octavia_cade's Reviews (2.64k)

Interesting account of Stephen Hawking's life; albeit one where the chapters on that life are often alternated with chapters on the science he was working on. This is hard to avoid - one can't really do a decent bio of a person while ignoring their life's work! - but for the first half of the book I was far more interested in the biography chapters, while the pure science ones were a slightly annoying interruption. Then, about halfway through, it all swapped round for me. I actually found myself taking notes on the science chapters, fascinated and trying to understand better, then slogging my way through the life history just so I could get back to note-taking!

Never happy, that's me.

Cute little story about a skunk who lives in a junk yard, and who rescues her animal friends from a forest fire by cobbling together a junk-train to transport them to a lake where they'll be safe. Most notable for its illustrations of the animals themselves, which can be beautifully detailed (the one of the fawn hiding under its mother is the best, I think).

Seven short little tales from Maori mythology, packaged as a children's reader. There's a running theme of birds, but not all the tales have them (for example, the story about how the sandfly and the mosquito compete to make humans more miserable). The collection as a whole is entirely focused around natural history, however. And unusually, each tale seems to have its own illustrator!

A reference book dealing with the geography, races, and individuals of Middle-earth. Basically an illustrated dictionary. While the artwork is frequent and varied (there are a number of different artists, using a number of different styles and techniques, which makes for a very interesting and enjoyable set of illustrations), the text, though thorough, is not without mistakes and can be extremely repetitive.

Would have liked it more had there been more art and less words. Cut down all the endless repetition and the text would have been half the length.

Interesting little book with some lovely astronomical photographs, but it doesn't really do what it says on the tin. By far the largest portion of the book (maybe 80%?) is a general introduction to basic astronomy, and while I value competent science writing - which this is, no question - it's more "astronomy for everyone" than "astronomy for New Zealanders". When I pick up a title like this, I'm expecting to find a guide for amateur kiwi astronomers who want to know more about what we can see when we set our telescopes up on the back deck. There are a few informative pages like this at the back - and a few pages of national astronomical history in the front - but this book is less a practical aid for kiwis and more a general introduction with some kiwi-centric asides.

This book is fairly old now - first published in 1992, so it's missing the last quarter century of development. That being said, I didn't pick it up for details on the latest research in robotics. Rather, I noted when flipping through it that the first couple of chapters were on robots in mythology and the early history of automated machines and I thought that would be pretty interesting. And it was! An excellent start, and an excellent end with the lengthy focus on the potential of sex-bots. It sort of slumped in the middle for me though. I just have no interest in the development of robots to increase car-building speed on the assembly line, or what research in tactile sensors was like in the 80s.

No star rating, not because it's terrible but because one of my own early stories is in here and I try not to rate things that I'm in because, let's face it, I would probably be biased. (The story's called "Cuckoo" and remains one of the best things I've written, I think.) Anyway, I've just rediscovered this on my shelf and thought I'd finally get around to reading it. There's a good number of stories in here, some more interesting than others which is always the case in any magazine. I think the one I liked best was "Curiosity" by Ryan Kinkor, which was an interesting take on the Pandora myth.

An interesting if somewhat frustrating read. The collected prayers are simply written and often very affecting, but the whole suffers from having no real context. This might not be an issue with those who are familiar with the Anasazi culture but I know nothing about it and could really have used an introductory, historical overview - there were several places I was completely lost. Also, I have to admit I side-eyed the little forward where the author claimed that the prayers derived from "spiritual memory recall". I don't know what that means, and it makes me wonder how accurate the information is.

A very mildly interesting account of the author's experiences in WW2, with a few introductory chapters dealing with his childhood. I tried, but it's just not that gripping to be fair. All credit to Willis that he wrote this with much effort on a typewriter after a series of strokes, but his accounts of the war, from the perspective of "an ordinary man", are fairly superficial and it's all a bit flat really. One for the more dedicated historian, perhaps, but not so much for me.

I picked this up for a couple of bucks at a local flea market, hoping for a Barry Crump style of humour, but alas, not everyone can be a Crump. I got a few chuckles out of this dictionary-style book, in which the tongue is stuck firmly in cheek, but not near as many as I'd hoped for. There's a lot of repetition here (I don't like lentils either, but you don't see me banging on forever and a day about it) and much of that is to do with the title subject. You know how if you see a word over and over it begins to lose all meaning? By the time I'd finished with the 'A' entries alone, wimp was looking like an incomprehensible alien thing.

A small idea stretched beyond its capacity to amuse.