books_january2002

Wednesday, Jan 30, 2002

“Timescape” by Gregory Benford. Excellent, as always. Every now and then I read some “hard” SF, although I’m crap at physics and only usually have a foggy idea, what the hell is going on, but….the choice often falls on Benford, because he is a really good story teller. The book was written in 1980 and alternates between 2 storylines, one set in 1963, the other in 1998 in the not-so-far future, which is quite odd, it being the even-closer-past right now. Anyway, Earth is in a lot of ecological trouble – global warming, the works - and some scientists are trying to reach some buddies in the past, to tell them what they should do to prevent it from happening again…. Again?….Paradox? Oh, yeah. If you still haven’t gotten the whole time-paradox thing that keeps cropping up in SF, have a go at this. The book won a Nebula Award and rightly so. The last one I read by Benford was “Cosm”, also highly recommended. And another really good one, together with David Brin: “Heart of the comet”. David Brin is a very good hard SF author in his own right. And Greg Bear….

What am I reading now? “In a sunburned country” by Bill Bryson, and I am pissing myself with laughter! Haven’t laughed that much since “Notes from a small Island”. I will never forget that bit, where he is trying to strike up a conversation in that Glaswegian pub…. Hilarious! Avoid drinking at the same time, if you don’t want it spouting out through your nose!

Friday, Jan 25, 2002

Yahoo has changed the set-up for all clubs, which at the moment means that I can not find my bookclub, "Not Oprah's.....". And at the moment I can not figure out, what to do to get it back. Bear with me!

Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2002

Another fairly average thriller, Craig Thomas, “Slipping Into Shadow”. Set in England, Myanmar and some other spots. Ex-SIS agent sniffs out a huge drug ring, hidden behind the cover of a big new luxury hotel in Burma and sets off to investigate. Slow to start, a lot of characters, that seem to have been around for a couple of novels, as you are getting many heavy hints of previous adventures (very annoying and confusing), Women with average IQ’s of lampshades and all the Asians are stereotyped + bad. The only part I really enjoyed was at the end (stop here, I’m giving it away!), where all the main characters are fleeing through the Burmese jungle or the streets of Rangoon, with the bad guys in hot pursuit. Sorry, Craig, not that hot! Do you really think women are that unrealistic + slow? Oh, and Asians are real people, too, you know… Definitely a white boy’s world. A very weak 3 on the scale....

Thursday, Jan. 17, 2002

Another one by Kathy Reichs, this time "Deja Dead". I wonder with how many more title variations she can come up with around the word Dead. This is the first one, published in ’97. I could not shake the feeling that I had read it before, every now and then I stumbled over a familiar scene. I don’t usually forget a book I read and liked, so this really irked me. Did I read something similar? Oh well. Anyway, liked it a lot, a lot of suspense, action, bones, stumbling around in the dark, being chased by sinister characters…. Will keep my eyes peeled for installment number 4. Go, girl! And keep the quality up.

Thursday, Jan. 10, 2002

Leslie Glass, “Burning Time” - On a scale from 1 to 5 probably a 3. 1 being total shite, 5 being an excellent book that I loved. A crime novel. Set in New York. Actress being stalked and eventually kidnapped by crazy guy. The detective is a girl of Chinese descent with some issues regarding culture, race, sexuality bla bla. Not bad, the tension did not exactly kill me though. The whole story was pretty predictable. No big surprises. I did not feel the need to read half of the night, just one more chapter, just one more chapter…. So it’s not likely that I will buy another of her books. Read something by Kathy Reichs instead, that was really good! Especially “Death Du Jour”…

Now what am I going to read next? I brought all those books back from Germany, that I ordered through Amazon. And now I can’t make up my mind. Pretty heavy on SciFi, and I’m more in a mood for crime novels right now. Oh well, perhaps I read that last one by Kathi Reichs after all….

Saturday, Jan. 05, 2002

Wilbur Smith again, “Eye Of The Tiger”, a treasure hunt off the coast of Mozambique. Lots of action, as usual. None of his Africa family sagas, but a separate one. Very good. The book first was published in 1975 and every now and then it shows, mainly in the direct speech. Every time one of the characters swears, it just sounds old fashioned, because the vocabulary just rings old, not up-to-date. Did they really talk like that in ’75? Anyway, still a terrific read.