A Green Mushroom

I don't have a ton to say about the novelization of Rogue One, but I did read it. Like most Star Wars movie novelizations it's essentially the movie in book form.  While books adapted to movies often work well it typically isn't as interesting the other way around.  But, I always read the Star Wars ones anyway just to get the bonus content and context to the universe. The Rogue One novelization has a few scenes that either were never in the movie or were cut from it.  It also fleshes out a lot of characters' internal thinking about events, which is something you almost never get in a movie. My favorite part is probably the admin documents used to break up the story randomly.  They give looks inside the building of the Death Star and inside the Rebellion.  It's just tiny vignettes but they're great! I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone who isn't Star Wars obsessed in the same way I am.  But, I'm glad to have read it.  I always like lea...

Guards! Guards! was my very first Terry Pratchet novel.  He has multiple series that all gently interweave in the same setting and I was told this was a really good place to start. And I really liked the beginning of the book.  It was fun to figure out the setting and it was actually really humorous which isn't something I normally go for it books.  But in the first third of this novel it worked for me.  I also loved the ending and the way all the stories wrapped up. My problem was with the middle of the book.  I thought the whole novel could have been reduced in length by a third if a lot of the wasted time in the middle was cut out.  It's just a pacing thing. Now I'm thinking about possibly reading more of Prachet's stuff.  I just wonder if it's better paced than this book.  I can tell there are a lot of things in his writing that I like, so I should probably give him at least another novel to try to hook me.  I'm just not sure wh...

The Alcatraz series is the only writing of Brandon Sanderson's that I hadn't checked out.  I finally remedied that. Alcatraz vs the Evil Librarians is about a kid named Alcatraz who suddenly finds out he has magic.  It's very Young Adult.  I like Young Adult books when they're closer to the higher part of the Young Adult age range.  Alcatraz is near the lower end. I felt like this was a book that my kids are almost ready for, not one meant for me.  Although I bet I would have loved it if I was 11-13. I wouldn't recommend this one for adults but if you have kids just hitting the Young Adult reading age this one would be a great book to pick up.

I've had a bunch of time to listen to audiobooks lately between doing all the sidequests in FFXV and trying to get back into MMOs.  So much of that time doesn't require listening to in-game audio. I decided to finally tackle a bunch of audiobooks that had been sitting in my backlog for awhile.  These are books I picked up in sales or as part of deals so they were super cheap.  They aren't ones I spent a lot of money on so I didn't have to feel bad if they didn't click with me and I put them down without finishing them. I rapidly removed them from my backlog as I started bouncing off of them.  For a lot of them it was obvious why they ended up on super sale, they just weren't great.  But for a few others they were just books that didn't click with me.  They had too generic of a setting, started off with characters I didn't like, or just didn't get to the premise fast enough. It felt good to check off a bunch of audiobooks from my list and I did ...

The latest Star Wars Expanded Universe novel, Catalyst, is a direct prequel to the upcoming Rogue One out later this week.  It wasn't great. I mean, it was ok.  It wasn't horrible or anything.  But, it also wasn't a good book on it's own. Mostly, Catalyst is just an introduction to two of the characters that will be in Rogue One.  It follows Krennic (that guy in white from the trailers) and Galen (Jyn's father).  They both have an engineering background.  Krennic is a military man and in charge of overseeing the Death Star building.  Galen is a super intelligent scientist doing energy research with kyber crystals.  Galen is a pacifist who wants to use his research to provide power to everyone.  Krennic slowly ropes him into helping with the Death Star main weapon without Galen ever figuring it out. And that's most of the book right there.  Not a lot else happens.  There are parts with other characters but they don't r...

The Blood Mirror is the latest (and second to last) book in the Lightbringer series by Brent Weeks.  I've loved this series as a whole and I'm excited to get to the conclusion of that. With that being said, this book mostly feels like set up.  Where the first three books definitely lead into one another they are still each a solid narrative that has a satisfying ending.  They just have a tease of what's to come next.  The Blood Mirror feels like half a book that just ends.  It's a good half of a book but it doesn't have the typical arc I was expecting. I kind of wish that I had waited for the last book to come out and then read these last two together.  It seems like that's how they are intended to be.  They're definitely one story split between two books where the earlier ones felt like complete stories told in a series. I did like the book though.  It made me very excited for the next book and to read the conclusion of the series, when...

I finished up the second Drizzt book and already it's starting to feel like so many other generic fantasy stories that I've read. I thought that the Drizzt books might be a good place to sink my teeth into the greater world of Dungeons and Dragons lore but I'm starting to realize that these books would appeal to a fourteen year old me much more than they appeal to me now.  They don't seem like they're doing anything new or interesting. Being a completionist I will probably finish out this first trilogy of Drizzt books before setting them down.  I'm already two thirds of the way there so why not? This book, Exile, in particular finds Drizzt after he has rejected his heritage as an evil Dark Elf (Drow) and has gone a little bit feral in the underdark on his own.  He ends up making his first real friends and then spends most of the novel running away from the part of the Drow that are hunting him.  It's a direct continuation of the first book and ties...

I really liked Bloodline.  If you follow me you know that I read almost every Star Wars book that hits the market.  This one is right up there with the best ones I've read. And it didn't really surprise me that it was.   Bloodline is by Claudia Gray, the same author who wrote Lost Stars which is my favorite Star Wars book to date. Bloodline follows Leia sometime about half way between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens.  It fills in so much information about the politics of the New Republic, hints at the formation and structure of the first order, and let's us see a key point in Leia's political career.  It's a fantastic book to start bridging the gap between Episode VI and Episode VII. While I'd love to learn more about what Luke and Ben are doing during this time period I never felt like this book had to go there.  There are enough interesting events going on with Leia that I was captivated throughout. If you're a Star Wars fan I recomm...

This isn't the type of book I normally read or listen to.  I ended up mostly listening to this in audible format and I generally liked it. This is a fairy story.  It's about a girl who goes to fairy land.  I guess I haven't really read a fairytale or fairy story since I was a kid. It's a little bit all over the place with the random stuff that happens but at the same time it's full of interesting ideas and sets an interesting scene.  It probably helps that the author is also the narrator since she can read the book with the inflection she intended when writing it. It's kind of a weird one but it's good.  I liked my time with The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland.

After slogging through The Three Body problem I thought I would try to find a sci-fi book that would grab my attention.  I looked at my list of books to check out and saw that Ancillary Justice was super highly rated on Amazon so I got it. I could not get into Ancillary Justice at all. The book starts with disconnected events, none of which are interesting, and a main character that doesn't actually have personality because it's a computer in host bodies. I really tried to get into it.  I even did my typical second attempt at a highly rated book I'm having trouble getting into... I listened to the audiobook instead.  Generally this will give me a better sense of characters once I hear them voiced and it lets me get through parts of books that are a slog since I can have the audiobook playing while I'm doing other things too (like playing a game). But since the main character is a computer the narrator speaks very monotone and very computer-like.  I unders...

Calamity is the third book, and the conclusion of, The Reckoners trilogy.  It wraps everything up very nicely and overall it's a really good book. The Reckoners has become one of my favorite series written by Brandon Sanderson.  The basic premise is that a star showed up in the sky and suddenly a bunch of humans all gained superpowers at the same time.  Unfortunately, anyone who uses their powers gets corrupt and turns evil.  So, it's a superpower world with no heroes. The Reckoners are a group of humans who set out to take down the superpowered "epics" by learning their weaknesses and exploiting them. That's where the series starts but by this third book we know so much more about epics, their powers, how their weaknesses work, and that it's possible to fight through the evil to some extent. It's super hard to write about this book without getting into spoilers and I don't want to spoil it for anyone.  But, I highly recommend this series. ...

Perfect State is a Brandon Sanderson novella.  As such it has a unique world and fantastic worldbuilding, just like all of his writing.  I really liked it. In Perfect State each person is in their own version of the matrix but they know about it.  The computer generated world adapts to them as they live their lives.  The worlds can be anything from a modern setting, to a fantasy realm with magic, or super futuristic high tech. In the end the human race is basically brains in jars.  They've generally come to terms with it. The really interesting parts occur when these humans interact with people from other "states".  Essentially people from other matrixes.  Someone who has lived their entire life in a realm of magic can suddenly find themselves dealing with future tech and robots.  It's a very interesting culture clash. Since it's a novella it's a quick read.  I listened to it on Audible and it was about a 3 hour listen. Perfect ...

This is another in the long line of Brandon Sanderson novels I've read.  Wow, he's good at staying productive and getting his books completed.  This is the latest in his Mistborn series. The Mistborn world has great worldbuilding (as does all Sanderson writing) and a really cool magic system.  Magic users are able to burn specific metals inside their body to produce very specific effects.  It ends up being weirdly precise and scientific while being awesome at the same time. The last book in this series, Alloy of Law, was a jump forward from the original trilogy.  The events of the first trilogy are mostly myths and legends now.  The world has advanced past the medieval setting and is made up of mostly western and early 1900s type settings.  Basically an entire set of new characters were introduced. This book, Shadows of Self, starts to bring the old and new series together.  Characters and events from the first trilogy begin interacting ...

I'm an introvert.  I know this about myself. When I need to recharge I need time by myself.  Preferably some time without any noise or needs from other people.  This is the core of being an introvert.  It's not how you act or if you're a people person.  It's how you recharge yourself. I noticed something interesting last week on my trip.  I had a lot of travel for three days in a row and no real time alone to recharge.  Instead I did the opposite... I kinda overloaded my brain.  On the plane I put on a podcast and played games and paid attention to my traveling companion all at the same time.  Apparently this can help me deal with stress when I can't actually recharge the way I need to. As soon as I got back home I just wanted to retreat to a quiet corner of the house and relax... but it's good to know I have another coping mechanism for when that isn't possible.

This was an awesome book.  I don't often read or listen to non-fiction novels but I make exceptions for people or authors that I really like. I like a lot of Felicia Day's work and I'm always interested in seeing the next thing that she creates.  This was a good chance to find out more about her and the creative process she goes through.  It was very fascinating. I'm always interested in hearing about how people work and how creative work is accomplished.  This book gives a good feel for both in Felicia Day's work. I listened to this one as an Audiobook and it's definitely the way to go, because the author is also the narrator.  I love when that happens.  When the author is the narrator you can be sure that the correct tone is carried through in the reading of the piece of work. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in how creative work gets done, the beginnings of video web series in the infancy of Youtube, or if you're just a...

I was surprised to see that Blade Runner was actually a novel  from the 60s.  I've tried to watch the movie a bunch of times and it never grabbed my attention but I'd never given the novel a shot. Once I started reading it I very quickly ran into that 60s Sci-Fi feel.  I didn't know if I had enough drive to read a book like that at the moment so I got the Audible version instead. It's actually a pretty interesting book.  It's all about a bounty hunter in search of renegade androids on the loose in his territory.  It's post apocalyptic and the world is a radioactive wasteland where most life is dead.  There's an entire religion built up around the remaining living animals and it also influences how people feel about the artificial life of androids. It's not a book I would necessarily recommend to anyone, but I am glad that I've read it.  I know it's either based off of or another name for Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep which i...

Lost Stars is the greatest Star Wars novel I've ever read.  You need to understand how big of a statement this is from me.  Here's a partial look at what the old (now "Legends") timeline looked like: That's only a partial list of books and I've read almost all of them.  This book is better than those. The new timeline only has a few novels in it, and Lost Stars is the one I expected the least from.  It's the one that turned out the most amazing.  Last week I said that Aftermath is the best of the new books.  That's before I read this one.  Lost Stars is so much better. You see, Lost Stars is billed as a young adult romance story.  The other novels that have come out are more traditional for Star Wars books and they deal with either the main characters of the movies or slightly expanding the timeline beyond Return of the Jedi in an adult book fashion. Lost Stars is about how the events in the Star Wars universe look from the perspe...

Dark Disciple is the latest in the new Star Wars extended universe books.  They're slowly adding to the new extended universe after wiping out the old one and it's been interesting to see what they concentrate on. Dark Disciple takes place near the end of the Clone Wars and obviously draws it's inspiration from the Clone Wars TV show.  The two characters that are given the most focus are Ventress from the Clone Wars TV show and Jedi Master Voss, who is the main character for the majority of the book. I'm glad this book mostly stays away from characters from the movies since they obviously have plot immunity.  They are present, but they aren't the focus.  All the tension and character growth happens through Ventress and Voss. The book is all about grey force users.  I've always thought that grey force users are much more interesting than either Jedi or Sith.  Trying to ride the line between light and dark while giving in to neither is extremely fas...

My overall take-away from this book is that Armada is a fun read.  It was a fun page-turner and I'm glad I read it, but I don't think it's for everyone. The main thing this boils down to is that Ernest Cline's first novel, Ready Player One, was better.  It's more accessible and it's much more unpredictable (in a good way).  Armada was completely predictable all the way through.  I still had fun reading it, but it didn't have any surprises for me. But, Armada might be for you if..... You read Ready Player One and enjoyed it You are really into video games You like VR You're interested in drones and government conspiracy You're a teenage boy If any of those apply to you then there is something in Armada that will appeal to you. But in all honesty, if you haven't read either of these books I would definitely suggest picking up Ready Player One.  It's fantastic and feels much more accessible than Armada.  I think it's muc...

Nexus is a novel where I loved the premise but wasn't a huge fan of the way it was written. The premise is that there's a new recreational drug that basically allows you to connect your mind to other people.  Throughout expansion of the drug people start to connect to each other's minds and gain control of their own.  They even start running computer programs in their own heads. It's a really cool setup and I loved that part of the book, it just took a long time for things to actually happen. The pacing was not good.  There were some action scenes but they were divided by lots of scenes with characters just thinking about their actions in uninteresting ways. The worst part of the book was that there was no good conclusion.  I didn't realize this is the first part of a series.  It doesn't stand alone all that well and I'm not going to read through another book with that pacing.  So, I guess I'm done with Nexus and the follow ups. The premise...