Funny when you connect with a story, this being Volume 6, and finally reading a collection that means something you find out from wikipedia that this is the 'least essential" of the collections! Perhaps I shouldn't read these once a year and maybe I should just sit down and crank through them but I will keep taking my sweet time. Maybe the reason I enjoyed this one was because of the variety of story and the how they were a bit more accessible compared to some of the previous volumes. The beauty of these one off stories was they were very compelling. I thought the one about Morpheus son was fantastic and hte the last story in the collection about Baghdad. Rich storytelling. Gaiman continues to amaze me with his takes on various fables. Good stuff!
Really I wanted to like this. Whole concept of a mixed universe is so very intriguing but alas this just doesn't work for me. This is the second Farmer book I have muddled through. The first was about Tarzan. Characters and imagination is great, it's just his writing style is so matter fact. Instead of telling the story he is almost writing like a comic book where he inserts these thought bubbles but the thought bubbles are his thoughts not the storys. It just makes the story read poorly and you lose sight of the actual story. 
A rare short, tight offering from Murakami. Also fairly straightforward until the last half. Having read almost all of his works this one seemed like a bit of a trial for what later becomes 1Q84. Always thought provoking this was a good read. Murakami still appears to struggle with disappearing woman and man left behind to pick up the pieces. He also loves alternate worlds...
Not the book I wanted. Think publishers have hit on the Malcolm Gladwell of writing books a little too much. This book was formulastic in much the same way as the scrabble tournament book and the memory championship book and etc. While I wasn't looking for the answers to magic maybe I was hoping for more intrigue? Hard to say but this wasn't it. Not to say that it wasn't a decent read and I do know a little more about the world of magic now then before I started it just didn't go in the direction I wanted. Perhaps magic is better seen then read?
The sequel to Old Man's War and I thought this one was even better than the first. Compiling storyline, some mystery, and an evil genius, what more could you want from a Sci-Fi story. Either way the Ghost Brigades is a great storyline and Sagan is a strong female character that is easy to like. All in all a great book and a decent gotcha for an ending. Also if the author had the time wrting a series following ghost troopers would be awesome!
Fascinating look at comic book history through the eyes of probably one of the best comic book writers of the Modern Age (Gaimen, Moore, Miller, Claremont?). Interesting character, funny how another Brit makes good on a medium that is essentially an American invention. Perhaps looking into America versus living in America makes you less involved and better able to filter the BS from the real stuff? Great history of the modern art form. Good take on what it means to create a new baseline on very old characters. I personally loved what he did to the New X-men although less so with Batman.
This will probaby be my favorite book of the year although will have to wait and see. Written with the DNA of Heinlein with some Ender's Game thrown into it this is what to me defines the genre. A great set up that leads to even more crazyness. Throw in the Ghost Brigade and wow what a great concept. It will be interesting to see how the books down the line continue to carry the concept.
Again another marketing coup because the only reason I read this was because I saw the movie trailer. The book is a coming of age story. The story is written in a letter format to some one unknown (probably just us the reader). Story is one that has been told for every generation. This one for generation of the 90s and of course has its ups and downs. The downs being very shocking especially at the end. The book did have one great character and that is Sam who the letter writer falls for. Every coming of age tale needs a "Sam". Good book tough to swallow the ending...
Oh this book wanted to be so much more to me that it was...I love tales of man (in this case woman) against nature struggling with both inner and outer demons to reach some apex of life. In this case a grand tale of a woman putting some difficult times behind her and hitting the trail to find herself. The set up is everything I would hope for but what happens when you don't like the main character? Her struggles are heart felt but the woman she is is not very likeable and that is the challenge in saying whether I truly liked this book or just thought it was a whiners tale. 
Where to begin on this one? I really liked this book. It was well done, it was also a challenging read because of the setup. The books starts with characters on a boat sailing back to San Francisco, then jumps to a composer in Belgium, then to a woman journalist in California, then to a British gentleman, then to a future clone, and then finally to remnants of humans. Once this apex is reached it then goes in reverse order back through the characters with the book finally ending with the original characters who finally reach San Francisco. Each story is linked to the previous story because the composer reads the diary of the person going to San Francisco, and the letters of the composer goes to a scientist, who then shows up with journalist in California, and then the journalist story is picked up by the Brit, who's story becomes a movie which the clone sees, and then finally the clone becomes a symbol to the human remnants. To some I imagine the convience of these links crossing across the stories become a bit silly but it becomes clearer that all these characters across these stories have all played a similar role. To me the following quote from the book gives the ahhh moment:
Boy the 70s version of Captain America was sure steeped in the cultural doings of the time. The language, the background are all painful to read at times. It will be interesting to see as we move closer to the 80s how the character continues to change to maybe a more Reagan centric view of America? Stay tuned...
