alan

Good premise, but badly executed and paid-by-the-word.

Revisado: 06-10-24

Reduces lesbian sci-fi to a collection of silent movie cliches - all sighs and sidelong glances, sudden bursts of trusting dangerous people, cryings out into the void, overlaid on obvious plot development, and a shallow depiction of empire. Read or hear instead the vastly superior Anne Leckie, or for empire the classic work of Frank Herbert, or Asimov.

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Toibin's revenge on the Irish

Revisado: 05-16-24

From the "village idiot" school of ethnic fiction, where no one ever questions why they feel as they do. So the book is reassuring about how much better and smarter we are, but that's only the worst of Professor Toibin's calculated cheap grabs for the best-seller list. Jessie Buckley's different brogues are lovely, a succession of distinct stage Irishwomen, Irishmen, LongIslanders, and even an Armenian. Meanwhile, back in the old country, everyone is paranoid and lonely when they are not spitting spite or gushing over a dress, a pair of shoes, or a wedding. And lurking beneath, driving forward the overworked exhausted plot, is - wait for it - A Passion That Dare Not Say Its Name.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Weak work from Atelier Larson

Revisado: 05-27-23

Weakest of the 18 books, certainly - least clever, most holes in the plot, most gross and predictable of the bunch. BV needs to supervise his writers better - or the series will die, soon. I will be back for his next one, but maybe it’s time to stop.

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Loved the plot twists

Revisado: 07-19-22

I loved the plot twists in this book. Glad the other reviewers alerted me in advance... you do have to pay attention. It's not hard to follow if you're not doing something else that requires a lot of concentration.

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No, the life is not told by a series of objects

Revisado: 07-03-21

Autobiography as though written by someone who can describe only objects, not feelings, not people, rarely describe actions; faux Asperger's Syndrome. Her work is interesting and is her-claim-to-fame and a fit subject for this object-only sensibility; applied to her life, the style is impossibly mannered, flat and over-edited.

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The business of America at war.

Revisado: 12-03-20

This is a story of how The Greatest Generation was used.
A hagioagraphy of the minions to the corporate titans of World War II, the dollar-a-year men fighting heroically for continued civilian production profits in addition to cost-plus government contracts. No efforts made here to engage with the issues of centralized wartime planning, union demands, worker lives in the new factory boomtowns,.. just a series of great industrial productivity records, thanks to the wisdom, pluck and determination of our business leaders. He has only good things to say about them all - even Henry Ford, Charles Lindenberg, fast-fisted Sorensen... And no mistakes were ever made, no malfunctions, no quality issues, no lives lost, just rolling on making more and more... Maybe Herman really doesn't know about wartime planning in other counries, and that's why this reads like Russian tales of stakhanovite Heroes of Soviet Labor.
The orotund rolling cadences of John McDonough give exactly the foghorn note befitting this restrained bombast. His is oratory from long ago, speaking after dinner to a 1965 county Chamber of Commerce.

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Best one in the series

Revisado: 02-12-19

The series takes a new direction in this volume, written in a different style, largely from the heroine's point of view. A bit more psychological complexity, a Dune-like would-be empire, and more on the problems of running a free interstellar confederation provide more than the predecessor books - with no slackening of the fighting action.

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Still more tales of noble aristocrats

Revisado: 12-24-18

Ekaterin continues the tradition of strong Vorkosigan women, married to men just and wise and generous to their respectful peasants and loyal retainers.

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Feel sorry for his editor

Revisado: 12-24-18

Offensive caricature of a simpering New York woman ga-ga for a brawny man who has all the answers - written in the woman's voice.

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Immersive

Revisado: 10-13-18

A wonderful summary of the life of Robert Caro, written and read in the voice of Robert Caro, told as a succession of increasingly affecting anecdotes. A marvelous justification of the long shaggy dog story school of history writing. In the end, you understand why he immerses in his subjects for years, and why you need to immerse in his work in order to appreciate it.

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