The Deep Blue Good-By by James D. MacDonald

Note: Whoa. It's amazing how hard it is to write a serious critique of a book when you haven't even done a book report in 40 years. And when I did book reports, I copied the blurb on the inside jacket. Wish me luck!

Some things you don't notice right away. It took until my nth rereading of The Deep Blue ( Read more... )

To me this book reads like a translated novel, not much flow to it. That may partly be due to the standard Scandinavian gloom. I don't get how they can read stuff like this in the middle of winter! However, I liked Wallander, his police station, and his fellow policemen, and the plot was excellent.

A good adventure story, nothing remarkable, perfectly aimed at its intended market - middle schoolers. Sure to appeal to Harry Potter fans.

This is the first book in Rusch's Retrieval Artist series, although the series originated in an earlier novella that takes place after The Disappeared so this is the "origin" story ( Read more... )

This is the first book in a series about a young thief (along with his "uncle") who to save both their lives bonds with a K'da dragon, an intelligent lifeform that can literally go 2D on its bondmate's skin, like a tattoo. Both Jack Morgan and Draycos have issues that are pulling them in opposite directions, but for this first tale Draycos agrees ( Read more... )

The beginning of a nice little SF mystery series, Night Train to Rigel starts us off with a stranger dying right into ex-spy Frank Compton's arms. Pretty soon Frank is off on an interstellar adventure searching for a force capable -- and apparently set on -- destroying the Quadrail, an FTL train system operated by "Spiders". But who really controls ( Read more... )

On first read I loved this book, especially through the protagonist Chelbie's stay on the ship Deecee. The story is about a young woman denied her rightful place as an engineer and forced to a life of supposed drudgery as a mech by the inadvertent betrayal of her lover. Along the way she makes some discoveries that end up with her leaving the ( Read more... )

A nice little ghost story that years ago wouldn't even have been called a fantasy, The Sherwood Ring brings together two young lovers using ghosts from Revolutionary New York to overcome their obstacles, the main obstacle being an uncle that may have done something horribly wrong. All the men are handsome and daring, the women pretty and rebellious ( Read more... )

Adventure, horror, happy ending -- the hallmarks of young readers fiction, and Gregor the Overlander is a prime example of it.

This is the first book in The Underland Chronicles and starts the series off smartly. All the things making 11-year-old Gregor's life a sad one (including his father disappearing two years before) are introduced in the ( Read more... )