After reading this, I went and read a couple fan fiction novels.

Now I can’t keep track of what’s canon and what’s not, but at least I’m no longer depressed, eh?

You know those summer rading programs libraries sometimes have? A 1-50 page book=1 point, a 51-100 page book=2 points, and so on?

This book was the perfect read every summer. Roughly sixty large-print pages /and/ a fun story. I read it every year.

What is this book?

Well, obviously it’s scifi. But it’s also a puzzle/mystery book, and could well be viewed as a dystopian novel towards the ending.

When robots screw up over history, one robot psychologist has been there figuring out what mysterious interpretations/interactions of the Laws of oboics has caused it, and how to remedy the situation. It’s a series of mini-mysteries written for hackers (not crackers, mind you).

If you saw the film, be aware that this book is /entirely/ different in mood, storyline, and so on. I enjoyed both, but I don’t consider them similar.

Children’s scifi is a meager genre, and the Norby books stand out as being a little more fun than most. They’re not comedies, certainly, but are less tedious than many scifi books I’ve come across. My biggest complaint is how for the first chapter of every book (asside from the first) is always spent summarising the backstory in a very clumsy and stupid-sounding dialogue. Once you’re past that, it picks up.

Not exactly a madcap adventure, but more a series of semi-madcap adventures. Henry Reed travels across the US with his friend Midge and her family. Along the eay, he starts a goldrush, sets off firecrackers in inappropriate places, and becomes a Native American tribemember.

Probably the funniest of the Henry Reed books.

Though trite poorly written, I found the story enjoyable. If you can ignore all technical idiocies, extreme predictability, and trite storylines, consider reading it. If you can’t then I recommend avoiding this book.

The first book in the series was delightful (despite the talking animals). This one was slightly less so. Carman tries to introduce an awe-inspiring history of the world, and it ends up somewhat narrow and silly the way it all fits together.

It’s still a good book. The mystery simply has less charm than the first.

This was Lloyd Alexander’s first children’s book. He had originally intended to write a chapter on Wales, but he ended up turning that into the excellent Prydain Chronicles.

This book seemed more interested in teaching me history than entertaining me, and the history it taught wasn’t anything new. It’s clearly for younger kids. Some books like that are okay, but this one wasn’t.

I once bought this book for a friend, and being me, I re-read the first story or two in order to annotate it with random notes.

Sadly, the US Postal Service has no accountability, so my attempt to mail it to her resulted in twenty dollars down the drain.