The Complete Roderick by John Sladek My rating: 4 of 5 stars Read for the Science Fiction Masterworks Book Club (see the full list here.) I’m not sure how I feel about this book. I think, on its surface, this was intended to be a New Wave influenced anti-Isaac Asimov. Sladek wanted to challenge the […]
Read more "Book Review: The Complete Roderick by John Sladek"Circe by Madeline Miller My rating: 5 of 5 stars Every now and then you accidentally discover a gem of a book. The way this was marketed, I would not have read it. It was pitched to the general fiction and literary markets, and we found it on a sale table at our local Coles […]
Read more "Book Review: Circe by Madeline Miller"The Princess Bride by William Goldman My rating: 5 of 5 stars Unlike just about everybody else in the world, it seems, I stumbled on this great book by accident, well before the movie came out. I’d like to share the story because it’s one of those wonderful stories of discovery that only true bibliophiles […]
Read more "Book Review: The Princess Bride by William Goldman"The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin My rating: 5 of 5 stars Read for the Science Fiction Masterworks Book Club. “What a lovely book!” I said to my partner with a delighted sigh as I closed the cover, after having done nothing all day but glue my eyes to these pages, and […]
Read more "Book Review: The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin"Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore My rating: 4 of 5 stars Read for the Science Fiction Masterworks Book Club. One might be deterred by a book with a Confederate shield on the front of it, and rightfully so. But don’t let it dissuade you; this isn’t what it looks like. This is a well-written […]
Read more "Book Review: Bring the Jubilee by Ward Moore"Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey My rating: 4 of 5 stars No one would ever publish this book, were it written today. It’s full of purple prose and repetition, heaving bosoms and moustache-twirling bad guys, and it’s considered a foundational book of the Western genre, and established maybe 75% of the tropes, […]
Read more "Book Review: Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey"Jem by Frederik Pohl My rating: 4 of 5 stars Read for the Science Fiction Masterworks Book Club. This book was absorbing, interesting, and kept me picking it up to see what would happen next. It was also joyless, cynical, and depressing in a way that makes A Song of Ice and Fire seem hopeful […]
Read more "Book Review: Jem: The Making of a Utopia by Frederik Pohl"