Doug > Recent Status Updates

I am really enjoying this book!

Giving up. Too much "chuckling, chortling, snickering, barking, snorting, wincing, grimacing" etc etc. Seems like every sentence has one or more of those.

OK, I'm setting this aside while I finish my other books. The dystopian Dilbert-esque hellscape drags me down after a while. I may or may not come back to it. I give the author points for extrapolating current management "flavor of the week" methods for driving workers, and the AI setting (not supreme overlords but more like micromanaging by spreadsheet) actually seems like a foreseeable future. But I can't go on.

I saw this was available on Kindle Unlimited, and since I've never actually read any of his stories (even though I'm somewhat familiar with them), I decided to pick it up and read the foundational stories for the Cthulhu mythos. Creepy! I don't think I'll read the whole book, but will focus on specific core stories and novellas.

Well, after yesterday's Supreme Court decision granting immunity to Felonious Chump, I definitely won't be finishing this book. Way too prescient and depressing (even if it has a "happy ending." I just can't bring myself to wade through it to get to the ending, even though JMS is a great writer.)

Putting this down... the setup is too depressing, too much like the state we will find ourselves in if tRump is elected President again. I may come back to it later.

I am finding this history of China in the Victorian era, wrapped up in a steam punk fantasy about colonialism and empire, to be extremely interesting. It makes me want to research the events mentioned in the book to see which happened in the real world and which were made up.

This book is dragging. I doubt that I'll finish it, especially since it's the first of a trilogy. I have enjoyed the author's other books, but this one isn't doing it for me.

It was interesting at first, but I'm at the halfway point and it feels like a slog. Putting it down for now. May pick it back up later.

Interesting at first, but it's turning into a YA romance. Putting it on hold for now.

I'm so frustrated with the spelling and punctuation errors in this book! It was obviously only spell-checked, because the spelling errors are still proper words, just the wrong words. Some consistent examples: starred instead of stared; discrete instead of discreet; currier instead of courier. And the number of times beginning or ending quotation marks were left off! It's too bad, because the story is good.

Decided to revisit one of my favorites, and it is just as good as I remembered it. Been almost 40 years since I first read it.

Doing a mid-book review because I am really enjoying it, although I felt the beginning almost turned me off because it was starting to read like some sf romance. But, I like how the author is able to alternate between really nice character moments and high-tension action sequences.

Eh... just not grabbing me. Not liking the characters very much, and the whole thing feels like an oversexualized, scaled-down version of Ringworld. I'm going to put it aside for now, and pick it up again later and see if I feel the same.

OK, quick gripe. I really don't like it when an author uses a rape as a motivation for a female character. Not a good start to the book, but I enjoyed the first book a lot, so I'm willing to overlook it and keep going.

Read this years ago, and decided to revisit it in ebook format. Especially since it was on sale.

Really enjoying this. Love the characters and the setting.

So, the first part of the book felt more like a YA science tutorial than a science fiction book. Still reading it, but it is not as good as I expected.

Putting this on hold for now. I liked the idea of the story, but something about the POV character is putting me off.

This is a long book, but what a wonderful narrative about life in the 14th century in France (with bits of England and the rest of Europe thrown in for context.) Definitely a worthwhile read.

Wow. Very interesting so far. One of the best speculative fiction books I've read in a while. Really has its finger on the pulse of where we are headed with big data and social media.

Very enjoyable read so far! Some similarities to Craig Alanson's Expeditionary Force books (especially the inclusion of a smart-aleck AI), but the writing is much much better.

Just want to say up front that this is delightful -- Stephen Fry tells these tales with dry British wit and lots of modern references. I highly recommend it already!

The essays are light (mostly) and entertaining, without getting too bogged down in esoteric details while still giving an appreciation for the beauty of the particular theory or development. Mostly, it gives insight into the people behind each development. Loving it so far. A great book to end my 2020 reading challenge with.

Actually started the book Nov 17, and forgot to enter it. I've had to spend a lot of time reading the Copper Mind wiki to remember people and places and events. This book really should count as 2 or even 3 books for the reading challenge! My one complaint is that Sanderson spends a LOT of time going into detail about how fabrials work, which detracts from the overall story somewhat; but it is important to the story.

OK, I give up. Between the bad punctuation and typos (as an example, consistently using the word defiantly instead of definitely may not be a typo but I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt), and also the rapid fire way that he and his crewmates managed to get the business up and running and expanded in a very short period of time, I just can't finish it. It's not bad, really, but it's just hard to buy into.