Well, that blasted iPod is still formatting, so here are some short book reviews.

The Algebraist, Iain M. Banks

In Brief: A cast of badly-drawn P. G. Wodehouse characters searches for a map of the fabled London Underground, in space.

Banks does what many thought impossible, and produces a bad book, or at the very least a dull one.

Century Rain, Alastair Reynolds

In Brief: Disaffected Slashdotters, deprived of their favourite website by an all-consuming database bug, return to the Paris of 1959 in an attempt to exterminate the human race.

While there are some strong elements to this tale, the background setting and the motivations of the major parties make no sense whatsoever. Features nano-tech handwaving.

Ilium, Dan Simmons

In Brief: Descendents of humanity find themselves at a loose end, decide to while away the hours holding historical re-enactments and All-Solar-System Summarise Proust Competitions.

If possible, the background for this one makes even less sense than Century Rain. It's like a dumb-plague infected the universe of this novel some time back; I can't see any other way for the situation described to have arisen. Again, features nano-tech handwaving and a general disregard for the laws of physics.

Bah. There's a new C. J. Cherry out, Destroyer, book one of the third Foreigner trilogy, and it's apparently quite good. Doesn't seem to have reached Australia yet, though.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 09:49 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)