Book

If anything could be called a seminal work, it would be Alfred Bester's "The Stars, My Destination". Published in book form in 1956 and written well before that, it's an intriguing read after all this time. While the flow and logic can be a little stuttered in spots, allowing for the age of the novel, the leaps in imagination are singularly amazing.

Read this before you die :) I would rate this only three stars lower if it had been written today.

The Wise Man's Fear is the sequel to Patrick Rothfuss' enjoyable The Name of the Wind, and it's a good 'un. While the flaws notes in the first book are still present in this work, the plot and flow are far smoother. But what makes the difference in book two is the level of imagination which, in some places, is absolutely riveting. The world of the Fae and the Ademre is just the kind of thing I like to soak my brain in.

Lois McMaster Bujold is one of my favourite authors (authoresses sounds rather dodgy, no?) of all time. While she is better known for her Vorkosigan saga, a very popular sci-fi, space opera-ish series, I was completely enchanted by her foray into fantasy, which yielded the excellent Chalion series.

I've just finished reading Tom Clancy's The Teeth Of The Tiger. The story, set in Ryanverse, involves Jack Ryan's son - Jack Ryan Jr. - and two of his nephews - Dominic and Brian Caruso, who are recruited to be part of an off-the-books outfit (set up by Ryan Sr. when he was president) named "The Campus".

I just finished reading Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, thanks to whoever OCR'd it. The book itself, is not bad compared to the rest of the series. However, just as anybody who is aware of my opinions on this subject will attest, J. K. Rowling, while an authoress with a admirable imagination, is just not very good at writing.

I've just finished reading Old Man's War by John Scalzi - a science fiction novel in a similar vein to Joe Haldeman's Forever War.

I reread this book by Ursula K. Le Guin—one of my favourite authors—last week. What I have always loved about the Earthsea universe has been its atmosphere. It carries a serenity that is rarely found elsewhere; the only candidate I can think of immediately are the anime, Mushishi and Kino no Tabi.

The story is simple, the characters few, and the flow excellent. Highly recommended.

Patrick Rothfuss' Name of the Wind is a pretty entertaining fantasy novel. It has all the usual ingredients for success: a young boy-hero gifted in magic, a quick thinker, and a general rags-to-riches storyline. Add in a school/university setting and more underdog-ness, and you wonder if the author made up a list of attributes in best-selling fantasy novels and decided to blend them all in for a sure-fire milkshake of success. There is also more than a little bit of Le Guin's Earthsea universe sprinkled throughout Rothfuss' effort.

Feist's latest release—A Crown Imperilled—is just as fast-paced as most of his other works. It is also, to a degree, less stilted than books from his last couple of series. However, it suffers from many of the usual Feistian flaws of clichés, lack of flow, and general par-ness. I will nevertheless continue feeding my masochistic streak by reading everything he writes as he milks Midkemia for what it's worth.

Ah! The joys of reading a well-written spy thriller. TTSS shows that it's not really the James Bonds that keep the world running, but the 'M's. The story is loosely based on Kim Philby and the Cambridge Five who were contemporaries of the author, John Le Carré as a member of MI6.