Book #30, 31 of 2018: The Mammoth Book of Mind-Blowing SF, HP and MoR, 2018 books...
Hello LJ, it's been a while. You can blame this first book for that, it took me FOREVER to read. Nearly a month, looks like.
The Mammoth Book of Mind-Blowing SF by Mike Ashley (Editor)
Traditional or self-published: Traditional
Rating: Loved (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)
The worst part of this book? The title. How often does anything in media blow your mind? How often does a book? What are the chances that all of the 21 stories in this book would blow your mind?
The "mammoth" part of the title I cannot protest. Oh my god, this book was long.
While these stories may not have been mind blowing (not a single one of them), they were almost without exception very good. Maybe 4 of the 21 didn't work for me, which is a really, really good ratio. Many of them were downright great. (I'm only sad at how this book further killed my chances of hitting 50 this year...)
So many authors I hadn't previously read (but should have!). Arthur C. Clarke, Timothy Zahn, and Robert Silverberg were some of the biggest names. Only a couple stories were newly written for this book, the rest went back as old as 1958.
All of the stories were hard scifi -- all were about science and discoveries and such, which I completely enjoyed. After the 50% point I was chomping at the bit to move on to a different book, but since there were so many different stories I kept reading until the very end. And I'm glad I did, since they were all so good.
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
Traditional or self-published: Self-published
Rating: LOVED (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)
This is read #5 of this fic, and I love it just as much every time. You can read my other reviews here. I only wish I could read it more often, but I know the story too well by this point, so I try to wait between my rereadings.
My rule for including fanfics in my 50 book per year goal was that I had to read it completely and it has to be longer than multiple books. This fic is almost as long as the seven book HP series, so it counts.
Clan of Wolves (Tarin of the Mammoths #2) by Jo Sandhu
Traditional or self-published: Traditional
Rating: Disliked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)
Well, I made a mistake on this book. I thought I had LOVED the first one, so I couldn't figure out why I couldn't get into this second one at all. Turns out, looking at my previous review, that I hadn't liked the first one...
Set in prehistoric times, a crippled boy has to go on a journey to find the spirits and save his clan. In the first book, he failed at his mission. In this second book (at least in the 16% I read), he found new home with another clan.
In the first book, my complaint had been that the writing was too basic, the characters too black/white. In this one I didn't even get that far. There were so many new names, I had no idea who anyone was... and I really didn't care. I deleted the third book of the series off my Kindle without trying it.
The Stolen Herd: The Adventures of Mandamus and Luco by K. Madill
Traditional or self-published: Self-published
Rating: Disliked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)
The very best thing about this book was the cover. Sadly nothing else about it worked for me. A "talking animal" story (horses), but the characters all might as well have been human. They spoke just like people, they knew everything people knew (like what a galaxy is), they had a queen and politics and such... Just completely not for me. Stopped at 6%.
Partial book credits:
Point reached in these books: 16 + 6 = 22%
Previous abandoned book total: 1,341%
New total: 1,363% (13 books!)
The Mammoth Book of Mind-Blowing SF by Mike Ashley (Editor)
Traditional or self-published: Traditional
Rating: Loved (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)
The worst part of this book? The title. How often does anything in media blow your mind? How often does a book? What are the chances that all of the 21 stories in this book would blow your mind?
The "mammoth" part of the title I cannot protest. Oh my god, this book was long.
While these stories may not have been mind blowing (not a single one of them), they were almost without exception very good. Maybe 4 of the 21 didn't work for me, which is a really, really good ratio. Many of them were downright great. (I'm only sad at how this book further killed my chances of hitting 50 this year...)
So many authors I hadn't previously read (but should have!). Arthur C. Clarke, Timothy Zahn, and Robert Silverberg were some of the biggest names. Only a couple stories were newly written for this book, the rest went back as old as 1958.
All of the stories were hard scifi -- all were about science and discoveries and such, which I completely enjoyed. After the 50% point I was chomping at the bit to move on to a different book, but since there were so many different stories I kept reading until the very end. And I'm glad I did, since they were all so good.
Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
Traditional or self-published: Self-published
Rating: LOVED (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)
This is read #5 of this fic, and I love it just as much every time. You can read my other reviews here. I only wish I could read it more often, but I know the story too well by this point, so I try to wait between my rereadings.
My rule for including fanfics in my 50 book per year goal was that I had to read it completely and it has to be longer than multiple books. This fic is almost as long as the seven book HP series, so it counts.
Clan of Wolves (Tarin of the Mammoths #2) by Jo Sandhu
Traditional or self-published: Traditional
Rating: Disliked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)
Well, I made a mistake on this book. I thought I had LOVED the first one, so I couldn't figure out why I couldn't get into this second one at all. Turns out, looking at my previous review, that I hadn't liked the first one...
Set in prehistoric times, a crippled boy has to go on a journey to find the spirits and save his clan. In the first book, he failed at his mission. In this second book (at least in the 16% I read), he found new home with another clan.
In the first book, my complaint had been that the writing was too basic, the characters too black/white. In this one I didn't even get that far. There were so many new names, I had no idea who anyone was... and I really didn't care. I deleted the third book of the series off my Kindle without trying it.
The Stolen Herd: The Adventures of Mandamus and Luco by K. Madill
Traditional or self-published: Self-published
Rating: Disliked (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)
The very best thing about this book was the cover. Sadly nothing else about it worked for me. A "talking animal" story (horses), but the characters all might as well have been human. They spoke just like people, they knew everything people knew (like what a galaxy is), they had a queen and politics and such... Just completely not for me. Stopped at 6%.
Partial book credits:
Point reached in these books: 16 + 6 = 22%
Previous abandoned book total: 1,341%
New total: 1,363% (13 books!)