31st May, 2007
Hi there.
In an effort to liven things up around these parts, I thought I’d try something new: posting brief reviews of books that I’ve read. Not because I think I’m better than people who actually make a living writing reviews (or even anywhere close to par with their abilities), but because I have a pretty crappy memory for titles of so-so books and I like to avoid re-reading the meh if at all possible. (And the fact that I’m literally surrounded by books at my workplace means I have plenty of opportunities to run into situations like this since, you know, I don’t have to pay for these books before reading them).
So. I thought I’d start with The Android’s Dream by John Scalzi.
“The cover is very blue”, my daughter observed. “With big, floppy sheep. And, and a yellow ROBOT!” Indeed. She’s been on a robot kick since seeing the movie Robots earlier this year. Too bad the title doesn’t rhyme with “viper”… but I digress.
It’s a bit of a departure from Scalzi’s earlier sci-fi works (Old Man’s War trilogy) in that there is much, much more humor and absurdity to be found in these pages. I think he even briefly channeled Douglas Adams in the first chapter. There are still alien races and a sinister plot involved (the story essentially boils down to a guy charged with finding a sheep in order to save the world and his (mis)adventures in doing so) but it is much lighter reading. A good book for a lazy summer weekend. I give it 4/5 gogs.
Posted at 5:26 am | Comments (2)
