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Review: Noir (The Illumination Paradox, #2)
Noir by Jacqueline Garlick My rating: 4 of 5 stars Ms. Garlick picks up exactly where the last novel left off, so I would recommend reading this immediately after the first book, since I was a little confused for the first little bit until I remember what was going on. She uses this book to…
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Review: Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 129
Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 129 by Neil Clarke My rating: 5 of 5 stars I think the only story I wasn’t into was “Neptune’s Trident”. Otherwise, a top-notch issue. Especially liked the non-fiction essays this time around. My thoughts on each story (a slightly wordier version of my status updates where character limits kept me from…
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Review: Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History
Breasts: A Natural and Unnatural History by Florence Williams My rating: 3 of 5 stars This book was depressing as hell. I added it to my To Read list 5 or so years ago when I heard about it on Fresh Air. Don’t get me wrong, the author has an entertaining style. There were lots…
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Review: Morning Star (Red Rising Saga, #3)
Morning Star by Pierce Brown My rating: 3 of 5 stars This initial Red Rising Trilogy is a little like the original Matrix Trilogy (if you haven’t heard, there’s apparently a fourth in the works). The first one was a triumphant, mostly fun story. At the end, our protagonists haven’t 100% won, but you could…
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Review: The Eye of the World (The Wheel of Time, #1)
The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan My rating: 4 of 5 stars I don’t know if Robert Jordan knew this series was going to be a ton of books, but he clearly knew it was going to be more than one. In a book about the making of Star Wars, the author uncovers…
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Review: Getting Started with Arduino
Getting Started with Arduino by Massimo Banzi My rating: 5 of 5 stars Massimo and his co-writer do an excellent job creating an introduction to the Arduino board. I started mucking around with the boards before reading this book because I’d done some projects with Atmel chips in undergrad (a couple decades ago) and I…
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Review: Love, Fishie
Love, Fishie by Maddy Gaiman My rating: 4 of 5 stars Since Maddy Gaiman wrote this when she was 8 and I have a nearly-8 year old who loves to read and write, I figured it’d be a fun book to read together. She enjoyed it even though poetry isn’t her thing. I thought it…
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Review: Double Life (Razia, #1)
Double Life by S. Usher Evans My rating: 3 of 5 stars I met Ms. Usher Evans at Baltimore Comic-Con a year or two ago and she is a very prolific author. If any particular book of yours isn’t your cup of tea, you can try another – she has magical school YA, fantasy, and…
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Review: Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 126
Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 126 by Neil Clarke My rating: 4 of 5 stars “Two Ways of Living” – A world in which humans can essentially hibernate by eating a ton of calories and then a chemical cocktail to go unconcious. Additionally, the person does not age. The short story essentially serves as a meditation on…
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Review: One Night in Sixes
One Night in Sixes by Arianne “Tex” Thompson My rating: 4 of 5 stars I added this book to my To Read list back in 2014 after hearing Ms. Thompson interviewed on Sword and Laser. I had a slightly different impression of what the plot would be – I think the interview focused on the…
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Review: Terris: Wrought of Copper
Terris: Wrought of Copper by Alex Flagg My rating: 3 of 5 stars If you are really into The Cosmere you tend to REALLY be into the Cosmere (just take a stroll through r/Cosmere on Reddit). So it would be a shame to miss out on all this background information about the Terrismen in this…
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Review: Promise of Blood (Powder Mage, #1)
Promise of Blood by Brian McClellan My rating: 4 of 5 stars As I work through my To-read list, we come to another book I added around 2014. This one was after Mr. McClellan had been interviewed by Sword and Laser (and 4 years before I’d ever heard of Brandon Sanderson). His idea of powder…
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Review: The Mongoliad: Book Two (Foreworld, #2)
The Mongoliad: Book Two by Neal Stephenson My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is a very hard book to properly review. Unlike a typical book in a trilogy (or however many books it ends up being – at the time this book was published it was a trilogy), this book does not contain a…
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Review: Childhood’s End
Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke My rating: 3 of 5 stars This is some old-ass science fiction. It’s interesting that on my recent trip I ended up reading 3 SF stories from my to-read list that were all from the 1950s. It’s definitely got a lot of that Zeerust where we’re incredibly far into…
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Review: Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch #1)
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie My rating: 5 of 5 stars Only my third 5-star review for 2019, but boy does Ms. Leckie deserve it here. It’s everything I love about SF including a gigantic, fully realized world with a culture that makes sense as a consequence of the world she’s created. It really reminded…