A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The previous book was mostly about how the war had affected the common folk. While some of that is still present in this book, this time it’s mostly about how the aftermath of the war affects the noble folks. Mostly they’re working on dealing with consequences of their scheming. It’s almost entirely based out of King’s Landing, but includes their deals with the Freys and others. It’s interesting seeing how complicated unwinding some of those deals are. It would be an exaggeration to say it was a Pyrrhic victory, but it wasn’t nice and tidy either.

Star Wars: Dark Empire II by Tom Veitch

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The story had some fun elements like a steampunk Jedi with a steampunk spaceship. But overall, it was a flat sequel that undid a lot of what mattered in the previous story without doing much the advance that main story. That’s probably because the source material, unless I’m misremembering, was a couple graphic novels. There isn’t a lot of room there to change a lot about the Star Wars extended universe. The only thing that made me groan was the catch-phrase-ification of a lot of the main characters’ famous sayings from the first trilogy.

Ansible by Stant Litore

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Like Wool, a series of short stories that slowly reveal more and more if this world. It’s hard to say too much without ruining the beauty of this story. Let’s just say that it is much more terrifying than I thought it would be from the descriptions. And, as I predicted, when you get to the last story, it really hits you with a real whammy.

Bible Adventures by Gabe Durham

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It was interesting to read about this game from someone that had a similar upbringing and encountered it for the the first time at church, as did I. It was always a weird thing to exist, especially since I didn’t know at the time why it was a blue cartridge. He does a great job of reviewing the history behind the company that ended up creating the Wisdom Tree subsidiary. It was a crazy time to be in the games business and the company was no exception. I also enjoyed the look at the games that came out after Bible Adventures and how they were similar and different in scope and intent. As always, I love the personal story adject of the book as well.

Lightspeed Magazine, July 2010 by John Joseph Adams

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As usual for anthology-type things, an expansion on my status updates. But, before that, let me just say that I love science fiction and fantasy short stories and listen to SFF/F podcasts to hear them. So this was a very fun read.

“No time like the present” - One of the things that I both love and hate about short stories is starting in media res. It feels like short stories aren’t allowed to introduce the world. You have to figure it out as the story goes along. Sometimes this can be fun in a detective sort of way. Sometimes it can be frustrating as you learn something halfway through that completely changes your understanding of the first half. Again, sometimes that can be fun like in Fight Club. Sometimes it’s just annoying. This time it was fun and I think having a kid narrator was part of the reason.

Dune by Frank Herbert

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Well, that was quite a journey - both in the amount of time it took me to finish the book and in the scope of the book itself. I guess I’ll consider it in that order. This book, like all sci fi books that deviate so much from how we live today that everything has a new name, is hard to get into. While it is good narrative form to jump into the story without walls of text explaining everything, when it’s as alien as this (no pun intended) it becomes impossible to know what’s going on. And that makes it hard to get invested in the story. Additionally, in order to have the big payoff at the end, Herbert spends a lot of time without much going on. I know I spent a lot of time wondering why this was such a heralded book in our fandom.

Video Games Are No Fun by Kill Screen Magazine

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As I usually do with an anthology-style product, I’m just moving over my status updates.

“Big Buck- I’ve seriously misjudged this game all these years”

“King of the Ogres - Although I never got into WOW, I’ve faced similar issues with others (sometimes peers and sometimes the older generation) not understanding games as a diversion as valid as whatever they do for fun.”

A Storm of Swords by George R.R. Martin My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book had a lot of great scenes - my favorite scenes from the TV show and more. (view spoiler)[I’m INCREDIBLY surprised that the TV show thus far has not incorporated resurrected Catlyn (hide spoiler)] This was where the two versions of this story began to diverge wildly. Overall, I continue to understand why various choices were made given that HBO only has 10 hours a season to get their story told. However, I also now completely understand why people got so upset about the extra rape and anti-women stuff. The reunion scene between Jaime and Cersei in particular was quite a different tone.

A Clash of Kings by George R.R. Martin

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As I said with the previous book, there probably isn’t too much that’s new to say about this book given its age and the popularity of the TV show.

I think I once read that ASOIAF was originally meant to be a trilogy and this book definitely has a feel of expanding the narrative without resolving much. A lot is set up and I’m definitely ready for book 3, but if I’d been reading this when it first came out, I wonder if it would’ve contained enough forward momentum on the plot to keep me engaged in the series.

Star Wars: Dark Empire by Tom Veitch

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As I said in one of my status updates, this is no longer canon as Disney erased the Extended Universe canon when they took over the franchise. I’m not bothered - we comic book fans are used to canon being changed and alternate universes. I can still enjoy the story.

What’s interesting is that this is a radio play based on a comic book. If I remember correctly, it’s by the same people who did the NPR radio play of the original trilogy. The voice acting is a little wooden, but Billy Dee Williams stops in to do Lando and his acting is great.