Very much in the style of their earlier album, you’ll enjoy it in direct proportion to how much you enjoyed their earlier work.

David Mitchell is quite possibly my favorite contemporary writer, and Black Swan Green is his most subtle and brilliant work to date.

Immediately upon finishing BSG I wanted to go back and read it over again for everything I missed the first time through.

Brilliant.

When it comes write down to it I’m not terribly fond of POB’s work, though I give you the man could write.

However if you’re willing to work at falling for a series Aubrey-Maturin makes an unbeatable value proposition. With over 20 volumes of substantial weight you’re bound to be kept in page turning riggings for the forseeable future, no matter how bloody long one’s commute might be.

Love the concept. There are important ideas in there, and I’m a fan of Adamns V-2 but this isn’t grabbing me.

Maybe it isn’t morning bus material.

After my initial positive review I stayed intrigued by the concept of the novel but found the last third kind of plodding. I’d suggest Declare instead if you want to try out Tim Powers.

I always think of Gaiman as having one of the most unique voices of his generation, and yet here in “Last Call” I find the bones and blood of “American Gods”, the original conceit and original sin all rolled up in the same old myths (gods, tarot, witchcraft) meet new myths (Vegas, the open road, the American West) noir package.

Fascinating

I’d say HMD reads like a bad pastiche of Patrick O’Brien and Anne McCaffrey but that would be understaing the case. Rather it reads like what might result if you ran Master and Commander and Dragonflight through a random Markov transformation. Painfully familiar, and yet not comfortingly so.

Heavy handed, and poverty chic. Actual diabolical plot largely unbelievable, but beautiful, and touching, and I fell madly in love with the screenwriter for the short riff on how corporate murder works.

And yes the trailer is a damn lie.

http://markbernstein.org/Books24.html#Prep

Far future, mind fuck (thats a good things) gives way to a plodding story.