blairconrad's Reviews (1.12k)

Not a bad set of interviews with language creators. As you might expect with a collection of this sort, some interviews were better than others. And YMMV, depending on your tastes and familiarity with the various languages. Nearly no code was included, so it's accessible to any programmer type, even if they don't know all of the languages (although I found that my attention wandered for most of the interviews with creators whose languages I didn't know).

It was pretty okay. Fairly interesting ideas around the nanotech and the role of faith in society. Also, we started with some rather nice prose, but I don't recall being struck by anything further on.
I think the story was marred by having 6 characters, some of whom left me completely flat. I didn't skip over any of the subplots, but found myself eagerly waiting to get back to the "good ones". It just didn't seem like enough of a benefit to justify the effort required to track everyone...

As usual, Brooks has a beautiful way with words, giving us sentences that please our minds' ears and help to immerse us in the book's setting. She brings us a sympathetic narrator, whose interactions with those around us, especially Caleb, are very interesting. I enjoyed learning how women (and native Americans) were viewed in 17th century North America.

If I had to pinpoint a problem I had with the book, it was how certain momentous events were trivialized, often by foreshadowing. For example, one character`s death is foreshadowed almost from the time the reader picks up the book, but once it occurs, it springs from nowhere and is dealt with in perhaps a sentence of two. If an event is known in advance, all that`s left to give the reader is a novel or beautiful way of relating the event, and this was not done here.

Still, a largely engaging story, and most pages were a delight. I'll keep looking for more Brooks.

Somewhat cute, but I didn't identify that strongly with the protagonist, and the motivations of the other characters weren't that clear to me. I wouldn't avoid the series in the future, but I'm not going to put it on a watch list or anything.

I’d first read Ender’s Game oh, I don’t know, a long time ago. Years and years. I’d never gone further in the series, but I’d always remembered the first novel fondly. I recently decided to recheck it out and see how my memories compared.
I’d probably slightly idealized the book, but not a lot. The opening hooked me immediately – the mystery was just enough to whet my appetite and get me curious.
As the book continued, I was drawn in by the way Card wrote the interactions between the characters, and what he showed of Ender’s thoughts (and Valentine’s) – I liked the way he showed the gifted children as being qualitative different from the way children are usually presented. I can’t say for sure that it’s entirely accurate, but it had the right flavour, and was well done.
The story kept me hooked, and I was sucking the pages down as fast as I could. The nuts and bolts of the battles interested me less than they had when I first read the book, but I was more taken by Ender’s personal challenge.
One downside to the reread is that there’s a kind of big surprise near the end of the book, and on rereading the book, that punch was lost. On the other hand, knowing it was coming did allow me to appreciate other facets of the story.
In the end, I’d read a well-told adventure story about a very special child – one that brought me into his heart and mind, really tweaking my empathy.
Highly recommended, even if you’re not usually a Science Fiction buff.

I was warned that the beginning of the book wasn’t that interesting, but that I should tough it out and it’d get better. Truth be told, I had no complaints about the beginning. I enjoyed Hosseini’s style from the beginning, so the book was a pleasure to read. As arulba mentioned earlier, some horrific things happen to people, and the story’s pattern isn’t incredibly original (in particular, the “big surprise” shouldn’t be a surprise to any of the readers), but the characters were multi-faceted, we were able to learn a little about Afghanistan and its culture, and the whole package was presented well.

A bit of a letdown. I'd heard Moore on an episode of Authors on Tour, and thought he was just about the funniest thing ever. I figured his books would be the same. This one started extremely slowly, and never quite hit the rhythm that I was going for, although there were definitely some amusing passages, especially once the shop employees were developed.
So, not a huge winner, but I'm not completely turned off.

For decades, I'd had an idea about this book, completely based on the title. I wasn't close.

It's definitely spare, wasting little time not exploring the concepts that Le Guin wanted to, even though it dragged (I thought) just a little during the Long Trek, but still very good.
A fascinating premise, which (as the best SF does) allows us to turn the lens on ourselves, examining what it means to be us - to be either One or the Other (as well as the more obvious male/female schism).
It's clear why this is a classic - add it to your list.