A very good read, one that touches sensible subjects with intelligence and creativity.

The plot is fairly simple but addresses something not talked enough about in fantasy books: violence towards women. Kingfisher shows very efficiently how insidious and powerful it is, and how women get stuck in impossible situations. She shows it through kings, princesses and magic, but it applies to any situation. She just chose to show it in a way that would make a nice story, successfully so.

The characters are very relatable and well defined. There aren’t too many of them and they all serve a clear purpose. The book is short and the world building effortless, a blessing compared to some other fantasy works.

Despite the severity of the main plot, the book is quite lighthearted and very readable. It is also funny and clever.

Its only downside is that the world itself is not that interesting. The kingdoms and magical elements are not very important and well defined. I understand that it’s not the purpose of the novel, and it doesn’t make the reading experience bad in any way, but it explains why I stopped at four stars out of five.

Overall an excellent work, one that I enjoyed reading and that I would easily recommend.

A truly excellent read. It is better paced, structured, and executed than the previous entry in the series. David Brin writes a compelling tale with great skill, one that touches many important themes.

From warfare to colonization, from biology to space exploration, from relationships to geopolitics, all these mesh together in a truly engrossing story that I had a lot of fun reading through. All these echo real life situations, as do the best science fiction novels.

All the characters are very well developed, and serve their purpose admirably. Brin even manages to insert a fair dose of humour to make the whole thing easier to digest without ever becoming silly, which is quite a feat.

All in all, I highly recommend this book and I am looking forward to reading the second trilogy.

A very compelling read. Mad Max meets Godzilla with a deep emotional message within the plot.

The story is too bonkers to sum up and really serves to talk about the themes of the book: perseverance, hope, friendship and love. Behind the metal and action mask lies a profound message that resonates on multiple fronts.

A nice discovery (thanks to the great guys at Z Bookstore in Montreal). An action-packed graphic novel that will stay with me for quite some time, that’s rare!

What a lovely read, Gaiman is such a great writer. His characters are always beautifully depicted, his stories flow effortlessly and his ideas are bonkers. I just love his work.

Although aimed at a young public, this book is compelling, elegantly written and fun to read. The story is appealing, the characters relatable and Gaiman’s prose is as good as ever. I just couldn’t put it down, I always wanted to know what was coming next!

The novel oscillates between tender moments for the young protagonist Bod and more somber events, all perfectly balanced. I was touched by the characters and the story, but I was also entertained and curious because of the plot.

It’s the kind of story you can read to children by the fire, but also the kind that you read as an adult to reflect on childhood, family and friends. Gaiman’s masterful writing makes all these themes potent in his novel, without ever becoming cumbersome or boring. 

I really enjoyed that one and I think it’ll stay with me for quite some time. 

The premise is quite classic: big dumb object shows up, havoc ensues, how will humanity manage? Dun, dun, duuuun.

Ok, been there, done that, but the story has some scope and interesting elements, at least on the surface. Sadly, the execution is very disappointing.

Leiber choses to have multiple viewpoints for the same storyline, which is ok but he bounces around too much and we lose track and interest somewhat for the main characters.

The prose is alright, nothing fancy but very readable and clear. It’s also pretty bland, which I don’t honestly mind that much if the story or characters captivate me. Here.. I was interested, but never truly captivated. 

After a little over a hundred pages I started to find the book quite repetitive and a bit tedious. But the story made it look like there’ll be a big jump, another big event that would elevate the novel to another level or add a layer of complexity that would make it exciting.

But it never really came about. Some parts are fine, others plain boring and useless. It just makes for a disjointed whole that was slow and not that interesting. Overall, a very underwhelming read. It has some nice ideas and moments, but as a novel, it is bloated and really not that good. Not utterly terrible I’d say.. but not far from it. If I didn’t want to read all the Hugo award winning novels, I’d have DNFed it, and I very rarely do that.

There is also some weird sex in there.. I’m not shocked or anything (remember, I’m French), but I thought it was strange and served no purpose at all except to satisfy some urge. I guess old Fritz needed to get some action and couldn’t… oh well.

Also, I’ve read books written by Leiber in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s and his sexism and racism haven’t evolved nor improved over those decades. This guy was retrograde even by those days’ standards, really rough. To him, women are irrational and chaotic (although I will say that Margo has some nice moments in this novel) and black people are savages who smoke

weed all day, and only white males can figure things out and actually do something coherent. Brutal… I understand that these feelings were sadly common at the time, but he could have avoided rubbing our noses in them that much. 

Definitely an interesting story, well plotted and written, but with some caveats.

The first one is that parts of it didn’t age well. The sexism and racial slurs are the main culprit here, although they are quite mellow for the time period. They never feel aggressive or vindictive, it’s just the way white male perceived life back in the 1940’s and one has to acknowledge that, even if it’s not pleasant.

That aside, Leiber provides a good story with multiple layers, acted out in an original way, with clever and capable prose to guide us. I enjoyed reading this book, I found it was a decent page turner, with good pacing and twists. The horror elements are pretty tame but effective.

C’est la première fois que je lis Valérian. J’ai beaucoup aimé. Le graphisme est excellent, un bon mix entre BD classique et réalisme, et les histoires sont divertissantes avec une profondeur s’accroît au fil des albums.

Je savais que Lucas avait beaucoup « emprunté » à Valerian pour Star Wars.. mais pas à ce point là. J’ai repéré beaucoup d’éléments calqués, tant au niveau visuel que narratif. Pas gêné le George ! 

Bref, une belle bd de science-fiction et j’ai hâte de lire la suite.

A great read for anyone interested in Napoleon. The author really digs in a lesser known aspect of his life and does it with gusto. It’s well researched, easy to read and very informative.