The Human Division by John Scalzi

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

As I stated during one of my status updates, the structure of this book reminded me of I, Robot. In that short story collection, Asimov has a couple guys who work for US Robotics (or whatever the company’s called) who somehow always end up being on the scene when one of the robots finds a loophole through the Three Laws of Robotics. I loved both the “cruelty” of the situations Asimov put the guys through and their logic steps as they solved the problem. I don’t know if Scalzi was directly influenced by I, Robot, but the crew of The Clarke end up in a similar situation with Wilson and Schmidt playing the parts of the two guys from US Robotics. The book is also structured as a series of short stories with a bit more of an overarching plot linking them than in I, Robot, but they almost function as singular stories.

This year I took ebooks and comics with me when visiting the in-laws and took advantage of having books on my phone to read in idle moments when listening to podcasts wouldn’t make sense - say I needed to be able to hear my name being called. So I was able to read 86 books this year (287% of my Goodreads goal of 30). Although audiobooks mess this stat up, I read 21,160 pages according to Goodreads. Also according to Goodreads my least popular book was Big Pulp: Ted Bundy’s Beetle which was only read by one other person. My most popular book was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone which was read by nearly 4 million other people.

Level Zero by Jaron Lee Knuth

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I understand what Mr Knuth was trying to accomplish with this narrative. While the plot twist was neither original nor unpredictable, it really wasn’t the point of this story. In fact, while reading I was thinking this book would warrant a 1 or 2 star rating. It took a long time to get anywhere and seemed to be too meandering. I figured that’s because it was book one of a series and we weren’t going to get a conclusion. But no, this book stands alone just fine.

Zoe’s Tale by John Scalzi

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

First of all, I strongly recommend reading this right after The Last Colony. It’s been as long time since I read it and so it took some effort for me to remember the original story beats this was supposed to be referencing.

Second, Scalzi does a great job retelling the story and adding lots of depth to it. It brought a new perspective to events from the last book. The contrast between the way adults and teens handled things seemed spot on.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is a character study; a respite from the almost non-stop action of the last five books and the action that must follow in the next one. Therefore, barely anything happens in this book. It even has the delightful audacity to begin with a very British comedy scene involving the [metaphorical] heartburn suffered by the Prime Minister of England when visited by the Minister of Magic.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Harry’s always been wary of his celebrity status, but this book is the first time he’d really rather not be Harry Potter anymore. We learn more than ever about the wizarding world and finally see the Ministry of Magic. In an earlier book this would have been a whimsical journey of wonder. Here Harry learns a dark truth - the adult world is petty and unconcerned with justice. But let’s back a up a bit. The last book tore the last bit of the mask of a children’s story off as Harry had to watch a classmate die and come face to face with Voldemort and his top Death Eaters. It still came as quite a shock to find that Death Eaters had made their way to Uncle Vernon’s suburb and terrorize Dudley.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Everything Ms Rowling’s been setting up since at least book two came to a head in this book. Death Eaters, Dementors, the return of Lord Voldemort, why Snape is trusted by Dumbledore, and more. She had me on the look out for red herrings and I STILL got surprised by the villain (outside of Voldemort). The level of tragedy she allows to befall the characters continues to grow as her presumed audience continued to grow in age. This raises the stakes on Harry Potter and his allies as they are even more likely to run into trouble.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

First a quick note for when this appears outside of Goodreads (on my blog, for example): This review will have SPOILERS and outside of Goodreads I don’t think the spoiler tag is going to work to shield you from the spoilers. You have been warned!

In my last review I (rhetorically) asked Ms Rowling to surprise me - to make Harry lose sometimes and perhaps have the kids not always succeed at saving the day. Ms Rowling gave me that and so much more. As I noted before, she delights in Red Herrings (these books being something like Teen Wizard Noir), so my attention was on high alert this time around. Looking back at my status updates I was right or almost right about the following (will be in a spoiler tag):

A mixture of a growing Ebook library, tracking my goals in Goodreads, and Calibre’s ability to generate a catalog have made me decide to start tracking things quarterly in the book dimension as well. Here’s my second report.

Total Ebooks: 419 (includes catalogs; increase of 2 books)

Total Unread: 304 (decrease of 9)

Goodreads 2015 Challenge: 65 of 30 books complete. Last time I went way over. We’ll see what this year brings.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Thanks to insomnia this morning, I am now done with book 2. Ms Rowling has hit another one out of the park. While the beginning seemed a bit repetitious for a series that I doubt would have had many readers who hadn’t read the first one, the pace quickly picked up and we were off for a new adventure.