These two books have the same name. Goodreads says the big one contains the small one and the small one is supposed to be volume 1. The beginning of Omnibus looked familiar (I just started reading it). However, the illustrations are not the same as before. The style is different, the table of contents is different, and it just doesn’t look like the same book at all. Looks like a rewrite rather than a combined edition. I’ll post an update once I read the new edition and get a better sense of what’s going on.
I liked the style of the previous one, it was very Dune-like. Hope the new one is also good. My first impression of the Omnibus is that it is heavy, I wish it was an e-book.
I love reading books. Writing reviews on Goodreads makes me feel accomplished and helps me remember what I’ve read. Before Goodreads, I often forgot which books I owned and ended up buying them or even reading them again.
Most of my ratings are 4s and 5s. Some are 3s. Almost no ratings are 2s and 1s. One would expect a more normal distribution of ratings but I have a filtering system, and then a rating system, and they work well.
Filtering
I would not buy or start a book if it’s under 3.7 unless I knew the writer, 4+ would be preferred
I would not complete a book if it’s bad
I would not write a review if I didn’t complete it
This leaves most of the 1s and 2s books out.
Rating
For a book to be 5, it has to be a truly enjoyable piece. It can be educational, profound, fun, page-turner, interesting – one or two of these would be enough for a 5 by me. I tend to give 5s to most books thanks to the previous 3 rules. My Goodreads profile is full of 5s.
4s are good books with serious flaws, often parts of a series or by writers who like to read. Here’s one that’s far too long for the events and could use editing but is otherwise okay, and is by a great writer:
3s are books that looked like 4s but weren’t. Given that I normally drop bad books, it can’t be that bad because I completed it. Here’s a recent 3, for the very poor taste it leaves. Another blogger explains what’s wrong with it.
For a book to get a 1 or a 2, it has to trick me that it’s better and punch me with a terrible ending that makes no sense. Here’s a flagged one for propaganda:
If you have a ranking system, I would appreciate a link to the blog post where it’s described or a comment here. Thanks!
Stephanie Plum is a young 30-ish old woman with no job and no future. She starts working as a headhunter and hunts for dangerous criminals who skipped bond, primarily relatives and beloved members of the community. She seems to be good at that. Dead bodies are flying everywhere for no clear reason.
There’s a saying that once a writer breaks through with a story, they’re expected to write the same story over and over until they die from old age. I sense a mild risk that Janet Evanovich does that. Book 2 is too close to Book 1 to deserve a separate review. It’s still enjoyable because Stephanie Plum is an enjoyable character and some of the supporting cast are also quite nice but it’s about hunting a guy named Kennie, and that summarizes it.
The names of each book in the series follow a naming convention of a number followed by some clickbait. Two Dough. Three Deadly. Four Whatever. Of course, Deadly is more interesting than Dough and without it, there would be no new post on the series. Ranked both with Five but objectively, Two is Four.
The villain in Three is Uncle Mo. Everyone loves Uncle Mo and will absolutely not assist the evil headhunter who tries to capture him. Uncle Mo is also the first male character that’s built with care. Why does everyone like Mo? Is he a fraud? I guess we’ll find out 🙂
5pm on a warm Sunday. I’m about to visit a book signing for a genre of books that almost ceased to exist in the late 90s. It’s in Lozenets, an expensive neighborhood located on a hill, in what looks like a residential building. There are no signs. I’m looking left and right. Am I at the right place? I see a door open and decide to get in. 10-15 meters after, there is another door that appears to be locked and a staircase leading downstairs to the right. I see bookshelves everywhere seemingly unattended. Perhaps I’m at the right place. Shall I keep going down to page 17? Or perhaps I should force the door (page 27)? In case I carry a little angry dog in my backpack, turn to 7.
This is the wiring style of gamebooks, and the new one is a 2nd edition of a rare book published in the 90s by Lubomir Nikolov, most copies of which have been lost or thrown away.
I kept walking down and found a large room, perhaps a bar, full of folks about my age. Why would anyone build such a large room 2-3 floors under a residential building?
I entered, got my book with an autograph, chatted with people, and it was fine.
The first game book published in Bulgaria was by the same author Lubomir Nikolov – Fire Desert. It started a genre and a community that inspired me to write and later to code. I’m not a very active member of this community but I buy the new books to support it and read some of them. If you want to try that but don’t speak Bulgarian, try Blood Sword.
I like thrillers where a strong detective or military or whatever solves mysteries, catches murderers, and restores the balance of the force. Last week, I found the series about Stephanie Plum. She’s a headhunter, a field dominated by men on both sides. She fights with persistence, brains, and a bag full of stuff. Her first big target is an ex, and the chemistry is not gone just yet, to make things messier.
It is so refreshing to read about a strong female main character who is not superhuman. Silvia Azdreeva was one, and before her book, I read the main books from the Livia Lone series. Livia Lone was also fine but it felt like reading about Dexter Morgan with a female name. Stephanie Plum is far more interesting and fresh. No secret superpowers! I’d give a +1 star bonus on Goodreads just for that. She could happen with some imagination, perhaps more so than Silvia. All she needs to do is capture a bunch of criminals and send them to court without flying, laser eyes, or talking to the stars. How hard can that be?
Veselin.blog 