Iain Banks is one of my favorite authors. Canal Dreams isn’t his best work, but even less-than-best Banks is better than a lot of other stuff out there. The improbable story tells of a forty-something virtuoso female Japanese cellist who gets trapped on a ship in the Panama canal and has to deal with terrorists. [...]
At 1150 pages plus, hardcover, this is a big book. It’s going to take you a while to wade through it. Fortunately, the water’s fine. The Stand is widely regarded as King’s best fictional work, and I won’t disagree with that opinion. The cast of characters is large, the issues larger, and while he didn’t [...]
The Tipping Point has generated enough publicity and buzz that there really isn’t much I can add to what’s already been said. I found it to be a very interesting book, especially the chapter on fighting subway crime in New York City via the elimination of graffiti. Apparently there are lots of people out there [...]
This will be my first Rant Review. Rant Reviews are reviews of books that are so bad I simply couldn’t put them down – but I hope to warn others about them so that no one else will waste their time. Accordingly, Rant Reviews will incorporate neither the cover nor any links to the book [...]
Jacqueline Carey’s debut novel is, in a word, great. For a first-time author, she seems to be unusually confident, handling an epic scope, mythological invention and a large cast of characters with quite a bit of authority. She also pulls off a really neat trick; her fantasy world is actually old Europe, seen through a [...]