octavia_cade's Reviews (2.64k)

An interesting and sympathetic biography of Alan Turing. If I have a criticism it's that - as happens so often with science biographers - there's a temptation for the author to focus more on the results than the man. Leavitt's portrayal of Turing's personality makes for fascinating reading. His determination to slog through the ins and outs of the various maths is, while necessary, perhaps a bit unbalanced in places (and I like maths). Though I do make this complaint with a pinch of salt, as I must admit this book has one of the clearest explanations of the science behind Turing's universal machine that I've read... but the explanation just goes on and on, while I'm wanting to get back to the person behind it.

A recently rediscovered - if incomplete - text, about a man waking in the future to a utopian, telepathic society and then traveling to Venus, in the hope of colonising that planet. The writing style is naturally dated, but there are some interesting elements here, primarily the science of the space voyage. Some of it is incorrect, of course (the story was originally published in 1881, before the idea of a habitable Venusian environment was scuppered in its entirety) but, as the introduction lays out, some of the scientific details were exceptionally ahead of their time.

It ends on a cliffhanger, as the third part of the tale remains lost. The story itself doesn't grab me greatly, but I do find it interesting as a historical artefact, and the lengthy, informative introduction is excellent.

A mixed bag, as is often the case with anthologies. It includes the dullest, most pretentious story I've read for quite some time ("The Last Man Left in the Bar" by Kornbluth) but there is one story that stands head and shoulders above the rest. "Omnilingual" by H. Beam Piper describes the attempts of an archaeologist to translate, against all odds, the long-dead language of extinct Martians. It's really very good.

This book may have the finest cover I've seen for quite some time. It quite outshines the contents.

To be fair, there's nothing particularly wrong with the book. It's pleasant enough, a perfectly competent retelling - but competence is pretty much the sum of it. I've always been a big fan of Norse myth, and Loki is one of the most fascinating characters in that pantheon, so I was hoping for a bit more... but competence aside, I found Harris' retelling, well, superficial is I suppose the nearest word.

And the language... with such a cynical take on the story, I understand that the beautiful words so often associated with myth would be replaced by something a little more down-to-earth, but I have vague memories of Harris using lovely, sensuous language in "Chocolat" so I was hoping for a bit more of the same - and didn't get it.

Average.

Pratchett is one of my all-time favourite authors. That said, he admits quite frankly in this collection that he finds writing short stories difficult, and I think it's fair to say that this shows in the results. They're a pretty average bunch, and this collection probably earns about three stars overall. That being said, there is one longer story in here, "The Sea and Little Fishes", which rises above the rest and is truly excellent. A Blink of the Screen is worth a look solely on the basis of this story; read it for that alone, if not for the forgettable remainder.

Translations of three (mediaeval English) poems. I enjoyed "Sir Orfeo"; was a little less enthused about "Gawain" but got into it eventually. The real revelation of this collection for me, however, was "Pearl". I'd heard of it before, and it's the one I expected to like the least. It's an incredibly religious poem, and I am incredibly not-religious, but subject matter aside there are passages of such beauty in it that I've gone back to this poem several times over the past few days, just to read them again. ('O Pearl!' said I, 'in pearls arrayed, / Are you my pearl whose loss I mourn?')

Writing 100 books is a monumental achievement, especially given the range of genre and subject that Asimov tackled. Opus, his hundredth book, is however an exercise in self-indulgence. It's basically bits taken from a number of those books, cobbled together with anecdote for the purpose of pushing out another volume. This is one case where, I think, the individual pieces are often greater than the sum of the parts.

Bitter and imaginative and full of fantastic imagery. It's one of those poetry collections I connect to on an intellectual rather than an emotional level, however. The sense of dislocation is almost too successful, which makes it challenging to follow along and feel towards - but then I like challenging reads, so...

I read Asimov's Opus 100 a few days ago, and the books came together, so... As in the last one, it's a great achievement to have written so many books but I prefer the original pieces (especially the science pieces) to the sum of the parts. However, this collection gets an extra star from me for including the full text of "The Bicentennial Man", for which I have some fondness.

It is very funny and Quentin Blake's illustrations are, as always, delightful, but my goodness if this isn't the definition of an idiot plot.