Eon - Greg Bear

Tor, 1985, 503 pages

ISBN: 978-0-8125-2047-7

Read: September 2024, age 46

 

Epic in length, but felt dated - certainly a product of the eighties.  It was ambitious, but the execution didn't work for me.  It delved a bit more into theoretical 'geometry' science / magic than I could follow, and the characters weren't much of a selling point to the book.  I'm not unhappy that I read it, but it just wasn't great.

Rating: 3

Uglies - Scott Westerfeld

Simon & Schuster, 2005, 425 pages

ISBN: 978-0-689-86538-1

Read: September 2024, age 46

 

Uglies, book 1

 

This book seemed targeted pretty squarely at Jr. High kids, and I aged out of that a few decades ago.  I found it a bit simplistic, but more fun than I expected.

 

Rating: 3

Living with the Dead - Kelley Armstrong

Orbit, 2008, 440 pages

ISBN: 978-1-84149-396-1

Read: October 2024, age 46

 

Women of the Underworld, book 9 of 13

 

Not a bad thriller.  Robyn is a decent main character, and Hope works better as a secondary character, so this was all right.  The whole paparazzi as evil clairvoyants was a bit of a stretch, but overall a decent story.

 

Rating: 3+

The Magician's Land - Lev Grossman

Plume, 2014, 401 pages

ISBN: 978-0-14-751614-5

Read: November 2024, age 46 

The Magicians, book 3 of 3

Books 2 and 3 really redeemed book one.  I very nearly quit the series after just the first, but I'm really glad that I didn't.  Lots of fun, and also thought provoking.

Rating: 4+

System Collapse - Martha Wells

Tor, 2023, 243 pages

ISBN: 978-1-250-82697-8

Read: September 2024, age 46

The Murderbot Diaries, book 7

The main strengths of this series are the main character, and the tightness of the plotting.  Both unravel a bit in this series - Murderbot starts to hit just one note - frazzled - and the plotting seems like a bit of a loop.  It was still good, but a step down from the rest of the series.

Rating: 4-

The Magician King - Lev Grossman

Plume, 2012, 400 pages

ISBN: 978-0-452-29801-9

Read: October 2024, age 46

 

The Magicians, book 2 of 3 

This was a rare occasion where the second book was much stronger than the first, mainly because the tone of the book veered wildly from depressed to... bemused, maybe?  It was just as well-written, but much more fun.  

 

Rating: 4

Frostbitten - Kelley Armstrong

Random House Canada, 2009, 339 pages

ISBN:978-0-679-31487-5

Read: October 2024, age 46 

Women of the Otherworld, book 10

We're back to the werewolves, and that's kind of nice.  This book was fast, and generally fun.  

 

I'm still waiting for there to be an overarching story of some sort.  Right now, it's pretty much just monster-of-the-week, with some decent character growth, but without any big plan.  We're most of the way through the series now, so I'm not sure if that's going to ever change.

 

Rating: 3+