‘Books’ Archives
Crooked Little Vein
Warren Ellis's first novel represents everything Ellis is interested in. All the sci-fi/sex elements he is known for are very much present in this story, even more than anything else he's written. That's both a strength and a flaw. If you're really interested in those funny stories about weird sex and technology you'll love this book. Even if [...]
7th Son: A Podcast Novel Trilogy
7th Son was the longest podiobook I've listened to. This is a trilogy series, but I started listening only when the 3rd book was already started. So I worked my way through the first two books quickly, then caught up with book 3 and listened every episode as soon as it was released. The different listening frequency really affected my enjoyment [...]
Stardust
After watching the movie adaptation, I obviously went back to the source and listened to the audio version of Stardust written by Neil Gaiman. At the same time I also looked at the illustrated book. This is a really good fantasy/fairy tale for adults. There are many scary scenes in this book, but it also contained many light hearted scenes. The [...]
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Ever since the end of book 4 I've been waiting for things to change dramatically. Instead nothing much happened in books 5 and 6, simply giving us information about the character's past. However book 7 definitely delivered on my expectations, making this my favorite book of the series by far. First of all this has the best beginning of a novel, [...]
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
This is the book that contains the biggest surprise of them all. But I'll get to that later. First let's talk about the main threads running throughout this book. SPOILERS FOLLOW!!! The most interesting to me is Voldemort's past. Harry and Dumbledore finally spend some time together and work on Voldemort's past. A lot is revealed about him, [...]
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
After a very dark and promising turn in book 4, I had high expectations for book 5. I think they were somewhat met. SPOILERS AHEAD!! This was certainly an even darker book, which in turns meant much less "kiddie". I was obviously happy about that. Unlike previous books, not all the story takes place in Hogwarts, which is again a plus for [...]
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Starting from this forth book the number of pages is doubled. I am not sure this was really needed for this story, but this book is definitely a small departure from the previous one. SPOILERS FOLLOW!! The beginning of the book is already different, it shows us what Voldermort is doing, but it will be followed up only once before the big [...]
Eastern Standard Time
Cory Doctorow is famous for his war against DRM. But he is also a sci-fi writer and gives away his novels for free on his website. Yes, free. This way he gets much more exposure, and in the end many more people buy his books. I read his first novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom and I really liked it. So I was eager to read his next [...]
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
I read the first Harry Potter book just before the film came out and though I didn't hate it, I must say it just didn't catch my interest. I thought it was a little simplistic, but not dumb. More suited to a younger reader, since I usually enjoy more mature stories. So after watching the first movie I stopped consuming anything [...]
Fight Club
I am a huge fan of the Fight Club movie, so I've always wanted to read the novel from which it was adapted. Chuck Palahniuk certainly has a very distinctive style, and a lot of his lines made it to the film word by word. Since I'd already seen the movie, the plot wasn't a surprise to me, so what I enjoyed a lot was noticing the difference [...]
The Book of Fate
This book is written by Brad Meltzer, who just recently finished his run on the DC Comics series Justice League of America. It is advertised as dealing with the secret of the Freemasons, in fact many of the secrets are already spilled in the official website. However the main focus is actually not about the Freemasons, that's just a background. [...]
Private Wars: A Queen & Country Novel
This is the last Queen & Country story so far, and it is another good story. This time out Tara is sent out to Uzbekistan for a covert-covert mission. At the beginning of this novel Tara has to deal with the consequences of what happened at the end of the previous novel (A Gentleman's Game), which changes her life in a major way. The [...]
The Masha Chronicles
The Masha Chronicles is a dramatized audio book, with a complete cast of "actors". The story is very short, so the total running time is about 2-3 hours. This is a mystery story, a somewhat lighter but also serious crime story. It starts with a murder, and it brings Masha from Kiev to Florida, with some strange people in between. There is also [...]