Michael Mersault did a much better job in The Silent Hand that in the previous book of the series. Character development, world building, pacing, action, writing, everything is better. It's not perfect, but by the end of the book I despaired the third book is not available yet. Hopefully I will remember to read it when it does get published.

  Anyway, I believe the author planned to place Inga front and center, while Saef was going to take a more minor role. However you can't do that when your lead is the right hand of the guy, so we got flashbacks. A lot of them. I wasn't bothered that much, because I wanted to know where Inga came from and to see more of the world that Mersault created. Still, all that backstory ate from the actual story, which made the book feel at the same time too long and too short. Just when things were getting fun, the book ended.

  Bottom line, I am curious how this will all turn out, yet at the rate at which things are being revealed, I don't know how Mersault will be able to tie it all up in just one more book.

  There is a type of sci-fi that I will probably never hate, even if it's corny as hell, and that's space opera. Spaceships, interesting yet cliché characters, military honor, strong men, sexy women, that kind of stuff. Yet, having just read another underwhelming military space opera, I was not happy to start reading The Deep Man, as I thought it would be more of the same. Maybe less. I mean, it started with a human space empire, nobility families bound by honor, space navies and so on, but focused so much on the various aristocratic rituals in the beginning that I thought it's going to be just as average, only more boring.

  But as I was reading the book I started to warm up to the it and the writing also improved, becoming more focused on action, story and character development. I enjoyed it enough that I immediately started looking for the sequel - which is not easy, because apparently no one heard of this. Let's face it, it's a fun book, nothing great, but it reminded me of David Feintuch and a little of Herbert by some of the ideas inside.

  What I didn't like was the title. It refers to a sort of psychic conditioning of nobles to find "the real man" inside them, kind of like the Gom Jabbar trial in Dune. So when I saw that, I was really looking forward to some form of exploration of the strength of will and identity. Only most of the book is not about that at all, so the title felt misleading. Also it started slowly enough that I almost didn't want to continue reading.

  Some interesting ideas in the book, though, barely touched upon yet. Already mentioned the Deep Man, but also the system of government divides the population into full citizens and demi-citizens. The full citizens have to pass some tests and fulfil some conditions to demonstrate they can take responsibility for their actions and shoulder the risks of true freedom. The demi-citizens are not slaves or anything, they are just protected by the state from themselves and others. For example two citizens can declare a duel and fight to the death for some perceived honor slight, yet a citizen cannot harm a demi-citizen. Same for drugs or anything that might be perceived as dangerous or risky.

  I found the idea fascinating. Basically what we now do with minors, only just passing a certain age is not the (only) requirement. Conversely, it is taken for granted that a citizen is fully responsible for their actions, but also more free to take them because of it. And it's not just empty elitism I am taking about, because the book also explores the abuses and decadent aristocratic corruption that comes from it. If you think about it, isn't the same with society now? Adults being complacent, corrupt and uncaring while holding all the power and kids ineffectual protesters against a world they don't yet fully understand?

  Michael Mersault is a competent writer and I felt I knew where his influences for this book came from - and I approve. This is one of those books that you read for fun, but it hides some unexpected depth from place to place and I enjoyed that.

  The Cruel Stars is a typical military space adventure, complete with reluctant military commanders, gruff retired Scottish admirals speaking with an accent, space pirates, space royalty and nobility, princesses, space Nazis, snarky AIs and criminals with hearts of gold. It's the first of a series, naturally, which means that even if you enjoy it, you will not feel you've reached the end of the story.

  John Birmingham's writing is competent, without being anything special. The plot is bit inconsistent technically, though, with technology that sounds futuristic, but is basically what we have now with whistles and bells, and which is used differently depending on what the story requires. The world building is minimal, with some hints on how the different human empires work, but no details.

  Also, no aliens, yet. The book starts with hints of an old and nebulous threat to humanity, that one assumes some exotic alien race, but it's quickly revealed to be an AI phobic and race purist republic of humans.

  The book was good for a palate cleanser, although it was a bit too long for my taste, and as fun as it was, I won't be continuing to read the series. It's space pulp, basically.

  Black Leopard, Red Wolf is a really good work of writing. Maybe sometimes inconsistent, like Marlon James wrote different parts of the story, then stitched them together, but it is a huge book with a lot of archetypal African tribal mythology, a lot of symbolism that probably flew over my head and complex world with interesting magic and creatures and vibrant characters.

  At first I was a little annoyed. The main character is this African boy who becomes a man. He's always boasting and challenging people in this strange literary kind of Black English and he's also sexually weird... I didn't know where it was going. But in my head I was imagining this annoying little kid from the Galvanize video Krumping around. I don't have anything about Black folk, but I am triggered by loud mouth assholes.

  And then it hit me. This is like an African Conan the Barbarian. Only it never bothered me when it was Arnold in a Dark Ages kind of setting and speaking Austrian English. Am I racist? I didn't think so. Anyway, the character never actually grew on me. I followed his journey with great interest, but he remained annoying through sheer will power :) 

  What I loved was the world. A lot of cities and tribes and witches and ways of looking at life. It felt like Iron John, but written by a Jamaican Lev Grossman, A lot of archetypes who make the hero grow. Sometimes the opposite. Not a typical hero's journey and always surprising, which makes me consider reading the whole series, but I also felt it took me a looong time to finish the book and I am not sure I want to invest that kind of time in the continuation of the trilogy.

  Bottom line: this takes some effort, but it's worth it. I feel it was the most different book I've read in quite a while. I don't know if I am going to read the next books, though.

  Metamorph is a fun little book that doesn't seem written in 2016 at all. It features what are basically fearless space pirates with a heart of gold, energetic young people living their lives to the fullest and even some romantic tension between a man and a woman who mutually appreciate each other. The technology is basic, the politics and the portrayal of alien contact are naive and overall it's all a hopeful lively adventure that throws back to the age of Star Trek Deep Space 9 or maybe Firefly. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if this book was a repurposed DS9 fan fiction draft.

  Chris Reher is a decent writer, I can't complain. The characters are quite basic, though, they only reveal themselves through their actions and occasional thoughts, so you either like them or ignore them. Luckily, no flashbacks in the book, which is a relief. Better to have cardboard characters than flesh them out with past histories no one cares about.

  The plot is classic space adventure: aliens, pew pew, clumsy plots in barely built worlds, a lot of action. I realize that when I write it like that it doesn't feel like I endorse it, but it was actually a pleasant read. It wasn't great, though, by any means. It's pulp: if you go in without expectations you're going to have a good time.

  Bottom line: when the book ended, I kind of wanted more, like a light sci-fi series that I am curious to continue watching, even if it's not great. I probably won't, I have too many books in my list, but maybe give it a try when you don't feel like a book that requires effort to read.

  I am not a big Friends fan. I mean, I know of the show, who doesn't, but I never got into it. Likewise with any Matthew Perry movies: maybe fun, but not memorable. You can then induce that I didn't know about his personal life or his addiction issues either and you would be right. Therefore when reading Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, I was just a guy reading what another guy had to say about his life. And it was brutal, I kid you not, but it wasn't that much fun.

  Coming from a self proclaimed funny guy, the book is very serious and direct. It focuses primarily on an honest depiction of his inner demons and the alcohol and drug addiction plaguing him. It goes through successful TV series, movies and celebrity relationships almost like they're afterthoughts in the big terrible story of his need for attention and drugs. I understand why one won't joke and jest about something so terrifying and personal, but it makes for a rather insipid reading.

  That's why I personally liked the book, appreciating Matthew's honesty and openness a lot, but I didn't love it.

  I guess not knowing anything about the guy also made me oblivious of the fact that he had died, of ketamine overdose, just a year after he published this book. One quote stuck with me: "I was never suicidal [...] But, if dying was a consequence of getting to take the quantity of drugs I needed, then death was something I was going to have to accept."

  I've read Nature's Nether Regions, a book about penises, a while ago. It was funny, well documented and, most of all, entirely about male reproductive organs. So I thought I would read a book about butts and have just as much fun, right?

  Wrong. Butts, A Backstory is written by Heather Radke, a feminist writer using the idea of the butt, in her mind specifically the buttocks of the human female, as a pretext to explore the gender and racial context of history and her book has almost nothing to do with asses.

  Not only was I not interested in the subject, but the bait and switch angered me. How come all of these brilliant liberal writers who write just one book in their whole career need to trick readers to even start consuming their work? Is it maybe that their uncreative over serious surfing of the outrage zeitgeist is ultimately unfulfilling? That when the five minutes of "OMG, I can't believe they got away with that!" end, most people realize they either won't do anything about it, thus becoming part of the problem, or that their rage is just as impotent as any other of their emotions? Because I hate these overhyped books that say nothing and even when they do, they do it badly, yet no one seems to do anything about it, because how can you go against social agendas, regardless of how badly written?

  There, you've got my outrage! DNF!

  I finished Wind and Truth as quickly as I could... because I just didn't care. This book was something that I almost disliked, despite the great writing and smart ideas. Most of the many many characters I didn't care about or even remember that much and the ones that I did like were doing stuff that had little entertainment value. Even the big storylines make no literary sense if you think about it. What was that, Brandon Sanderson?

  From the reviews of the previous four books, I think the first and the third were the best. With such a disappointing fifth entry (in a series of ten!) I wonder if it makes any sense to invest in the story and characters for the next ten to twenty years.

  In this book, the worse symptoms of modern American writing rear their ugly heads. First, the all connected cinematic universe, just for the sake of it, the Cosmere, a concept that I hate with all my heart. How does a great writer like Sanderson not understand how limiting it will become? Second, the psychotherapy angle becoming part of a story. Listen, man, if I wanted to confront my inner drives and contemplate my emotions I wouldn't read fantasy stories, OK? And still, if I did and still read fantasy stories, I wouldn't want my main character go unto a pointless side quest doing therapy to other heroes. Any emotional trauma can be solved with a big big sword! Third, the noble family, where everybody is related to everybody, at least through adoption and alliance if not blood, and they all get special powers - as if high birth and implausible situations bestowing them with power were just a natural evolution of such special individuals. I am starting to get where Moash is coming from, now. And fourth, new magical mechanisms that no one knew about or cares much about, coming out exactly when the story needs them, like Dragonball level ups.

  As for the story I can't tell much about it without spoiling it. There is a deadline and everybody is doing their own thing until that deadline, some are ignoring it, some are actively influencing events, even if they shouldn't be allowed to and a lot of the stuff they are doing is just... pointless. Even in the eventuality they succeed, nothing much is changed. This is a book about McGuffins.

  And then there is the ending, which pretty much says "whatever you liked in the books so far, the next five books will be completely different". What's the point of announcing a ten book series, then, if you're going to split it into two five book series that have little in common?

  Bottom line: I waited four years for this. I am not happy. At this point I can't even say I am angry or anything, just severely disappointed. There is no bang, just whimpers.

  The true meaning of science is to examine who we are, where are are coming from and where we are going. In Cosmosapiens: Human Evolution from the Origin of the Universe, John Hands examines the state of scientific knowledge on these matters and finds it lacking.

  It's not like we don't have ideas of what the universe is and where it came from, but we cling to the "orthodox" belief in some theory or conjecture rather than use the scientific method to examine evidence and refine our understanding. The modern trend of financing research only in the largely accepted knowledge areas doesn't help.

  John Hands argues that regardless what the truth is, evidence should drive our choice of theoretical hypotheses and not dogma. Alas, monkeys be monkeys and science monkeys will also be monkeys. More often than not, only currently accepted theory research is funded and dissenting views are socially ostracized.

  The biggest problem with Cosmosapiens is its length. John Hands could have stopped at any time, wrote four books with the same material, but instead he insisted on covering cosmology, evolution, consciousness, artificial intelligence in a single book. That makes his material repetitive and feeling, ironically, dogmatic.

  I just talked to a friend about this book and he felt strongly that the book was about intelligent design and creationism. I don't agree. Hands made a huge effort of cataloguing the various theories, both accepted and ridiculed, exposing at every step the agreeing and disagreeing evidence towards every one of them.

  The author decries the dogmatic resistance to any new ideas, the false certainty with which orthodox belief is presented as absolute truth: the Big Bang, Darwinian and neo-Darwinian evolution, the nature of consciousness and so on. Theories are supposedly falsifiable, but so much of the fundamental underpinnings of modern science are just unfalsifiable conjectures.

  Moreover, the complexity of the universe is simplified to absurd levels in theoretical research, using Occam's Razor as another dogmatic constraint of what we can imagine the universe to be. In reality, the universe, life and everything has a much more complex dynamic, where intricately small networks lead to emergent behavior that can't be explained by simplistic models.

  Bottom line: science should be carried on scientific principles, not egomaniacal or dogmatic tribalism. We might not know the exact answer to how the universe, our solar system, our planet or life on Earth started, but we owe it to ourselves to be honest about it and carry on with seeking the answers while honestly accepting what we know and what we don't know.

  John Higgs is a fool. Well educated and researched, but a fool nonetheless. In The Future Starts Here: An Optimistic Guide to What Comes Next he attempts to portray an optimistic vision of the future, but comes off as unconvinced himself. The main chapters of the book feel separated and often contradict each other. And that's sad, because some of the information and ideas presented are really interesting.

  You've seen this type of book before: it starts with research and interviews, then it's compiled into a documentary style narrative that is skewed towards a particular idea. This one is trying to say that the future is not as bleak as we make it out to be, that technology has the potential to enrich our lives if we are careful with what we choose to do with it, that the environment has the potential to recover and thrive if we choose to be mindful of it, that we can escape the trappings of the capitalist mediated dystopia that everybody delights in being terrified of and that young generations of people are trending towards empathy and awareness. You get the gist: things will be better if we make them so, even if the author himself seems to lose faith in humanity as a whole a lot of the times.

  The problem arises when Higgs starts contradicting himself or using some really cherry-picked examples that he doesn't often understand. The first chapter tells of how we can't build a bright future without imagining it and that media today is biased strongly towards the negative, including fiction with its many dystopian visions. We should be focused on truth and hope. A strong start. But then he starts talking about artificial intelligence, of which he understands little, showing a strong humanistic bias and bringing Penrose's quantum microtubules intelligence as a hopeful argument, obliterating his previous points.

  He talks about the neurological effects of stuff like watching the (terrible and uninformative) news, using social media and being exposed to advertising, how it changes us in ways I didn't think of before. Strong chapter. Until he starts talking about how individualism is bad and the new youngster trend of seeing each other as part of a network is the hopeful future. Only "network" and "friendship group" are just modern terms for "tribe", yet another way in which social interaction and belonging uses the same oxytocin mechanism he described in detail and warned about just a chapter before.

  Then he goes on and on about how the new generations - which he blissfully describes from a purely Western liberal perspective, ignoring all of the silent unmediated youngsters he forgets exist - are focused on emotional well being, awareness of their environment, capable of holding multiple contradicting ideas in their head and using the one that works best, like that's something new and positive. But then he talks of how intransigent these new hopefuls are with any ideas that are not about emotional well being, environment awareness or contradicting the handful of ideas they use to shield themselves from actual truth. And then, to top it off, speaks highly of the Greatest Generation and hopes this new one, coming from the 2008 economic crisis, will be similarly practical and emotionally grounded.

  But it's the ending that makes it all feel very funny. Funnier than a book about an optimistic future published early 2019, that is. The author concludes that people find meaning in their immediate unmediated interactions with other people and reveals that, in writing this book, he "experimented" by only presenting information from people he personally knows and met. He wanted to test the idea that your direct connections are more meaningful than any exhaustive research through impersonal papers or news items.

  Bottom line, he artificially constrained himself in a bubble, wrote several small papers on various future related subjects, then bundled them all in a book that manages to contradict itself about almost every major point made.

However, to focus on truth and hope, there is a way to enjoy this book in the spirit it was written in. You have to consider it as a conversation with a random guy. You don't have expectations of journalistic objectivity and scientific research when you talk to other people. You take what they say with a grain of salt, you pick and choose which parts of their discourse is interesting, useful or entertaining, and you have a pleasant time. If you do that with this book, you can learn some really interesting tidbits from what is basically a guy rambling.

  If I had to use one word to describe Three Axes to Fall it would be: lazy. The title is lazy, as it has no connection to the content. It only gets worse from there. The characterization is lazy, the same repetition used ... repeatedly... to convey emotional depth, the random characters doing random stuff just in the nick of time, the relationships started haphazardly and ended stupidly or not at all the inept enemies that have a lot of power and do nothing with it except boast and bluster, even the book cover is lazy. But the worst part is Sam Sykes was too lazy to finish the story or even remember why he started it.

  Remember Sal? The woman so brutally betrayed that she wants to burn the world to get revenge? Sam doesn't. In the first book she was an angry, driven, asshole who could spare no quarter for anything that wouldn't further her deadly goals. I liked her then. She was smart and surprisingly funny. In the second book she was turned for no actual reason from an anti hero to a tragic hero, a repentant protector who kills tens of people with her sword in a single fight and still keeps running. In this third book she is a tired, exhausted, fleeing person who thinks about things, reflects a lot and whines the entire book, until she forgets who she is and stumbles into being a messianic savior surrounded by a fast and furious family.

  Now imagine John Wick, hunting for the people who killed his dog, the only living thing reminding him of his dead wife, and then somehow deciding he wants to do something else and start a hobby, finding forgiveness in his heart. It's almost that bad. I could have forgiven (heh!) this book if it were half as short and ended prematurely because the writer died. But no, it's just a lazy, half-assed non-ending that leads to nothing except a long final chapter in which people part ways smiling wisely and wearily after doing fuck all the entire book.

  You want to know what happened to her magic? Nope. You wondered why her list grew from what seemed like a short one in the first book to more than thirty names? Nope. You frustrated she barely started on that list before she let it go? Who cares? How about the frenemies she made, who grew along with her trying to kill her, like Velline and Tretta? Nah! Want to know where the gun gets its bullets anymore when Liette is not around? Bah! This goes on and on and on.

  Bottom line: a captivating book lost its way in the sequel and collapsed in the third, with no meaningful closure or payoff for reading through 2500 pages of story.

  The first book in the Grave of Empires series felt refreshing. A new magical steam punk world, an interesting roguish hero and entertaining fantasy adventures. I needed that, for some reason. Yet reading the second book, Ten Arrows of Iron, filled me with disappointment. It's not a bad book by itself, it's just so much less good than the first.

  First of all, it's basically a heist story, a genre that I despise with all my heart. But even without that, it's inconsistent, repetitive, lazy. There are even some scenes where Sal oscillates between having no weapons, using a sword and an axe that she lost in a previous scene. A lot more characters have been added, while the ones in the first book were eliminated or sidelined, yet all of these new characters are almost cardboard, doing stuff that's in their character sheet, but for reasons often not consistent with previous behavior and that feel artificial.

  Yes, the scope of the battles is huge, the threats are cosmic, the body count horrendous, the romantic angles multiplied and pumped up, but I felt almost nothing as Sal just went through the motions, one moment hurt and exhausted, the next killing hundreds of people with a sword and a gun, the next flirting with the people who want to kill her. The writing is using the same formulas that worked in the first book, but repeated again and again, until they lose their strength. And so many things just happen because they have to happen. The last scene, where she randomly finds a guy in a tent on the road she was randomly travelling on was soo bad!

  But I feel the worst transgression was that Sam Sykes changed the character of Sal the Cacophony from a damaged person seeking revenge at all costs to an anti-hero, who is kind and thoughtful and ultimately good, only misunderstood while she kills whole communities. I had no need of that. The original single-minded character who sometimes did something good by mistake was enough for me.

  Bottom line is that I hope the character can be salvaged in the third book, but I fear it might not happen. Falling in love with your own character is a sure way to ruin them.

  One day Sam Sykes woke up and said to Diana Gabaldon: "Mom! I can write a lot of huge fantasy books, too!". I like his writing, so this is good, but Seven Blades in Black, the first book in the Grave of Empires series, is a 700 page book, which is bad. It was a very entertaining and captivating story, which is good, but it ended 90% there, which is bad. Still less than the 850 pages of the first Outlander book, which is good. Just wanted to end things on a good note, so that it will never be said that Siderite is not graciously optimistic. And handsome.

  Weird paragraph? That's kind of the vibe of the book. The story is about a mysterious bounty hunter with a strange magical gun, who is looking for seven mages to kill. As the story progresses we get world building, action, magic, death, friendship, romance and a slow explanation of what the hell this was all about. Since it's one of those books where the main character is telling her story to another character, it's written in the first person, which gives it a bit more humor, as Sal is both cocky and possibly an unreliable narrator. I did get a bit of The Usual Suspects while reading, but it's not quite like that.

  I liked the story, I liked the world, with the two magical vs technological groups that both boldly claim to fight for peace and stability while destroying everything in their path with their pointless battles. I thought the romantic angles were kind of strained, to be honest. The ending is almost satisfying, but it ends on a weird vibe, with still some stuff to be resolved. It felt like an artificial cliffhanger: read my next book! Funny thing is that it worked. I plan to read the next book in the series next, but it's going to hurt my rating of the book.

  Bottom line: if you like the classic likeable rogue trope, the grandiose adventures and fast action in an almost steampunk world that is both alien and similar to our own, then you will like this.

  In The Horror from the Hills - which is quite a silly name, because not much happens on the hills to begin with - an archeologist brings back to America the statue of an ancient malevolent god. Well, it doesn't bode well, I can tell you that. It's published in 1963, but it feels written decades earlier. I thought maybe it was an artistic choice, but no, it was actually published prior in 1931 in a serialized form. In Weird Tales! Remember those?

  A Lovecraftian story, it features the usual high class gentlemen whose passion is knowledge and science, talking very convincingly in archaic pompous terms and being very sensitive to how things ought to be and are not. They kind of bring a sleeping god in the U.S. and, feeling bad about it, strive to save the world. It made me feel nostalgic for the eras where science and rational thought would solve problems in stories. Well, they do solve it with a death ray, basically a sci-fi bazooka, but Frank Belknap Long is an American author, so it tracks.

  Did I like the book? It was strange, like Lovecraftian mythos books usually are, but also weirdly progressive. There is an entire scene where a policeman explains how he is going to solve the crime by finding a Chinaman, spewing all kinds of ridiculously false preconceptions that the main character is disgusted with. And while people are often repulsed, offended or otherwise unwilling to put horrible things into words, the book just feels old, not laughable.

  Funny enough, apparently this is an H.P.Lovecraft story, or rather a dream that he recounted to Long, which then published it with Lovecraft's permission almost word for word. Poor Frank wrote all kinds of stuff for decades, but what he is most known for are short stories in the Lovecraft universe. I do not mind that, to be honest.

  Bottom line: a fine short story to bring you back to an age where things were very different and remind you that whatever nonsense bothers you today, it shall pass like all things do.

  I almost gave up on We Sold Our Souls after falling asleep a few times on it, but I pushed through and I am happy I did. It reminded me of Tim Powers' Last Call, but being more straightforward. In a way it's also a last call to  wake up, be human and don't buy into the dullness taking over the world.

  Grady Hendrix does a good job generating the feeling of a doomed world in which nothing seems to matter anymore to anyone and in which the only salvation can come through raw creativity, also known as metal music. The book starts kind of slow and then does something explosive, then gets to some parts that are hard to understand, then goes back into something slightly unexpected. It's inconsistent that way, perhaps following the riffs of metal. The character of J.D. for example, seems to pop up out of nowhere, knowing more than he should and doing stuff just because the plot needs it. Or sometimes our heroine evades notice with ease only to fall into a crowd of perfectly coordinated people wanting to kill her. But if you push through the book, it provides quite a few nice surprises. Once I got into its rhythm, I couldn't put it down.

  You can consider this a metal modern version of a fantasy quest. The hero needs to get somewhere and do something to save the world, while the forces of good and evil are swirling around them. There is a lot of music lore in the book, but not so much as to become oppressive or intrusive. I found it amazing that the author wrote lyrics for the fictional Troglodyte album. Or is it fictional?

  The ending is... not as satisfying as I expected, with many things remaining vague. But that's OK, as most of the book is metaphorical.

  Bottom line is that I liked the book, but it could have been better.