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: 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). …

Goodreads page My rating: 4 out of 5 My review: There’s not enough good things I can write about this book. It feel sincere. It feels true. Yes, it’s sort of a cancer book. But it’s not a book about dying. It’s a book about living. About feeling. About being a decent person regardless if you are a great person that is going to be remembered for ages. It is a book about being a grenade. …

Goodreads page My rating: 3 out of 5 My review: It is quite obvious from the beginning that Foundation was conceived as several short stories and later turned into a book. However there is a common theme in all of those stories: Averting impeding catastrophe for a newly formed colony of Galactic Empire - Foundation. A colony whose creator, Hari Seldon is a psychohistorian - a statistician that can predict changes in societies of large scale. …

Goodreads page My rating: 4 out of 5 My review: A worthy continuation of Ender’s journey. In a way it actually makes Ender’s Game better in that it creates proper reason for him to continue living. A powerful thought to speak the lives of the dead, as they lived them. The books keeps you guessing in some ways and in others it is crystal clear and the characters in the book are the only ones guessing. …

Goodreads page My rating: 4 out of 5 My review: Sadly, I’ve seen the movie first. But even then, knowing the ending I enjoyed the book. It was a bit hard to follow it, just like the movie. The main characters are saying the ugly things we all want to say from time to time but we are afraid to admit it to ourselves. There are so many memorable parts that I am hard-pressed to pick a quote, but for some reason I liked this: …