The Magicians by Lev Grossman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well, that was quite a ride. I’ve come to the conclusion that calling this book Harry Potter in College does a disservice to Lev Grossman’s creativity and sets the reader up for false expectations. This story is a trilogy, but it does not cover three years in our protagonist’s college life. Instead the first book covers at least 6 years if not more of Quentin’s life. Instead this book is a mix of the idea of a Wizard School and the Chronicles of Narnia. Before I get deeper into that, one more thing to address: the way the main characters act.

The Manga Guide to Calculus by Hiroyuki Kojima

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

While the book didn’t happen to explain calculus in the way I best understand it, I think it did do a pretty good job of explaining it. More importantly, I think the book does an excellent job of explaining why calculus is important outside of engineering. I’m not sure if my undergrad requires Calculus for journalism students, but the journalists at the center of this book certainly make an argument for how it can help data-driven journalists derive good first-order approximations for their stories and fact-check data given to them by others. All too often kids fail to glom onto subjects because they can’t see how it applies to them in the real world.

The Manga Guide to Electricity by Kazuhiro Fujitaki

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I think it was a cute way to get across the basic principles that govern electricity. I’d recommend it to anyone who has an interest in the way electricity works. It works fine for adults, but if you have a kid who’s maybe 10 or so who’s getting into electricity and the types of kits they used to sell at Radio Shack, this would be a great way to explain the way electricity works. It’s fun while being quite informative.

Constellation Games by Leonard Richardson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I’m in a sweet spot now where there are a lot of authors that seem to be about the same age as me give or take a decade. So I’m starting to see more and more references I can relate to. The main character of this book, Ariel Blum, seems to have also grown up in the video game revolution of the 80s. I appreciate his not-Laura Croft, Dana Light, in a way that I doubt those much older or younger than me would. And, while it’s not singular in this respect, a book told mostly through blog posts, IMs, and emails, definitely speaks to me as someone who straddles the Gen X/ Millenial age cutoffs. Ariel’s work on phone games continues to be more and more relevant as clickers and free to play games become ever more prevalent.

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I finally caught up with all the others on my feed and read this book. I don’t know if it was part of some book club or if it just spiraled as each person I follow recommended it to each other. This is another book from s book bundle I’d bought (I think Humble Bundle).

This was an example of one of times where the book cover kept me from reading it earlier rather than encouraging me to read it. The title “Uglies” together with a sheet over someone’s head and the blue fingernails; I thought it was going to be some teen drama book or something I wouldn’t enjoy. Instead I found a YA dystopia that kept me glued to the page. As a testament to Mr Westerfeld’s writing ability, although I had fun pointing out dystopia tropes in my status updates, he proves that tropes are not necessarily bad by incorporating them in an exciting way. So, if you’re familiar with dystopias (particularly of the YA variety) you’ll be familiar with the story beats, but not necessarily with the execution.

Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency by Douglas Adams

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is the first time I’ve read this book. Until now I’d only read The Hitchhiker’s Guide series. It definitely has a different tone to it while still being a very British and funny book at its core. That might have to do with the fact that it was originally an unused Dr Who script or it might just be that Mr Adams was writing in a different universe with a different tone. There’s definitely something very modern in a sort of 80s or 90s way about this book - the way it talks about computers and algorithms that we just don’t talk about nowadays. We take PCs for granted, but Adams, like Richard, was a computer geek when that was still a pretty new thing.

Tithe by Holly Black

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Another book from that Humble Bundle that had a bunch of Simon and Schuster YA books. This book was OK. Not my cup of tea, but not bad. As I said in my status updates, Ms Black is pretty good at subverting my expectations. I’ll get back to this in a moment.

For someone who could not really care less about “the fey” as fairies are apparently called, especially if they’re spelled “faerie”, I’ve ended up with a lot of fey books via various bundles. So there are lots of tropes I’m not familiar with, like the fact that faeries are apparently deathly allergic to iron. Why is that? Does it have to do with why we don’t see faeries now? Because of the iron age of humans? Luckily, this book was written for people were a little less familiar because it explained things like changelings, kupies, and the iron allergy.

The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It has been very interesting reading this book. As someone who started reading SF in the 80s, I’ve read my share of American Cold War SF. But I’ve never read a full length Chinese SF novel. As I’ve often commented, what’s interesting with other cultures is seeing where we’re similar and where we’re different. For example, Da Shi, the cop, is similar to a detective cop in a American fiction. That makes sense - a detective is essentially an amateur psychologist. And humans are very similar in a lot of ways, including in the way in which criminals think. Some of the differences in the way the characters think or act defy an easy characterization, but showcase how our cultures think differently.

A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

So, I’m done….I’m caught up. What a journey this has been. If one of the previous books was about the fallout from the War of Five Kings upon the smallfolk of Westeros, this book was about the fallout among the prominent families and rules of the kingdoms. It looks like everything is now ready for the climax of book 6 and denouement of book 7.

Super Mario Bros. 3 by Alyse Knorr

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Even though I’m older than the author of this book, I have a different, though similar, relationship with this game. I don’t know if it’s because I didn’t have a lot of friends growing up or because my parents were (at the time) struggling to make ends meet, but I completely missed the marketing blitz of SMB3. I only heard of The Wizard a decade or more later.