Books 24 - 26

[dagibbs]

Book 24: Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman. This is a collection of short works - stories and poems, and quite good. They are primarily fantasies, but often wander the edge of dark fantasy into horror. An interesting and enjoyable collection, well worth the reading.

Book 25: Jennifer Government by Max Barry. I first heard of this book through the online game the author started, Nation States, inspired by the book. In many ways, this is a modernisation of Pohl and Kornbluth's The Space Merchants (and even has a reference to that book in the text), and it is reasonably well done in many ways -- characterisations, setting, etc. And, while it is definitely science fiction, it clearly appears to have not been marketed as such -- but as a mainstream novel (from imprint, cover style, and the reviewers quoted). Quite enjoyable, quite well done, worth reading.

Book 26: Conqueror's Heritage by Timothy Zahn. Combat-sf space opera fluff, the second book in the Conqueror's sage (trilogy). Not bad, for what it is, though the aliens are suffering from a severe lack of alienness. Of course, doing truly alien aliens is very difficult to do well, as it is a human trying to project them. Not something I'd especially recommend, unless you really like this type of stuff.

Comments

[beable]

There's a sample chapter of Jennifer Government on his website. It was on my list of books to read a couple of years ago (when one of my coworkers and I got into playing Nation States) and I had completely forgotten.

Thanks for the reminder!

[dagibbs.livejournal.com]

You're quite welcome.