Book – Page 37 – Made by Mikal

Foundation’s Edge

Post author:mikal
Post published:November 19, 2008
Post category:Book

I'm back to reading Foundation Series books actually written by Isaac Asimov. This one is the fourth in the Foundation Series if you count them in the order they were written, but is the second last in chronological terms. Its set 500 years after the failure of the first galactic empire, and follows the first Foundation's attempt to discover if the second Foundation still exists. Well, its a bit more complicated than that, but I don't want to ruin it for you. As an aside, the user interface described for the ship's computer is really cool. Its a bit like augmented reality, mixed with gesture control, mixed with a direct interface into the brain. I'm not saying I want one in my house, but its cool that a book written in 1983 still has a user interface description which isn't dated, and still seems plausible. This book has minor inconsistencies with the story presented in the second foundation trilogy (Foundation's Fear, Foundation and Chaos and Foundation's Triumph), but I see that more as a failure in those followup authors than in this book. In fact, I've already complained about how untrue to Asimov's vision some of those books are elsewhere.…

The Riftwar Series

Post author:mikal
Post published:November 16, 2008
Post category:Book

This series follows to young kids who grow up in a rural castle on the edge of an empire. Pug ends up being the greatest Magician to ever live, and Thomas ends up being merged with an ancient being of massive power. Its a good series, even if people accuse it of being steeped in cliche. 1982: Magician (later sold as Magician: Apprentice and Magician: Master) 1985: Silverthorn 1986: A Darkness at Sethanon

A Darkness at Sethanon

Post author:mikal
Post published:November 16, 2008
Post category:Book

This book took longer to read that I would have liked, because I have been busy with other things. Its a good book though, and a fine conclusion to the Riftwar Series. I liked this book a lot, although I do think that Magician (Apprentice and Master) was a better book. [isbn: 0553263285]

Bill the Galactic Hero on the Planet of Bottled Brains

Post author:mikal
Post published:November 10, 2008
Post category:Book

(Edited by Harry Harrison.) This book started off better than Planet of the Robot Slaves, but I found the random Star Trek and Star Wars rip offs in the middle of the book intensely annoying. This isn't so much a satire it is a disjointed list of ideas. I'm disappointed to be honest. [isbn: 0380756625]

Foundation’s Triumph

Post author:mikal
Post published:November 9, 2008
Post category:Book

This book is pretty good. I'd say its the best of the three Second Foundation Trilogy books in fact. Unfortunately, you need to read the other two in order for this one to make any sense, which is a shame because the first one sucked, and the second one was ok. A lot of loose ends get cleaned up in this book. Why did Earth get abandoned? Why did everyone forget their history? Why is Trantor built much like the cities in the Naked Sun? Why are there all those habitable worlds for the galactic empire to reside on? It seems odd that there would be 25 million habitable worlds out there. There are other examples as well, but I wont bore you with them all. Another good bit of this book is the time line of all Asimov Foundation stories at the back of the book. I am sure it would have been useful to know about that earlier. [isbn: 0061056391]

Belgarath the Sorcerer

Post author:mikal
Post published:November 6, 2008
Post category:Book

This book is a follow on from The Belgariad and The Malloreon written from the perspective of one of the protagonists in those two series -- Belgarath the Sorcerer. This book has quite a different style from the others. It is written in the first person as Belgarath's personal memoir. The book is really long at over 700 pages, and covers a 6,000 year (ish) period. That means that the book tends to skip around and over some things at a very high level. That's probably a good thing, as it stops you from getting bogged down in boring detail you don't care about. One problem with this book is that to people who have read the previous series, this is all old territory. You totally know what is about to happen, and that makes it a lot less fun to read. I'm also not sure I'm a big fan of the first person style either. However, I did enjoy this book more than some of the others I have read recently, despite it not being Eddings' best work. [isbn: 0345403959]

Books read in October 2008

Post author:mikal
Post published:November 3, 2008
Post category:Book

Seeress of Kell Iron Master The Stainless Steel Rat Goes to Hell Magician: Apprentice Magician: Master Foundation and Chaos The Stainless Steel Rat Joins the Circus Silverthorn Bill the Galactic Hero: Plant of the Robot Slaves You Can Be The Stainless Steel Rat

You Can Be The Stainless Steel Rat

Post author:mikal
Post published:October 28, 2008
Post category:Book

This is a Stainless Steel Rat book, although different from the norm because it is a choose your own adventure. Its also the last of the Stainless Steel Rat books in the series, and the only one I hadn't yet read. I figured I'd document my path through the story, so here goes: 30 - 42 - 62 - 90 Well, that was a disappointment. 90 makes no sense in the context (62 talks about meeting someone and deciding to talk to them, 90 talks about someone accepting a bribe). Lame, I think I found a bug already. Let's go with the other choice then: 30 - 42 - 62 - 14 - 99 - 106 - 65 - 48 - 67 - 97 - 186 - 33 - 12 - 65 I think I hit another bug... I was meant to go back to before a fight, but ended up after it instead. I give up. [isbn: 0441949789]

Bill the Galactic Hero: The Planet of the Robot Slaves

Post author:mikal
Post published:October 28, 2008
Post category:Book

The previous Bill the Galactic Hero book was awesomely bad. This on starts out well: Bill, that's what they called him. They called him that because that was his name. I didn't realize when I started reading this series that only the previous book and this one are actually written by Harrison. The rest of them are actually farmed off to others, with Harrison editing them before publication. According to Wikipedia, Harrison later considered this approach to be a mistake. I think my confusion is at least partially because LibraryThing lists Harry Harrison as the author for the entire series. Overall I don't think this book is as good as the first one, and while its easy to read the style becomes annoying after a while. It was a quick read though. [isbn: 0380756617]

Silverthorn

Post author:mikal
Post published:October 27, 2008
Post category:Book

The characters of the Magician Books battle a new enemy in this book. The book centers around Prince Arthura's poisoned wife and the quest to find the cure. There seems to have been some criticism of this book for being a fantasy cliche (something which people seem to say about a lot of Feist's books), but that's a pretty easy accusation to make with fantasy works -- they all seem to have the same basic them. I guess that's what a genre is -- a shared theme. The book is well written and quite readable. Wikipedia page on Silverthorn has this rather startling accusation to make: Since its release, the term 'Silverthorn' has been adopted to describe any book in a series (although typically the middle book of a trilogy) that has served little purpose other than to set up a climax in the final book. This term can also be applied to a similar phenomenon in film or television series. This style of book typically has little overall substance, and is often quite poor when compared to the other books in the series. That's a pretty unfair thing to say. This book has a story that stands on its…