I think I read most of Crichton’s works one summer (I was hugely pregnant with twins and mostly bedridden.) There’s a lot of great stories in the man. However, I must have missed this one (perhaps it is newer than 2006? Yep, 2008) and honestly, I’m not so thrilled with the fact that I “went back” for this. It’s no Timeline or Andromeda Strain. It’s kind of close in sphere to Jurassic Park, but it lacks the humanizing qualities. This is a story of man […]
Witches and Hackers and Robots. Oh My!
Dark Magic – Witches, Hackers, & Robots – A Short Story Anthology edited by Emma Nelson and Hannah Smith, 2016 This anthology truly gives you your money’s worth. At over 26 stories, it provides exactly what it promises – stories about Witches, Hackers, and Robots. The strange juxtaposition of these categories is intriguing and delightful to read. I won’t review every story but I will say a few words about most of them. When I originally wrote the individual summaries and reviews, I found myself […]
Probably not the best review to read if you’re on the fence about these books….
Cinder – 3.5 stars (13 reviews, 4.23 avg) I’m going to start off by saying that I’m probably not the demographic for this novel. This book has an excellent rating on Goodreads, and has gotten great reviews here on CBR. My wife loved the book, and enthusiastically encouraged me to read it. I thought it was okay. But I’m not really a fan of fairy tales, and have struggled in the past both with the romance genre and young adult fiction. So, while I wasn’t […]
John Scalzi is reliably fascinating
This was my second attempt to read this book, and I’m glad I gave it another go. I haven’t been let down by Scalzi before, and Lock In was no different. This is a fairly typical Scalzi novel, in that the world is well developed and multi-layered. From what I’ve read of him (Redshirts, the Old Man’s War series, and The Dispatchers), he’s very adept at centering his stories around a big idea, and this is no different. Set in the future, a disease has […]
I for one welcome our Robot Overlords
I wish I had more time to read grownup books, but spending 12 hours a day with tiny humans allows no time to focus on books during the day and a habit of falling asleep watching Poirot every night by 9 pm. I do read a ton of picture books though, so… RoboSauce is by the same authors as Dragons Love Tacos, which I also highly recommend. Their writing style is conversational; they address the reader as “kid” and speak directly to her/him. I love […]
I Want a Robot Friend Too Now
Little Robot is a graphic novel (with very few words) that I saw a few months ago reviewed somewhere and I thought that it might be just the thing for my five year old who can’t bear to sit still while we read at night. Instead, he and his three year old sister dance, fight, mosh , dress the dogs and well… do just about anything else (other than listen) while my seven year old and I glare at them from the top of book. […]