Book – Page 30 – Made by Mikal

Bolos 6: Cold Steel

Post author:mikal
Post published:August 29, 2009
Post category:Book

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]

Bio of a Space Tyrant: Politician

Post author:mikal
Post published:August 24, 2009
Post category:Book

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]

The White Dragon

Post author:mikal
Post published:August 11, 2009
Post category:Book

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]

Books read in July 2009

Post author:mikal
Post published:August 2, 2009
Post category:Book

Bolos 5: Old Guard Why do men fall asleep after sex?

Why do men fall asleep after sex?

Post author:mikal
Post published:August 2, 2009
Post category:Book

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.

Bolos 5: Old Guard

Post author:mikal
Post published:July 15, 2009
Post category:Book

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.

Books read in June 2009

Post author:mikal
Post published:July 3, 2009
Post category:Book

Bolos 2: The Unconquerable Why don't penguin's feet freeze? (and 114 other questions) Isaac Asimov's Robot City: Robots and Aliens: Alliance Why do men have nipples? The Book of General Ignorance Bolos 3: The Triumphant Bolos 4: Last Stand

Bolos 4: Last Stand

Post author:mikal
Post published:June 29, 2009
Post category:Book

This book continues on from many of the previous short stories, which is a nice touch. It also starts to fill in some of the historical gaps between the collapse of US society (night of the trolls), to the Concordiat Empire, to the Melconian wars. I found one story in this book pretty hard to read, but that's mainly because its about a small child risking death from basically crazies. That story was good, just a bit close to the bone for me. I liked this book, which isn't a surprise because I have liked all the others as well.

Bolos 3: The Triumphant

Post author:mikal
Post published:June 25, 2009
Post category:Book

This book is a little different from Bolos 1 and Bolos 2 in that it is several short novels instead of a collection of short stories. On the other hand, they're very good short novels, and I quite liked Nike's character. I'm glad I read this book.

The Book of General Ignorance

Post author:mikal
Post published:June 16, 2009
Post category:Book

I seem to be on a bit of a trivia book kick, which is at least partially motivated by getting through all my Christmas presents so I can pack them into a box and move to a different country. This book was written as part of the production of the very excellent BBC quiz show Quite Interesting and is quite a contrast from the extremely average Why Do Men Have Nipples that I just finished reading. This book feels well researched, and is on par with Why Don't Penguin's Feet Freeze, although the style is quite different (the New Scientist book offers multiple answers for each question, and is written by real scientists in the fields discussed, this book flows as one manuscript). I suspect it helps here to have seen the quiz show, because many of the other reviews I have seen online complain about the style of the book, which reads in much the same manner as Stephen Fry's commentary during the program. If you're familiar with the format, then the book flows quite nicely (whereas if you haven't, you might end up why the book jumps around so much). I really liked this book. [isbn: 0307394913]