Goodreads page My rating: 4 out of 5 My review: I love these glimpses into the minds of hackers and how everything worked before the Internet. Sharing, openness and then changes coming with new laws brought on by few “black sheep”. Some of these stories are unbelievable. Some are sad. Some are funny. I enjoyed all of them. Well done
Goodreads page My rating: 4 out of 5 My review: It was quite fun watching the seasons change with the author. It certainly helps to have a vivid imagination while reading this book. It is full of trivia and biological information which I would not expect in a book about beauty of nature. But it shows the “ugly” side as well and shows that we can enjoy even those brutal, inexplicable parts of it. …
Goodreads page My rating: 5 out of 5 My review: This is a small book full of big and beautiful ideas, masterfully weaved together. It spoke to me on many levels much like [b:The Alchemist|865|The Alchemist|Paulo Coelho|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1287827991s/865.jpg%7C4835472]. Full of life, love, desire, joy and sorrow. Even in the darkest corners this book is full of life. Don’t be misled by shortness of this book. It deserves to be read slowly. And multiple times. …
Goodreads page My rating: 4 out of 5 My review: While it didn’t affect my enjoyment of the book much, I just couldn’t bring myself to believe in such a reality. Maybe I wasn’t completely sold on the hypnopaedic idea of teaching people to like what they do. And the idea of idealized Alfa++ humanity being possible is even more ridiculous. The story about cyprus experiment reminded me of an older idea - all jobs, no matter how physical, dirty or menial are needed for society to work. …
Goodreads page My rating: 4 out of 5 My review: A Perfect Day for Bananafish - Interesting narrative with subtle references to past events that leaves reader guessing (at least partially). Showing that depression is not always visible immediately or obviously Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut - I feel disgusted by Eloise. Feeling all sorry for herself and taking it off on Ramona and her husband (Lew). “They wanna think you spent your whole life vomiting every time a boy came near you”
Goodreads page My rating: 3 out of 5 My review: Phew this was a fight. I liked some of the stories (Faery Hanbag, Hortlak, Catskin, Magic for Beginners) but others were just too painful to go through (mostly Stone Animals). It’s quite likely just my inability to grasp and submerge in the world of magic that Kelly Link tries to create. The stories which got my attention and at least partial understanding were excellent - surreal, funny, magical and in some ways walking the edge of familiar well enough that it kept me intrigued. …
Goodreads page My rating: 4 out of 5 My review: When I was watching Black Hawk Down (the movie) several years ago, I hadn’t been aware there is a book as well. By the time I started reading the book, I forgot everything about the movie except the outline and the feeling of constant confusion. So first, the good parts: Black Hawk Down is a great piece of storytelling that can make you feel in the middle of it all. …
Goodreads page My rating: 2 out of 5 My review: I am not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t this I guess. It reads as a very crude alien encyclopedia. And suggestion it was presumably written by a janitor sounds as a really *bad excuse for the sloppiness. If you want to have an interesting take on first encounter book I can recommend Constellation Games by Leonard Richardson. …
Goodreads page My rating: 5 out of 5 My review: Snow Crash reminded me of William Gibson’s Neuromancer and Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum at once. It’s simpler than both in the language department (which means it’s readable on first try for me) but much more complex and structured in many other ways. I have so many notes and clipping from it…each second sentence is a gem of potentially real historical information. …
Goodreads page My rating: 3 out of 5 My review: This has been a fairly short but fun read and a new take on aliens coming to earth. What if they truly are benevolent and our main character is a game designer and retro-gamer-reviewer. The game reviews actually have a part to play in the story (but not too much). There is a little bit of adventuring, but this is mostly (to me) an interesting thought about how would/could society deal with a drastic change of knowing there there are many other intelligent life forms in the universe and what the impact would be on culture (for better or worse). …