Category: Book Reviews

 

Review – Sub-Human

N.T. Kova

I actually really enjoyed Sub-Human by David Simpson. It was fast paced, action filled, and enjoyable to read. It had quite a few tropes and clichés, but that said, I think the book handled them well. It is a popcorn flick, and if you expect something more, you’ll be disappointed. However, if you’re looking for something to read something like an 80’s Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, this might be it. It’s fun and interesting, as long as you don’t think about it too hard. I actually couldn’t put the book down at certain times because I was glued to the action…

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Review – Orbs

N.T. Kova

The premise of Orbs by Nicholas S. Smith is relatively interesting, but there are several things that, honestly, just ruined the book for me. One problem is the constant jump in viewpoints, sometimes several times within the same scene! It makes it a quite jarring and confusing. Also, half the time I’m left wondering why the jump happened. Can’t the main character notice the tension in her ex-lover and thus relate to the reader his state of mind? Do we have to jump to his view point for a single paragraph just to find it out? And then, jump back…

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Review – Transmission

N.T. Kova

Transmission is a young adult novel with a 13 year old boy as a protagonist and I actually enjoyed this book. I’m not big on young adult novels as the problems teenagers face seemed irrelevant to me even when I was a teenager, but this book was well written and avoided many of the tropes of young adult sci-fi. Perhaps it is because the protagonist finds out at the very beginning of the book that he is dying and, so normal teenage problems are not really part of his life anymore. There were a few moments that made me cringe…

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Review – The Red Thread

N.T. Kova

I enjoyed The Red Thread by Sofia Samatar. It is a quick read or a quick listen (there’s a button right there on the website). The story is told as a series of short letters to Fox and as the protagonist writes she tells of her current predicament and revisits old memories. I really enjoyed the style and the format. A quick glance into a very different world and a life lived in it. If you have 25 minutes, read it, you won’t regret it. Or listen to it on your way to work. I found it in the Light…

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Review – The Forever War

N.T. Kova

What can I say? Read it! I mean, drop everything you’re doing and read The Forever War by Joe Haldeman . I can go on about the fantastic short writing style, the visceral subject matter, or the fact that I actually cried reading it, but all of those would be superficially inadequate reasons. This book is now my #1 by such a high margin that it’s sitting on top of mount Everest, while the other books in my list haven’t even gotten to base camp. Even if you don’t like sci-fi, even if you don’t like “war” books, even if…

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Review – Ambassador 1: Seeing Red

N.T. Kova

While reading Ambassador 1:Seeing Red, I’ve been guilty of putting it down and not thinking about it for a few days (or even weeks) before I would pick it up again. And honestly, the reason why I would continue reading it is for this review. So, yea, you guessed it, I’d Skip it, if I were you. But the question in my mind was why did I find it so un-engaging?  The book started with a bang (literally – a bomb blew up) with ramifications for our protagonist and the wider world. It’s true that I didn’t know much about…

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Review – The Mapmaker’s Apprentice

N.T. Kova

The Mapmaker’s Apprentice is book 2 of the Glass and Steele series. It takes place immediately after the events in the Watchmaker’s Daughter and Oh My God, this book was boring! Definitely Skip it! Even if you like this type of Mystery Romance Historical Fiction, Skip it! At the very beginning it started with what was practically a recap of the previous book. Almost like “Previously On” on a TV show. Then, it continued with meaningless banter for way too long. And yes, banter is good and fun, but when it goes on and on without a point. Jeez. Finally,…

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Review – The Watchmaker’s Daughter

N.T. Kova

The good: it takes place in the late 1800’s in London and our protagonist is a (like the title suggests) Watchmaker’s Daughter. Unfortunately for her, her dad just died and her fiancé broke off the engagement after receiving her dad’s store in the will. So, our protagonist is screwed. No work, no money, no one to turn to. The book gets points for an interesting start for our protagonist and for making us care about her quite fast.  Then, she meets a mysterious man from America… ahhh!, I realized, this is a romance! People label your books properly, so i…

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Review – Fritz Leiber Short Stories

N.T. Kova

I listened to three short stories by Fritz Leiber, a prolific speculative fiction writer in the mid to late 20th century. The stories themselves are alright. Perhaps, I didn’t like them as much because they are dated, perhaps because of the narrator that I found so annoying (he was actually doing a robot voice), I’m not really sure. This was another case that I’m sure I would have enjoyed the stories more if I had read them rather than listened. I did get the recordings for free from Librivox, who record public domain works. I do want to say something…

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Review – Vorkosigan Saga

N.T. Kova

I’ve read the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold over 12 years ago and have recommended it to all my friends, some of whom took me up on it and loved it as well. This series is actually what got me back into reading after a long dry spell, where I would maybe read a book a year for school, maybe. What’s even more remarkable is that I read them in Russian. My reading speed in Russian was abhorrent, in the start of the series I think I read about 15 pages an hour, but the books were interesting enough…

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