Fun, entertaining, excellently paced with intriguing characters and a hell of a plot. The world, while reasonably well constructed, did occasionally seem a bit more like window dressing than fully realized. But the plot, the unpulled gut punches and the sheer exuberance of the book more than made for that.
Will definitely be hunting down the sequels.

Even better than the first! This book seemed to get going faster and was a bit more tightly woven than the first. And, of course, Drakasha as a character as wonderful. I'm really enjoying this series.

Well, let's see: I refused to go to sleep until I finished the book, I nearly scared the dog by yelling at the characters, I got really excited when everything happened and I wanted to start singing Les Miz in the middle.
Probably means this was a good book, right? It was certainly everything I hoped for after reading the first one. The two books are very clearly part of an ongoing story, rather than a series where the same thing happens more or less each time in every book. And now I have to wait a-whole-nother year for the third. Woe is me.
Anyway, Wexler writes excellent flintlock fantasy. For me, it's as if ASOIAF and the Vorkosigan Saga had a baby and that baby inherited the secondary world, multiple viewpoints and some of the good/bad confusion from GRRM, but managed to get its writing style, memorable characters and sheer awesomeness from Bujold.
Yep, I'm really enjoying this approach to epic fantasy. Vive la Vordan!

This book, while good, was closer to the third than the second in terms of how much I liked it. It's nice that Lynch is not using the same background for the same plot in all his books, but, well, there was no Zamira in this book and that made me sad.
And I found the whole Bondsmagi thing to be a bit...weird/contrived/not as interesting.
Granted, I would stick around for Locke and Jean being Gentlemen Bastards, which remains the high point of the book.
And then there's Sabetha.

I have many feelings about her, not only because she's such a fascinating character, but because I found myself disliking her at first for refusing Locke...basically, for refusing to allow herself to become the male character's reward and to lose her self and sense of self to him. And then I was really annoyed at myself that I have this unconscious bias. So finally getting her perspective helped and everything she says is right. So I came around to that and serious kudos to Lynch for writing a woman who is willing to put her self and career before the needs of a man. And, honestly, another set of kudos for letting Locke let her go like a decent man rather than pitching a fit that he put in niceness coins and sex failed to be dispensed.

So while I enjoyed the book and will keep up with the series, I find myself in the oddest position of liking the middle book the best.

Every time another book in this series comes out, I completely fail to notice its release until it suddenly appears on the NEW Fiction shelf, at which point I snap it up immediately and wonder why I wasn't paying closer attention.
And then I read the book and remember that, while the two authors should manage to create something incredible, what they usually manage is a fascinating but forgettable puzzle-box. The science-fictional idea that drives the story is still really cool, but the people get less and less interesting as the series goes on. It is, as I've been reminded, very much worth reading, but not worth expending the energy of actively looking forward to it.
Wow, that sounds like I hated it. I didn't; it was perfectly fine and I'm glad I read it. I just want it to be spectacular. Is that so much to ask?

There should be an option for 2.5 stars - I kinda liked it, but not really. I read this book for a graduate seminar (no, really), as techno-thriller is not my usual genre.
I mean, what can I say - the book would have been better if the author hadn't died in the middle (this is often the case). The pseudoscience was bad even by thriller standards, the characters were merely stereotypes and the action, while constant, was also rather repetitive.
That being said, the bugs were awesome.
So while I didn't hate "Honey I shrunk the Grad students", I was not impressed. Crichton has done much better in the past and this book needed work and polishing to bring it up to his usual standard.
Except, of course, he's dead. Minor detail.

What can I say, I love the intersection of the brain and the machine. Christian does a great job telling the story of his search, making this not a book about a topic, but an adventure in being a person.
He definitely practices what he preaches.

This was delightful, where has Scott been all my life?

I seem to be reading a number of odd books. Eva is one of those odd books, the kind that I'm not sure whether I like until I'm finished.
At any rate, Dickinson is a deft author and does a brilliant job with Eva's story, something which I was rather skeptical about at first, since it is a rare author who can write animal thoughts without making the animals too stupid or completely anthropomorphizing them. But Dickinson walks this fine line with finesse and I applaud his skills.
My one complaint is the end - he sets up some brilliant ideas and then just leaves them for the chimps. And while I can't fault him for avoiding some very tricky concepts, I'm disappointed that he does not address those philosophical ideas in any detail.
Still, I'm glad I read it and it is one of the more thoughtful books I have read, YA or adult, in a long while.