Ken Grimwood - Replay

Well written, with good characters and some fun alternate history stuff, but , overall there wasn't a reason, or explanation, hell Groundhog's Day at least had a moral, (and Bill Murry which certainly didn't hurt). It was fun, reminded me of Jumper a bit, esp early on, but sort of a deflated ending. A nice love story aspect but ends well, not sad, but not happy, sort of eh. Mostly after searching for meaning, I'd expected them to find something. but it's more of a character study after all.

Christopher Stasheff - Saint Vidicon to the Rescue

Touted as more irreverent, when in fact it was rather catholic, but for something that sort of felt like several short stories strung together with a connecting story, it worked pretty well. a 4. Not his best, but not bad. Sort of cyberpunk religion. X.

Alan Dean Foster

Alan Dean Foster - Lost and Found
The Light-years Beneath My Feet
The Candle of Distant Earth.
A trilogy of short novels, a broker Kidnapped by aliens and joined by a modified intelligent dog, travel the universe trying to get home. The ending was sort of bland. There was some fun stuff along the way, but not really much adventure. More a story of personal growth. a 5, X

James Patterson - Maximum Ride

James Patterson - Maximum Ride
Angel Experiment
School's Out --Forever

Doll 1

interesting manga, collection of related shorts, relating to artificial humans 'dolls' as servants, substitute children, lovers, mothers. very soft SF, more to do with the relationships than the tech. good a 7. nice art and well done stories.

Andrew Clements - Things Not Seen

He wakes up one morning and is invisible... but it's more of how he develops than some sort of spy mystery. an excellent bit of young romance, and a great family story. an 8.

John BRUNNER - THE SHEEP LOOK UP

BRUNNER, John. SHEEP LOOK UP, THE. PB. R. A very hard hitting sf cyberpunk w/o the cyber. an apocalypse novel which ends as the apocalypse begins. well written, but I thought too many characters with not enough to differentiate between them too many times I was confused at who was who. The damn scariest novel I have ever read! extrapolating the environmental problems we currently have and if we continue like we are we will end up as sheep. Entirely convinced me to become a Trainite (but one of the peaceful ones) If you've ever been worried about the environment but put off doing anything you'll never do it again after reading this book. The scariest thing is that it feels so real. There's hardly a thing that seems implausible let alone unlikely! disease run rampant, mega toxic fallout, wearing masks to breathe in any city. The jumping pov to all the many characters really brought the global perspective to you made the problem all the more huge looking. Liked the design of the book as well many many small
episodes, advertisements, tv, news, billboards, etc. And the chapter quotes were horribly great. Unfortunately the solution wasn't very nice. Real but not nice. Recommended more for it's ideas and philosophy than for spectacular writing style but worth getting thru the problem places to see the whole picture. a 10 for content a 6 for construction and an 8 for style = 8

STEVEN R. BOYETT - THE ARCHITECT OF SLEEP

BOYETT, STEVEN R. ARCHITECT OF SLEEP, THE. R. GREAT STORY ALTERNATE WORLD- RACCOONS INSTEAD OF APES, SIGN LANGUAGE INSTEAD OF SPEACH, INTELLIGNET RACCOONS! SPELUNKING, MARTIAL ARTS, A HERO WITH GLASSES! there's written bk 2 but never pub, & was designed as trilogy -editorial prob's creative differences etc. squashed it. probably will never be finished and it's a damn shame. A 10
Wow! there's a slim chance the Architect might be someday finished and published in it's entirety!!
Which is quite a bit better than the last time I checked his website where he thought there was no hope of him ever going back and completing the last book

The Last Mimzy / MIMSY WERE THE BOROGOVES, by Lewis Padgett

Went and saw the movie Sunday with some friends and so I searched out the story to see how close it was. They changed it quite a bit really, but it was a pretty good movie, sort of ET-ish, but it's a bit slow for a kids movie.
They happied up the ending of course, added some environmentalist aspects, and changed the mathematical aspect to a mental/psychic ability. The story is heavily psyhonalitical, and poses questions about children and learning. If you learnt non-Euclidean geometry, would you see the world differently than those whose minds have been conditioned to Euclid? In the movie they change it to mental capacity and sidestep the aspect of learning making the mind different. The character of the children was actually fairly similar, older brother with an annoying sister whom he loves and helps even when she's a bother, they aged them slightly in the movie, but it would have been difficult to really get a 2-year-old to act as the sister. The movie also gave away the AIW connection early, (of course the title implies a connection), but it was fun to see. The movie intro and outro were a bit overdone, and I could have done without the intro at least, or much less of one.

Catherine Asaro

Asaro, Catherine. Primary Inversion. R.X. 20070113. Soz and Jub heirs to feuding empires fall in love, much shakespearian. a 5.
Asaro, Catherine. Catch the Lightning. R.X. 20070114. interesting blend of high-math science SF and romance and sadistic psi vampire types - with strong overtones of Jacqueline Lichtenberg's sime-gen series. Not spectactular but good adventure and well done romance. 100's years later. acidentially into the alternate past of 1987 LA. then back, some darkoverian feel. a 5.
Asaro, Catherine. The Last Hawk. R.X.` 20070117. the thought dead brother was instead lost and kidnapped by a society esentailly reverse muslim with the women in charge and the men in hoods and harems. the Dice game as a meme-program was interesting, and that aspect I quite liked, but overall while slightly better written still the same theme and feel, not quite as much sadism, but still... a 5.5.

David Weber & John Ringo - March Series

Weber, David & John Ringo. March 1 March Upcountry. R.k+file good an 8 better than Ringo alone. maybe not quite as good as Weber alone. the kid is bratty but gets over it quick enough that you don't end up disliking him. wagons west on another planet ) having to 'go native' to get weapons. guns & dinos. an interesting setting. hardcore military
SF. Reread 20040120.alice.
Weber, David & John Ringo. March 2 March to the Sea. R.k-file 20040122. lots of vs. barbarians, developing primitive artillery & guns. much the same, only larger scale. a 7 or 8.
Weber, David & John Ringo. March 3 March to the Stars. 20040208. R.x. take the port, easy enough, lose more and more people tho, sad end, but the series isn't over at least one more, prob only one more. a 7.
Weber, David & John Ringo. March 4: We Few. R. 20061026. finish the story of sorts, but sets up for new stuff. a 6. loses the effect of the 'march' but still good fun. Becomes more intrigue, less battle, 'tho there is still much. Add many more characters - tho lost many in book #3 so prob didn't add overall to the number. The series is Written by Ringo from an outline by Weber. Ties up most of the previous loose ends, and only makes few more. Ringo's website says something about 3 more books to finish the series, but there is a good ending to the plot in this one, not particularly happy, but successful.

Neal Schusterman - The Dark Side of Nowhere

Schusterman, Neal. The Dark Side of Nowhere. YA. SF, excellent story, coming of age. the glove thing that they always use for the cover is an odd aspect to focus on. boring town has secrets that, once discovered, will change the world. Jason is in the middle of it, there's a girl he likes, a friend who's just died, maybe... a mysterious janitor, and secrets in old town. Nature or nurture? go with the crowd, or do what you think is right. a 7 or 8.

Michelle Shirey Crean - Dancer of the Sixth

Crean, Michelle Shirey. Dancer of the Sixth. R. 20060804. an excellent 1st book. Military, Spy, fighter jock, secret spy organization, in depth secrets, multiple races of men, torture death. well written for the most part, just a few bits where it gets confusing, unfortunately the end is one, not the big finish, but the denouement is off, bit of romance. a solid 6. great potential for further stuff. good plotting. excellent detail filled setting. One of the fighter-jock sf sub-sub-genre. Dancer code name of a former hot shot pilot now assumed KIA, joins the 6th - apparently the clean up crew war, sort of well armed spies, full of vengeful Aruyx a race of minor telepaths massacred by the enemy who has an odd love of torture. She finds a double has taken her place in the 4th (the fighter-jocks) and is in their version of the Blue Angels. There are some excellent twists and revelations. It's set up for a sequel without truly needing it to finish the story. I would have said she was a writer to watch out for - great things might be forthcoming - if it didn't look like this book from 1993 is her one and only book. A shame, she had a good voice, and this could have been continued to an excellent trilogy.

John Ringo

Ringo, John. A Hymn Before Battle. R.X. attack on other planet kick ass with battlesuits. a 7.
reread 200509??, reread 2008016
Ringo, John. Gust Front. R.X. a 7. good characters, tho lots, very Heinlein battlesuits, very hardcore military SF. aliens attack & humans join with other aliens to be the front line troops. -again with the only humans can kill theme (best done I think by foster in the call to arms series, but done pretty well here,) attack on earth lots of destruction but kick ass on first wave. gung ho stuff. reread 200509?? reread20080107
Ringo, John. When the Devil Dances. R
Ringo, John. Hell's Faire. HB (signed). R. 20050919 excellent SF military series, very hardcore military, but good alien stuff going on in the background,. a bit too many characters at first to really get into but by the 3rd book you do know them well enough to sink into it. An 8 the series. reread 20090108
Ringo, John & Michael Z. Williamson. The Hero. 20051016? R.X. LURPs on bug planet. then hunt & stalk each other. a bit simple, and not pushing the storyline any. a 4.
Ringo, John & Julie Chchrane. Cally's War. R. 20061020. pretty much all Julie I think, an interesting spy/intrique/assassin story, but does little to futher the plot of the overall series. a 6.
Ringo, John & Tom Kratman. Watch on the Rhine. R. HB. 200510? Pos vs. the SS. hardcore military SF with a lot of German SS historical stuff. pretty good a 6. end chapter fast forward to destroy the 'Elves'.



Ringo, John. Princess of Wands. R. 20060907. interesting modern fantasy. Christian with out bible thumping. - as the character is also. really a collection of 3 short stories, one fairly long, one novella, and a short ender. Con stuff in the 2nd story, and several characters who were certainly parodies of real sf authors including the villain who had to be David Drake, allusions to Robert Jordan, a character who had to be Baen, and one may have been Ringo too. secret magical defenders in the FBI to fight the demons and monsters which are really there. power of faith, any faith, even Christian ) to combat evil. good stories. a 6.


Ringo, John. There Will be Dragons. R.K 20060907. excellent historical-military with high-tech nano-SF, body mods, universal power utopia. a bit hard to swallow that they so quickly accept the loss of all the high-tech. but once that's done, it does go very well. several hints of previous 'history' and excellent fantasy/medieval warfare.
start of a series. a 7.

Ringo, John - Into the Looking Glass. excellent hard sf, sometimes high-science, but still great military sf, some of his very best stuff. a 9.

Ringo, John - Knight series
1: Ghost. best military fiction ever, and throw in some hard-core bondage sex, (which is fine, but came as a bit of a surprise!)
2: Kildar - with Kildar the series really takes off, Vangarian guard, elite warriors, All-father, and machine guns.
3: Choosers of the Slain
4: Unto the Breach
it just gets better and better - sticks with the Kildar's pov mostly perhaps why I like it more than his other stuff. 9 the series.

Anthony BURGESS - CLOCKWORK ORANGE

BURGESS, Anthony. CLOCKWORK ORANGE. W/INSERT OF LAST CHAPTER Burgess just died of cancer or Thursday 25 of Nov 93 he was 76 and lived in Switzerland. When I heard I had to go re-read this classic. This is one of my favorite books, I especially like the language he made up for it. a 10