I bought this book randomly when I saw it at a charity book sale. While the title is kid of odd, its actually quite a good read. The book is sort of a science fiction fantasy novel, set in the far future with a reasonably plausible plot line. There are a few elements that I…
Tag: post_apocalypse
The Stars Must Wait
This book is a novelization of “Night of the Trolls”, which I have already read as part of The Compleat Bolo and Battlefields Beyond Tomorrow. I’m pretty fond of the short story, and this book version didn’t start out strongly — there is a prelude to explain some background, and then the book launches into…
Bolos 2: The Unconquerable
This is another collection of short stories involving Laumer’s Bolo artificially intelligent super tanks. None of these stories are written by Laumer, but they are written by some very good SF authors. I enjoyed the collection, although I do think Honor of the Regiment was marginally better. Title: The Unconquerable Author: Keith Laumer Genre: Fiction…
Without Warning
LibraryThing, of which I am a member runs a program where members are shipped early copies of books for free, with the preference for them writing a review when they’re done reading the book. The books are shipped by the publisher directly to the reviewers. This isn’t that uncommon in the publishing industry — both…
Amtrak Wars
A post apocalyptic struggle between the three groups of North American survivors — a military society called “The Amtrak Federation”, the mutes (the survivors of American poor neighborhoods), and Ne Issan (former Japanese who sailed from Japan when their islands were flooded). 1983: Cloud Warrior 1985: First Family 1987: Iron Master 1988: Blood River 1989:…
Earth Thunder
This is the last book of the Amtrak Wars series. I’m much less comfortable with Steven’s character in this book — he’s always been a bit mixed up, and I don’t blame him for that given his background, but in this book he’s actively disloyal to those he loves, which is something new. That made…
Death Bringer
I feel sorry for Jake Olsen. It must be hard having the ensign-in-the-red-shirt role. This book is as good as the rest of the series, and the First Family truly are bastards. I really liked this one. [isbn: 0747400016]
Blood River
This is the fourth book in the Amtrak Wars series. Its pretty good, about the same level of writing as Cloud Warrior and Iron Master, which I guess means it was better than First Family (which was mostly a connector between the first and third books in the series). In this book we learn that…
Iron Master
This is the third book in the Amtrak Wars series. I think this is a better book than First Family, which suffered from not having much plot development. This book on the other hand moves the plot along, whilst being interesting. You also get to learn more about the Iron Masters, as well as how…
First Family
I finished this book on the bus into work this morning (I had a pretty distracted weekend, and didn’t get much reading done). This is the second book in the Amtrak Wars series, and takes place immediately after Cloud Warrior. The book feels like it is only half a book — there is plot development…