At around a thousand pages this was a big book, but despite some embarrassingly bad dialogue and a lot of overly-horny people it was a pretty good reading experience.

I often talk about world -building – this book ups the scale quite a bit to universe building, and does a fantastic job introducing us to a wide and diverse bunch of planets. Part of the reason the book is so long is that the author really takes the time to sketch out the details of each place, to understand how it fits into the Commonwealth of planets that form the background for the story. It takes a lot of imagination to come up with a whole planet and biome, let alone 20 or 30 of them.

The science fiction here fits the definition of epic – I really loved how it zooms in and out of different places and situations. Some scenes were thrilling – for example the attack of the Alamo Avengers on the shipbuilding facility. It played off like an action scene out of a heist movie – so good.

I touched on the dialogue being on the corny side – although this wasn’t all the way through the book. Some characters just sounded bad. Ozzie, who had a truly boring point of view thread going through the whole book was particularly awful. His POV was the one that I ended up skimming as I did not really care about what he was up to – and I am still not sure what it contributed to the overall plot of the book.

Unfortunately the book ends on a cliffhanger, and I would have liked a little bit more resolution before we have to dive into another thousand page novel. One little hint inside this book seems to telegraph the downfall of the alien villains – I would have liked that to be a little more subtle, but I don’t know the actual ending yet so I can’t tell if I am right or not.

Speaking of the aliens, the (rather long) point of view chapter of the development of the alien race on the Dyson planet was really interesting. The writer really handled that well and I would like to read more like this – it reminded me of Adrian Tchaikovsky’s writing on spider development in Children of Time.

So, great book with a few reservations. I need to take a little break from the genre but I want to come back to this before I forget all the details. A few more books and I’ll come back to read the sequel.

Next I am reading Flashlight by Susan Choi.

I have read a few of the author’s books, most of which I have enjoyed. This one was sort of along the same vein as his other work, but to me the style of the book was a gamble that did not pay off.

Maybe it was the tone of the writing. It is very clever and full of witty quips. The humor runs throughout the book but it is also balanced with parables and symbolism. My issue was these were a little heavy-handed.

The idea of a robot becoming self-aware seems like it has been pretty well covered in other books. I think where this one was aiming was a humorous take on the issue, but for me it somehow didn’t land well. The Murderbot series did it much better (and more efficiently).

I enjoyed the adventure of the story, and the humor mostly was well done. The spooky post-apocalyptic world was really interesting as a setting. But as an overall piece of work I thought it could have been a little more subtle in its messages.

Seems like this book may continue as a series, but for me I think I had enough of the character and the world that they live in.

Next I am reading Pandora’s Star by Peter F. Hamilton.

When I heard that the author spent about 20 years writing this book I immediately thought to myself, “that makes sense…” At first I didn’t realize just how much I was going to like the book. It started off with some scenes from India and New York, and then the author starts laying down the ends of some threads that would take a very long time to reach the end of. This was a very ambitious book, full of thoughts and opinions and beautifully written descriptions and imagery.

I don’t know a lot about Indian culture, but there is enough here to really feel like you are living in it. It was a bit shocking – the author is speaking about individual characters as well as the national character. She does not pull punches and I am sure that some Indian people might feel a little offended. The author delves deep into the psyche of Indians – what makes them tick?

I especially loved the way things were illustrated in the book through language. Paragraphs dripped with images that must have taken a long time to craft.

The author managed to find time to address a lot of issues in this book: life as an expat, filial responsibility, the key to sharing recipes between families, the power and purpose of art, how people can be handcuffed by their culture, and where kebabs really come from. I found myself highlighting passages at about triple the rate I highlight other books.

It was a very long book but I was so glad to read it. Sometimes I had trouble keeping track of the characters, but mainly that was on me, because I wasn’t used to Indian names (and some of them are similar). The author doesn’t shy away from using local language as you would expect the characters to do – so I spent a while online tracking down what this and that was.

Really a great book – one of the best of this year so far. Next I am reading Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

When I lived in San Diego a long time ago I sometimes met my grandparents’ friends, Bob and Jeane Wade. They were a really friendly, talkative couple, older like my grandparents and although I didn’t have much in common with them they were fun to listen to. I remember seeing a movie poster in their study – Kitten With A Whip – and hearing from my grandfather that the movie was based on one of his books.

Years later I figured I would track down Bob’s book, and ended up learning that he wrote as part of team under the pen name “Whit Masterson”, and later on his own after his writing partner passed away. I was able to find this book (also made into a movie), and I enjoyed reading it.

The book is pretty wholesome despite being a crime mystery – a guy gets blown up within the first few minutes of the story. But it is set in the 1950s, and the idea that a police officer could be anything but a good cop is so far out that it forms a twist in the story.

I liked the book, plenty of logic and the dialogue reminded me of an earlier time that I saw mainly through old movies when I was a kid. I plan to read more if I can find the books – it is much more interesting to read when you know who was writing it.

Next I am reading The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai.

Documenting history is clearly a difficult task. What gets into the history book and is taken for fact can be anywhere from zero to one hundred percent wrong. This book takes us a hundred years in the future to look back at a key moment in time from 2014. So of course you have to know going in that what we think in that future time will probably diverge from the truth.

Knowing this means that it sort of spoiled the twist for me. From the start we can kind of see what will happen, despite the author’s attempts to bury us with red herrings and “historical” details of how the world went to shit in the past hundred years.

The first portion of the book (in the future) goes back and gives us an incredible amount of detail into what a researcher thinks happened around this key event, and we learn how obsessed he is. But I think all the effort we put into reading this didn’t quite pay off at the end.

It is an interesting idea for a book – the storyline and approach are unique and we can feel the tension building up as we wonder what is really true (and whether we will actually find out by the end of the book). The writing is quite good – especially the poetry and descriptions of nature. Little hints are planted here and there that will only be found upon reading the end of the book – I liked this attention to detail.

Although the author really lays on the exposition to lead us through history I did like seeing how these events changed the lifestyle of the people remaining in that distant future, and I wish there was more time spent on showing it – but that would make the book a little too SciFi, I guess.

Next I am reading Badge of Evil by Whit Masterson.

Not as good as the first book (but then aren’t most origin stories more interesting?) but still not a bad effort. Most of the same elements are here, and it again gave me vibes of Reacher, but also some flashes of Spenser, especially A Catskill Eagle.

Maybe I didn’t enjoy this as much as the first because the main character is for the most part a lone wolf, and that deprives us of the dialog between allies that makes Spenser and Hawk so engaging as protagonists.

The pacing of the book also felt less fluid – there are several big sections and the connections between them were a little abrupt.

But these were entertaining books to read and I am looking forward to the next book in the series.

My next read is What We Can Know by Ian McEwan.

I used to read a lot of Jack Reacher books by Lee Child (sometimes I still do) but the shtick got old after awhile. Blowing into some small town, get hassled by someone who is abusive of their power, and then getting epic payback from the guy who just wanted a hamburger – the same story slightly modified.

This book contains a better Reacher – of course there is sudden (extreme) violence, and a tough, quiet character, and the theme of being underestimated. But the writing of this book goes just a little deeper and covers a bit more psychological territory.

The plot is quite simple and the pacing is excellent, moving along quickly so you have a hard time taking a break from the book. My favorite element was the main character’s sense of humor – dry, sharp, and he doesn’t really care if you get the joke or not.

On the downside it is not really a believable situation – this is fiction, after all – and the violence is pretty graphic sometimes. But I’m willing to forgive these to enjoy a little something new from the lone wolf drifter genre.

As a start to a series it was quite good, and since the second book was available at the library I am jumping right into Hard Town by Adam Plantinga.

Not much suspense, not any science, and it certainly takes its time to belabor points. But I still enjoyed this book – over 200 years old – and found it surprisingly readable.

Going in I didn’t really have any ideas other than the black and white movies and Young Frankenstein from Mel Brooks. The book takes place in a simpler time, with obviously wealthy and upper class people struggle with big issues of what to study and how they will wile away their time. There are some bigger issues, though, especially on the weight of guilt and the burdens of humanity and what we may owe our “creator”.

The biggest surprise for me was how much of it was focused on travel, and it was sort of like travel writing as it described character’s slow progress through exotic landscapes – from Switzerland to England and towards the North Pole. They name drop India and other eastern countries (calling them oriental), and spend loads of time making social calls and presenting letters of introduction.

But the monster that Frankenstein creates is the focal point of the book and most of the text deals with seeing things from his point of view and contrasting it with “regular” people.

I wish that the writer could have had a bit more surprise – they have the tendency to telegraph future events which is sort of anticlimactic. With some judicious editing it could be enjoyed more I think – and later I understand another version was released that cleaned things up a bit. But I thought reading the original might be more interesting – and it certainly was worth the time.

Next I am reading The Ascent by Adam Plantinga.

It has been a while since I have read some fantasy and since this series has five (and counting) books in the series I gave it a shot.

Starting off with a small, localized but dark incident we are led slowly into a much bigger world. The world dreamt up by the author is well-rendered, and I like books like this that have a lot of world-building to show the scale that we are dealing with. Unfortunately when there is a big world to build (and explain) it puts a big weight on the author’s shoulders to avoid just telling it all. This author had some creative ways to try to split it up (including a clever song for the young ones of a village) but in the end we had to sit through a lot of exposition.

The best part of the book is one of the dangers that the characters face – every night demons rise from the ground and promptly chew up any available people into bloody bits. The only ones who are safe are those in places protected by “wards”, characters carved into surfaces that create a barrier against the demons that they can never break. So this builds up the tension as the day passes. I thought the writer could build on this tension a little more – but sometimes it feels like the characters completely forget about it, like in a 80s horror movie.

The characters are pretty simple – so simple that I thought maybe I was reading a young adult book. However one particular scene towards the end of the book involving sexual assault made it clear that this book isn’t really for kids.

And unfortunately the ending felt like an episode of The A-Team, with our powerful heroes helping a rag-tag bunch of villagers rise up against their tormentors… ugh.

But for the imaginative world and the unique tension of each deadly nightfall I was able to finish the book. Not sure I’d recommend it, however.

Next I am reading Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.

The story of how a food writer and her husband opened up a pizza restaurant in Seattle – and how it affected their relationship. I’m not sure I was the target audience of this book – sure, I love food and pizza, too. But I think anyone who is considering opening a restaurant (or working at one) would find this book useful. There are a lot of details about setting up the restaurant: dreaming up the idea, finding the location, purchasing equipment, inspections, and opening night. All of this really reminded me why I enjoy cooking at home and would never want to do it professionally.

The story is interspersed with recipes and the author points out that the food of the restaurant isn’t really what they ate – they saved the good stuff for the paying customers. The recipes were foods that they love to eat, usually simple and it sounded like food that we often make at home for ourselves.

The author’s style is often with humor, but for me the jokes didn’t always land well. However the writer was super honest about how they felt at each stage of the process, and how those feelings changed over time. I especially liked their ideas about what makes a restaurant feel cozy – and what makes a group of restaurant workers comfortable working there.

But most of all I felt like the entire book was sort of a big thank you note – to all the people who helped get their restaurant started, and to the key people that pitched in along the way. A quick check online after I finished the book found that the restaurant is still open, the pizza chef husband of the author is now an ex-husband but still running restaurants, and the author is dealing with a sexual identity shift and a new life with someone else. But as a snapshot of an adventure in their lives, this was an entertaining book.

Next I am reading The Warded Man by Peter V. Brett.

Yikes – an entire book on taxes! This was really a well-written book, focused on educating the reader and offering some potentially ominous tidings for the future of the USA. Time to invest in guillotines?

Considering the topic it was remarkably easy to read, and the author was kind enough to provide real-life examples at just the right times. But it was also being constantly sort of shocked about what people with wealth can get away with, and shocking what people without let them do.

Thanks to this book I could really understand the difference between earning money and having money – and this difference is huge when it comes to the US tax code. The tax-avoidance strategy of the wealthy (buy/borrow/die) nicely sums up some rather complex and unintuitive truths that allow the wealthy to become more so.

Wisely the author put most of the long history of tax code avoidance in the middle rather than leading us through it in the beginning. Still, that part was a little hard to get through, as it seemed to me like water under the bridge and fodder for only the morbidly curious.

I’m glad I read this book – especially contrasting it with the tax system of Japan. And I suppose we’ll see how far the current system in America can limp along before something drastic occurs.

Next I am reading Delancey by Molly Wizenberg.

Here is a classic travel book that I finally got around to reading. After I finished the book I read through the foreword (I usually save these for afterwards) and they described this author’s use of “lush language”. That puts it perfectly.

The author describes his walk from the countryside of England all the way to London, and then on down to Spain. He spends a year on the road, playing violin for money, and seeing a great many amazing things. The 1930s Spain he describes is beautiful and the author’s poetic descriptions are a pleasure to read. He knows how to capture specific moments and etch them into your memory, just like they are etched into his.

The real joy of the book is the freedom that he is enjoying – he is a young man and has an independent source of income – he can come and go as he pleases. It is very hard to imagine this kind of freedom these days – which kind of pushes these stories into a sort of wish fulfillment realm.

Sometimes I felt like I was reading fiction – some moments just too perfectly spot on, and considering he wrote this book quite a while after his actual journey I wonder how much really happened as described. I don’t think he is being dishonest or intentionally lying, but I think reality doesn’t usually hit this sweet spot.

And a little more about the practicality – how did he handle language, money, food? These things are covered on a very high level but I found myself wondering about the details. But I think that is just my taste in travel books – I probably get it from reading Paul Theroux.

Excellent book! Next I am reading The Second Estate by Ray Madoff.

This was a great book – all about what the poor have to go through to try to make it through life in the bottom rungs of the United States social system. The writer goes “undercover” to see what things are like, and after setting some rules for herself she manages to get a clear picture of just how difficult it is to get by in America.

When you consider this was written 25 years ago, it is sort of blood-curdling to think what is happening to the lower classes in the USA now. As I write this the gaps between the haves and the have-nots are yawning and to my understanding, unbridgeable.

I really liked the writer’s sense of humor, it comes across similar to mine in terms of snark and wit. It was impressive to see her sort of weaponize her wit on these appalling situations, and it made me wonder why there isn’t more writing like this.

The book alternates between sad, funny, and downright tragic, but the balance comes out nicely and I think that is what made me admire the writer most. Possibly thanks to this balance the book went on to make some real change in the world, as outlined in the author’s second afterword written 8 years after the book came out.

Next I am reading As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee.