hugh Howey, Wool (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013). What a pleasant surprise! I just kept hearing about this book from all sorts of different people, so I finally checked it out from the library. I’m so glad I did! When it comes to speculative fiction, authors are faced with the very difficult challenge of...
Rating: 4.5/5 Brian Sanderson, Warbreaker (New York: Tor, 2009), 592 p. This book reminded me of why I love (and, yes, in some ways hate) single-volume novels. They’re great in that they completely sidestep the “soap opera” problem so prevalent with massive series such as Wheel of Time and Game of Thrones. The author...
Rating: 4/5 David Wong, This Book is Full of Spiders: Seriously, Dude, Don’t Touch It (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2012). This book is a sequel to the excellent John Dies at the End by the same author. Go read that review first . Essentially the same comments apply. These books are a cross between Lovecraftian “weird...
Rating: 3/5 Ian Hamilton, The Disciple of Las Vegas (Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 2011). This is the second book in Hamilton’s Ava Lee series of novels. As you may recall, I wasn’t a big fan of the first book . I liked this book a little better. Ava Lee is a forensic accountant who works with “Uncle” in retrieving...
Rating: 3/5 Peter F. Hamilton, Pandora’s Star, Commonwealth Saga #1 (New York: Ballantine Books, 2004). This thousand-page tome is the first of two novels in the Commonwealth Saga. It’s apparently popular in Calgary because I had to keep returning it to the library because of holds. It took me three attempts, but I...
Rating: 2/5 Ian Hamilton, The Water Rat of Wanchai (Toronto: House of Anansi, 2011). Yawn! This has to be one of the most boring “action stories” I’ve ever read. I hate to break it to you, but this story about a forensic accountant is exactly as exciting as it sounds. I get that Ava was conceived as a continuing...
Rating: 4/5 David Wong, John Dies at the End (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2010). David Wong is the pen name of Jason Pargin, senior editor at Cracked.com . If you’ve never visited the site, and you’re OK with a little coarse language, check it out. You will laugh out loud. This book is a fascinating cross between...