Tag: Books

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini, Review

~ Veselin ~ 4 Comments

It takes courage to write something like this and even more courage to read it.

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini is a monumental space opera. It’s 1219 pages, printed in small letters, sprawling across planets, ships, battles, and alien diplomacy. The story meanders between strongly engaging, tolerable, and occasionally exhausting, but it never becomes boring.

Despite its weaker scenes, particularly the space battles, I think it’s an excellent novel. It’s very ambitious, brave, and enormous in scale. It’s not the kind of science fiction you see often.

The premise is fantastic. Kira discovers an alien parasite with great superpowers, reminding me of Venom. Their connection starts a series of catastrophic events that only she and the parasite can stop. From there, the novel launches into a difficult to explain interstellar war. Spaceships fly left and right through the void, missiles hit and miss, long battles, strange species. Nothing to win and everything to lose.

There’s plenty of action, though the book is also emotional and a little sentimental.

I liked it, but I may not try reading another 1200-page space opera any time soon. Kira and the parasite are cool. 5/5

This is row 1 of the Nebula series, Paolini’s book is #3 from the left. 12 down, 3 to go.

Mickey7 by Edward Ashton, Book Review

~ Veselin ~ 3 Comments

Mickey is a colonist on the wrong planet. It’s cold and icy, and also inhabited by the metal-eating creepers. His only advantage is that he can be respawned, if the colony considers his respawn worthy the loss of calories. The cold and icy planet doesn’t provide much food sources, so everyone is hungry. Respawning might not be a priority.

Quite a terrible situation for the 7th iteration of Mickey but it gets worse when he survives to only discover that Mickey8 has already been spawned, without him being dead. Having two copies of the same person is considered a mortal sin, punishable by death. The twin Mickies will have to figure it out.

This is supposed to be a distant future space opera, but it felt like a post-apocalyptic thriller in the world of Silo. Either way, it is a fantastic sci-fi. A creative person in a terrible situation. 5/5.

This is also the 12th book from the Nebula series I finish. I might be able to read the whole series, if I only have the bravery to start Children of Ruin.

City of Stairs by Robert Jackson Bennett, Book Review

~ Veselin ~ 1 Comment

I started my review of the last book by comparison to other books. I’ll start this with a quote.

I learned very early on not to speak to my folk from on high, but to get down with them, beside them, showing them how to act rather than telling them. And I suggested that they should do the same with one another: that they didn’t need a book of rules to tell them what to do and what not to do, but experience and action.

Robert Bennett builds not just a fantasy world but a wisdom system for his series. It doesn’t need to be correct, to be appealing.

The gods were killed 80 years ago. With their deaths, most of their miracles vanished as well, including a large number of buildings from the sacred city of Bulikov. Eighty years later, the gods are forbidden. They can’t be mentioned, studied, hinted, their religions practiced, and the leftovers of their miracles cannot be used. People pretend they never existed, or at least most people.

Someone is breaking these rules. A top spy, the mighty Shara, is sent to Bulikov to figure out the conspiracy. Who killed the expert of the divine past, Efrem Pangyui? Why? Why do miracles still exist?

Dense and likable characters, a rich world, and an endlessly long ending, just like The Tainted Cup. Would I have been able to read this book if I hadn’t read The Tainted Cup? Unsure. But it’s a clear 5*/5 and a great fantasy. Ending with a quote as well.

Forgetting… is a beautiful thing. When you forget, you remake yourself… For a caterpillar to become a butterfly, it must forget it was a caterpillar at all. Then it will be as if the caterpillar never was & there was only ever a butterfly.

March in Books

~ Veselin ~ 5 Comments

I read some nice books last month. After a boring February, March brought me some cool thrillers. Not necessarily great but interesting for other reasons.

Best

  • The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett – this was the best read for the month by a wide margin. A beautiful story in a beautiful hardcover print. It inspired me to look for other books by the same author and I’m currently reading City of Stairs. 5/5
  • Exit Strategy by Lee Child and Andrew Child – there was a hint of the former Reacher in this story, which awarded it 4/5. I’m very surprised that this, from all the books, is what I remember as the second best story for the month.
  • The Missing File by D.A. Mishani – an intimate story about a detective from Tel Aviv who will find the path to the truth for a missing person’s report. The storytelling is quite unorthodox, which made me give it a 5/5.
  • The Revenge of the Damned by Chris Bunch and Allan Cole – an interim end of the Sten series. There will be another end later on after the emperor resurrects but I’ll probably skip that one because the story became too grim. I am looking for less stressful reads. 4/5
  • Killman Creek by Rachel Caine – a horror I wouldn’t like to remember. 4.5/5
  • The Edge by Lucy Goacher – “nobody believes me” type of story, right at the bottom of the list but still fine. 4/5

Worst