Author: mikal

This author has written 1350 articles

Dragonsinger

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This book is interesting because its 200 or so pages only cover a seven day period. Its a coming of age story that continues directly on from Dragonsong, and overlaps somewhat with The White Dragon (if only peripherally). This book has parallels with Pawn of Prophecy in my mind, mostly because they're both about young children being taken under someone's wing and given the time they need to develop their talents. I liked this book, which gives me hope for the rest of the series. [isbn: 0553258540]

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Dragonsong

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Dragonsong sits between Dragonquest and The White Dragon, although there is some overlap with The White Dragon and it doesn't matter what order you read those two in. Some friends and I were joking the other day that all McCaffrey books seem to involve a pained teenager coming to age. That's true with this book, although the story isn't as drawn out as The White Dragon, and I didn't find it quite as annoying to read. I think that's because McCaffrey didn't dwell on how terrible it was to be a teenager as much in this one. I really enjoyed this one, and thought it was better than The White Dragon, and on par with Dragonflight, although I do feel that The White Dragon opens up more interesting possibilities for the universe than this book did. [isbn: 0553258524]

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Bolos 6: Cold Steel

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This bolo book is different from the previous ones, in that it heavily focuses on the humans side of the story, instead of the bolo's inner monologue. I've seen reviews online that say this makes it a bad bolo book, but I think that's unfair. The bolos are critical to the telling of this story, and you do hear from them. More than that, ultimately a point about the relationship between bolos and humans is being made that would be a lot harder to make if the story was told from the bolo side of the fence. This was a good book and I enjoyed it. [isbn: 0743435494]

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Bio of a Space Tyrant: Politician

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This is the third book in the Bio of a Space Tyrant series (following Refugee and Mercenary). I picked this series up on a whim when it was cheap in a bookstore sale, and liked the first two books, although the first was quite grim and the second a little odd. This book isn't as strong as the other two, and it took longer to read than usual because of that... I guess the plot just seemed even harder to believe than the others in the series. [isbn: 0380896850]

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Don’t use Jetbus Sydney if you want to catch your flight

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I had to take a flight a few weeks ago, and I thought I'd do the financially (and environmentally) sensible thing and use an airport shuttle service. Especially because the airport train in Sydney is so expensive and slow. I found Jetbus online, and paid with PayPal. The first time I used them they were just fine, but the second time was extremely frustrating. So frustrating that I wont be using their service again, as I value actually getting on my plane. Interestingly, Jetbus' Sydney office is across the road from my pickup location, so how badly can it go? I had a 4pm booking. I arrived at the pickup location 15 minutes early. The bus drove past me at the speed limit approximately on time. It did not slow down or stop. I rang the dispatch number to inform them of the error. The bus drove past about 10 minutes later, again without slowing down or stopping. I rang again. The bus didn't reappear. In total, I rang dispatch 5 times in an attempt to be collected. After the bus was 45 minutes late, I took a taxi to the airport instead, which cost $47, and arrived with only…

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The White Dragon

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This book took me ages to finish, and I'm not sure if that was because of distractions in real life (moving into a new house), or if it was because I just wasn't all that into it. The first half of the book is the growing pains of Jaxom, the rider of white dragon Ruth. It was interesting in parts, but other parts seemed to drag on with endless character development. On the other hand, the plot of the last third of the book was really good, and I enjoyed it greatly. I don't think this book was as good as the two previous Pern books however. [isbn: 0345341678]

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Why do men fall asleep after sex?

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This is the second medical trivia book by The Leyner and Goldberg duo. The first was Why do men have nipples, which I read in June. This book suffers from the same flaws as the first -- its light weight and doesn't take itself very seriously. That means that often they avoid answering serious questions, and just make a twee joke instead. It also has those annoying IM transcripts, which appear to just be a way to fill up space. Then again, I did finish the book, so it can't have been the worst book I have ever read.

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Bolos 5: Old Guard

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This book is similar to the previous Bolo anthologies in that it is written by a number of different authors, but utilizes Laumer's Concordiat universe. Contrary to another LibraryThing review, all of the stories on this book don't occur on one planet. All but one of them occurs on Delas, and the final one is on another nearby Concordiat planet. However, all of these stories do revolve around engagements with one enemy, and follow on from each other. This is something which hasn't occurred in other Bolo anthologies. I enjoyed this book, although it took longer to read than I would like because of other things happen in my life.

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