Ready Player Two - Ernest Cline

Ballantine, 2020, 370 pages

IMDB: 9781524761332

Read: June 2022, age 44

 

Ready Player One, book 2

 

I went into this expecting to hate-read it, because everything I'd heard was that it was very terrible.  I went into the book with more morbid curiosity than an expectation of having a fun read, and... it wasn't completely horrible?  

 

Don't get me wrong - the criticism is all valid.  This was not a good book.  The characters were weak, the writing was just okay, the pacing was a bit jerky, and I really didn't care about the challenges in particular - Prince is someone who I didn't care about back in the day, Tolkien's First Age is a bit beyond me, and I knew some of the movies by whoever that director was, kind of, I guess? 

 

My main worldbuilding complaint is that there was apparently basically no pop culture since the 80s - I don't think that the author is all that creative.  There are certainly more problems as well, but it was all packaged in a way such that I disliked it less than I expected.

 

I bought this at a thrift store for $2.99.  That was about right.  Somebody paid  $35.  Ouch.  That would have been so not worth it.

Rating: 3

The Stand (complete and uncut) - Stephen King

Doubleday, 1990, 1153 pages

Original copyright 1978

ISBN: 0-385-11957-0

 

Read October-November 2021, age 43

Stuff I liked:

• Hmm.  The whole post-apocalyptic setting was all right, but it was wasted - not much in-depth thought put into it, and then it was more about limiting the number of people available for the showdown between good and evil than playing with what would happen after such an apocalypse.
• I've now read a Stephen King book, and can discuss how I found his writing. 
  

Stuff I didn't like:

• The pervasive casual racism, misogyny, and sexual violence.
• The lack of agency by any of the characters (the main characters had some agency from about pages 700 to 900, but then it was all ripped away again) - the entire story was deus ex machina, by design.
• The lack of characters that I cared about at all. (This surprised me - I'd figured that as a mainly horror writer his characters would be a strength, as horror needs audience empathy for the characters to even work.  Instead, I found that I couldn't really tell some of the main characters apart other than their jobs, and the ones that stood out were more caricatures than 'people'.)
  
• The lack of creativity working with the setting. (It was basically all 'rebuild America just as it was', but with fewer doctors and lawyers.)
  

Nothing was particularly terrible, but overall, it just fell flat.  And it fell flat for a really long time. I'm figuring out that when I generally like the setting and the ideas, if the characters don't have agency, then I'm not going to like the book.  In this case, the world falls apart for like, 600 pages - while all the characters start having various dreams depending if they're good or bad, and start to follow the dreams.  Then they get to re-build for a while, (my favourite part of the book) but then get told by the God stand-in what to do, and then go do it.  Bravo, the end.

As far as post-apocalyptic books go, Earth Abides was much more thoughtful, and Dies The Fire was much more fun.  This one, I was just happy to finish so I could read something else.

Rating: 2

Labyrinth - Kate Mosse

Orion, 2006, 694 pages + extras

ISBN: 0-7528-6554-4
Read: April-May, 2018, Age 40

I didn't much like the book.  Besides being overwritten and bloated, about one third of a page pretty much ruined the book for me.  I'll quote it in full after the break - it's rather short, but there are an amazing amount of problems with it.

Exodus - Steve White and Shirley Meier

Baen, 2006, 368 pages
ISBN: 978-1-4165-5561-2
Read March 2018, age 39

This is book 5 of a series of which I'd read the first four years ago, and I didn't particularly like.  In the first four books of the Starfire series the space battles were numerous and really well-done, but there wasn't really enough plot or characterization to hold everything together.

For this book, the main author, David Weber, dropped out and Steve White moved into the main name on the cover, with a new secondary author in Shirley Meier.  The style of book drastically changed, as well - in this one, I found the character arcs much improved, and the work on the villains was quite good, but the space battles weren't near so good.

My biggest gripe is that the authors spend a lot of time gleefully re-visiting characters from the previous books and it felt like I should already love these characters and be excited that they were back.  Instead, what I remembered were cardboard cutouts acting as proxies for the authors' strategies in a thinly-veiled tabletop space wargaming sessions.  I didn't care about the characters, and I found myself mostly irritated by the re-introductions.  I also found myself not knowing enough about the strategies or tactics involved, so the space battles became pretty much just heaps of jargon thrown around until one side or another was declared a victor.

It might have helped to have read the prequels in recent memory, but I'm not completely convinced.

It also didn't help that this was primarily a set-up book, with next to nothing resolved.  I'm told that this will improve by the next book.  I guess we'll see.

Definitely mixed feelings about this book. If it and it's sequel hadn't been recommended,  I probably wouldn't continue.

Rating: 2

Ilium - Dan Simmons

Harper Torch, 2003, 725 pages
ISBN:  978-0-380-81792-4
Read: February though April, 2017, age 39

I spent the whole book unsure of where the author was headed - there are three very disparate plotlines, and I'm still not quite sure exactly where it's going to end up.  There's one more book to straighten it out.

No real spoilers, just a jump.

The Death of the Necromancer - Martha Wells

Avon Fantasy, copyright 1998, 513 pages
ISBN: 0-380-78814-4
Read: May 2017, age 39, read for the third time

I picked this one up again because I'd just read the sequel trilogy The Fall of Ile-Rien.  I didn't expect that series to follow so closely on the heels of this book, and I wanted a refresher to see what I'd missed.  And because this book is really a lot of fun.  There's no need for a sequel - it ends on its own - but I'd suggest reading this one before the other three - it is a direct sequel.

No spoilers, just a jump break.

Rules of Engagement - Elizabeth Moon

Baen, 1998, 497 pages
ISBN: 0-671-57841-3

Read February 2016, age 37


Familias Regnant, book 5 of 7

I didn't much like this book - the pace was still good, and it was well-written, but I just didn't like to even think about the bad guys.  They took backwoods American Christianity to ISIS levels of radical:  women weren't to talk, were kept barefoot and wearing ankle-length pencil skirts.  All they could do was 'women's work' (weaving, sewing, and cooking) and it was abhorrent to me.  I just didn't want to get into that head space.  I did keep on it, though because, of course, these guys would get their comeuppance. And they did, but when they did, they got treated the same way as they had treated their women, and then got killed, off screen, I imagine.

It was horrible when people who at least thought that they were doing things the right way were doing terrible things, but it was worse when people who ostensibly knew better did horrible things anyway.  There was a missed opportunity - teach 'em better, sponsor rebellion, something better than cutting out voice boxes and then executing them.

Beyond the major plot, I didn't buy either the romance sub-plot (which was a major driving force through the book, though it mostly felt like the narrator had to keep reminding us that it was there, because there was no other way to tell),  or the 'disgraced' sub-plot and we fell into the 'say a few words and this all goes away' stupidity that can plague otherwise decent characters.

For the disgraced subplot, I didn't have enough familiarity with the culture to realize that chewing out a classmate, even one of a 'noble family' could have career-ending consequences.  The only people who seemed to take it seriously were the superior officers.  The whole book seemed a strain.

Even the fight scenes were lacking, since for some reason the bad guys were using super old tech, and there was basically no risk, other than by fiat.

The pacing was good, though.  So was the wordsmithing.  The rest was unusual for this series, and I hope it's just a one-off.

Rating: 2

Shades of Milk and Honey - Mary Robinette Kowal

Tor, 2010, 320 pages
ISBN: 978-0-7653-2560-0
Read: July 2015, aged 37 years

Book one of The Glamorist Histories, a series of five books.

From the back cover:

Shades of Milk and Honey is an intimate portrait of Jane Ellsworth, a woman ahead of her time in a world where the manipulation of glamour is considered an essential skill for a lady of quality.  But despite the prevalence of magic in everyday life, other aspects of Dorchester's society are not that different:  The lives of Jane and her sister Melody still revolve around vying for the attentions of eligible men.

Jane resists this fate, and rightly so:  While her skill with glamour is remarkable, it is her sister who is fair of face and therefore wins the lion's share of the attention.  At the ripe old age of twenty-eight, Jane has resigned herself to being invisible forever.  But when her family's honor is threatened, she finds that she must push her skills to the limit in order to set things right - and in the process, accidentally wanders into a love story of her own.

My reactions after the break, with possibly a few spoilers.

Silverlock - John Myers Myers

Ace, printed 1985, copyright 1949, 516 rather large-print pages, including four separate essays reporting how good the book is.
ISBN:0-441-76674-9
Read June 2015, Age 37

This book was quite a lot of fun, but the sheer density of literary allusions was quite overwhelming.  I read the book, stopping here occasionally see what I missed.  I've read a few books, but much of what I've read was written post-1949.  As such, there was just quite a lot that I missed.  Despite that, it was a pretty good story, with some pretty decent character development, and a lot of fun tacked on top.

A note on the essays.  I tend to dislike these things, as I prefer to know my own mind before reading someone else's take on a subject - then I'm not disappointed by having my expectations raised too high.  I read them last, and that seemed to be a pretty decent way to do it.

Rating: 4

If I'd been better read in some of the older fiction and history, I'd expect that it'd be closer to a 5.  I also expect that it'll improve with re-reading. I'll have to do that in a few years.

A very incomplete list of allusions, just off the top of my head and in no particular order:

Various Norse mythology
The Odyssey
Various Irish history and mythology
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Alice in Wonderland
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Robinson Crusoe
Sumerian Mythology
Beowulf
Don Quixote
Tom Jones
Much Ado About Nothing (I think)
Robin Hood
Doctor Faustus
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Various American history
The Divine Comedy
Various Greek mythology
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
Various geography
Crime and Punishment
Anna Karenina
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
The Scarlet Letter

And dammit, there's a quote in here somewhere that I didn't flag that perfectly encapsulates how I felt about the book.   "Something something darned good yarn something something better if I knew the players something".

....half an hour later... here it is!  "It was easy to appreciate, but I would have had more chuckles out of it if I had known, as others did, about the personages involved."

Tiassa - Steven Brust

Tor, copyright 2011, 335 pages

ISBN 978-0-7653-3306-3

Edited by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Read April 2015 (age 35)

This is book #13 by publication order of the Vlad Taltos series of novels.  It jumps around a bit - some current storyline, some ancient history. It should go without saying, but don't start here.

From the back cover:

Once, Vlad Taltos knew his trade:  he killed people for a living.  That skill got him his foothold in House Jhereg, running the rackets for a chunk of urban Adrilankha.  Later, things happened that left Vlad a changed man, on the run from the Jhereg and frequently involved in the affairs of Dragonlords, Empresses, and even Jenoine.  Far more involved than the average human.

Meanwhile, in the very distant past, one of the gods fashioned an artifact - a silver figurine of a tiassa, a winged pantherlike animal.  To Devera the Wanderer, it's a pretty toy to play with.  To Vlad, it's a handy prop for a con he's running.  To the Empire, it's a tool to be used against the Jenoine.  And to the Jhereg, it's a trap to kill Vlad.

As it happens, however, the silver tiassa has its own agenda.

Reactions, and probably some spoilers, after the break:

Iorich - Steven Brust

Tor, copyright 2009, 300 pages

ISBN 978-0-7653-2889-2

Edited by Teresa Nielsen Hayden

January 2015 (age 36)

This is book #12 by publication order of the Vlad Taltos series of novels.  It continues the plot along the main "present-day" storyline.

From the back cover:

House Jhereg, Dragaera's organized crime syndicate, is hunting Vlad Taltos.  There's a big price on his head in Dragera City.  Then he hears disturbing news.  Aleira - longtime friend, sometime ally - has been arrested by the Empire on a charge of practicing elder sorcery, a capital crime.

It doesn't make sense.  Everybody know Aliera's been dabbling in elder sorcery for ages.  Why is the Empire down on her now?  Why aren't her powerful friends - Morrolan, Sethra, the Empress Zerika - coming to her rescue?  And most to the point, why has she utterly refused to do anything about her own defense?

It would be idiotic of Vlad to jump into this situation.  He's a former Jhereg who betrayed the House.  He's an Easterner - small, weak, short lived.  He's being searched for by the most remorseless killers in the world.  Naturally, that exactly why he's going to get completely involved.

Reactions, and probably some spoilers, after the break:

Dragon Wing - Margaret Weis & Tracy Hickman

Bantam Spectra, copyright 1990, 430 pages

ISBN 0-555-28693-0

Read December 2014 (age 36)

First time read

What to expect:

Book one of a seven book cycle, it's a high fantasy with a steep learning curve.

From the back cover:

Ages ago, sorcerers of unmatched power sundered a world into four realms - sky, stone, fire and water - then vanished.  Over time, magicians learned to work spells only in their own realms, and forgot the others.  Now only the few who have survived the Labyrinth and crossed the Death Gate know of the presence of all four realms - and even they have yet to unravel the mysteries of their severed world...

In Arianus, Realm of Sky, humans, elves and dwarves battle for control of precious water - traversing a world of airborne islands on currents of elven magic and the backs of mammoth dragons.  But soon great magical forces will begin to rend the fabric of this delicate land.  An assassin will be hired to kill a royal prince - by the king himself.  A dwarf will challenge the beliefs of his people - and lead them in rebellion.  And a sinister wizard will enact his plan to rule Arianus - a plan that may be felt far beyond the Realm of Sky and into the Death Gate itself.

My reactions after the jump.

Claws that Catch - John Ringo & Travis S. Taylor

Baen, 2008, 463 pages
ISBN: 978-1-4391-3133-2
Read: January 2015, age 36

Book 4 of Looking Glass.  The last one, it seems.  The series does not end here, but the published books do.

In which our heroes get promoted beyond their capabilities.

From the back cover:

It's a rough galaxy out there!  Humans have come a long way since the looking glass gates first apperared and an alien menace turned a motley crew of scientists, sailors, and force recon Marines into battle-hardened space adventurers.  Now with other species running scared, it's up to humans to take the lead and mold a weapon capable of checking the Dreen - a galactic cancer that has so far proved unstoppable.

After an "interesting" couple of shakedown cruises, the Vorpal Blade II is dispatched to investigate rumors of an ancient and powerful civilization.  Any remnant technology would be nice but what the Blade finds is much more than they bargained for.  Worse, the ship is infested by an alien species of scorpion-like arachnoids that has the potential to wipe out a world.

Leave it to the oddball geniuses of the Blade to sort it all out.  And the Dreen are not going to like the answers.

Reactions after the break.  There are probably spoilers.

Manxome Foe - John Ringo & Travis S. Taylor

Baen, 2008, 463 pages
ISBN: 978-1-4165-9162-8
Read: January 2015, age 36

Book 3 of Looking Glass

In which the only US space ship gets put through its paces.

From the back cover:

In the midst of recovering from their successful if casualty-prone first mission, the crew of teh Alliance Space Ship Vorpal Blade are suddenly scrambled back into action.  All other priorities take second place as word arrives on Earth of a gate colony which has fallen to an unidentified alien assault.  As the only space ship available to the Human-Adar Alliance, the Vorpal Blade's new mission is to find out what happened to the colony, rescue any survivors, and learn the identity of the attackers - without breaking the ship.

The odd-ball crew of the Vorpal Blade is an unlikely savior, but none dare say they quail at engaging the Manxome Foe.


Reactions after the break.  There are probably spoilers.

Vorpal Blade - John Ringo & Travis S. Taylor

Baen, 2007, 528 pages
ISBN: 978-1-4165-5586-5
Read: December 2015, age 36

Book 2 of Looking Glass

In which the Ringo superman protagonist steps into the background a bit as a converted submarine gets to play USS Enterprise.  With space marines.

From the back cover:

William Weaver, Ph.D., and Chief Miller, SEAL, are back - and they got themselves a ship!  The former USSN Nebrasksa has been jerry-rigged, using alien technology and good ol' American know-how, into a warp ship ready to visit strange new worlds.  But as everyone knows, the people who really are going to bear the brunt of the "exploratory" mission are the poor Security guys, Force Recon Marines, who are, according to their own lore, "kept in the the dark and fed manure all day."  That is, until the Vorpal Blade lands on an alien planet - Security will get partially wiped out and then load back up again, to protect the scientists and crew another day, another world.


Reactions after the break.  There are probably spoilers.

Into the Looking Glass - John Ringo

Baen, 2005, 366 pages
ISBN: 978-1-4165-2105-1
Read: November 2014

Book 1 of Looking Glass

In which the Ringo superman protagonist fights off an invasion by the Zerg... er... Dreen, with help from the advanced, religious Protoss... er... Adar.

From the back cover:

When a 60 kiloton explosion destroys the University of Central Florida, terrorism is the first suspect.  But terrorists don't generally leave doorways to another world in their wake.

With time of the essence, the Secretary of Defense scrounges up the nearest physicist with a high level security clearance.  With doctorates in everything from nuclear physics to electrical engineering, William Weaver, PhD, is the egghead's egghead.  On the other hand, with skills in everything from mountain biking to screaming electric guitar, he's also fast enough and tough enough to survive when the alien gates start disgorging "demons."

As a snap decision, he appears to be the perfect choice: smart, tough, and capable.  Now if he could only get his boss off his back and get his cellphone bill paid.  Oh, yeah, and figure out why the heck these gates keep opening.

As the gates spread and evil aliens spread with them, it is up to Weaver and SEAL Command Master Chief Miller to find a way to stop the proliferation and close the hostile gates.  The problem being that the only way they can see to save the Earth is destroy it.  Then there's not going to be any more girlfriends or cellphones or bosses...

Okay, two out of those three are bad.  Gotta prioritize.  Guess Weaver and Miller are just gonna have to save the world.

Kind of misleading back cover copy, but gets the tone all right.

Reactions after the break.  There are probably spoilers.

The Last Unicorn - Peter S. Beagle

Ballentine Books, Copyright 1968, 248 pages

ISBN 345-22892-8-125

Read November 2014, at age 36

First time read

What it is:

This is a short, stand-alone fairy tale.  It’s completely ageless.

From the back cover:

Well, there’s a picture of a harpy in a cage and a snake in a tree on the back.  There’s a unicorn on the front, and there are no words.  And this is a first printing.  The book is a classic, so it was apparently sufficient to sell the book.

Reactions after the break:

Anansi Boys - Neil Gaiman

Harper Torch, 2005, 387 pages

ISBN: 978-0-06-051591-5

Read: November 2014, age 36

If you haven’t read it:

Anansi Boys is a standalone, recent past (no cell phones) urban fantasy starring African gods.

From the back cover:

Fat Charlie Nancy’s normal life ended the moment his father dropped dead on a Florida karaoke stage. Charlie didn't know his dad was a god. And he never knew he had a brother.

Now brother Spider’s on his doorstep – about to make Fat Charlie’s life more interesting… and a lot more dangerous.

My (very brief)  Reactions (no spoilers):

Mars – Ben Bova

Tor, copyright 2004, 470 pages

Read: November 2014 (at age 36)

First time read

What this book is:

This is one of many of Bova’s books based on the solar system (his “Grand Tour”), which do follow each other, but can mostly be read out of order without too much being lost.  This one’s followed by Return to Mars, and then eventually by Mars Life but it’s not necessary to continue.  This book ends just fine.

So far in this series, I've read Venus, Jupiter, and Mercury, Saturn, and Titan.  There's significant variety in the quality of these.  Generally, I've preferred the earlier books.

My comments:  (spoilers ahoy!)

Dragon - Clive Cussler (Audiobook)

Books on Tape, 1990.  Original copyright 1990
Read by Michael Pritchard
Listened to:  April 2014

Description (from Amazon)

Japan, 1945: Two US bombers take off with atomic bombs. Only one gets through.

The Pacific, 1993: A Japanese cargo ship bound for the United States is instantly, thunderously vaporized, taking with it a Norwegian vessel. Japanese fanatics have developed a chilling plan to devastate and destroy the Western powers. From the ocean depths to the discovery of cache of lost Nazi loot, Dirk Pitt is untangling a savage conspiracy and igniting a daring counterattack. While Washington bureaucrats scramble, a brutal industrialist commands his blackmail scheme from a secret island control center. And Dirk, the dauntless hero of Sahara and Inca Gold, is taking on death-dealing robots and a human-hunting descendant of samurai warriors. Pitt alone controls the West’s secret ace in the hole: a tidal wave of destruction waiting to be triggered on the ocean floor!

Brief reactions (and a spoiler or two) after the break: