Tuesday Book Review

Five-star review of Six Memos for the Next Millenium by Italo  Calvino

 There are only five memos or rather lectures that Calvino wrote in 1985 but never was able to deliver due to his untimely death. They cover what he calls literary values of lightness, quickness, exactitude, visibility and multiplicity in a far-ranging references to literature, myth and folklore. A sixth was added in the class I attended by the writer running the course. The titles of each section could have been something broader because the content covered so many aspects of each word. Perhaps better titles would have been weight, pacing, precision, imagination or vision, and proliferation. There’s so much to unpack in this little book. I’ll have to reread it to get the bits I didn’t the first time around.

Tuesday Book Review on Wednesday

 Four-star review of Earth Lost (Earth Rise Book 2) by Daniel Arenson

 

I don’t often read space operas for the same reason I gave this four rather than five stars: how grotesque the aliens usually are and how many humans are killed in battles with them. On the other hand, Marco Emery, the reluctant soldier, is called Poet by his comrades in arms and there is a poetic element to the writing. The philosophical thoughts Marco has after each battle, after each death are unusual. This is only the second novel in a long series. I can only imagine where it goes from here. How much can the survivors take in their fight against the scum? I’ll need a while to recover before I read book three.

Tuesday Book Review

Four-star review of Aeon Burn Book 2 of 3: Aeon by Matthew Mather and Dale M. Nelson

This second book in the series was published after Matthew Mather’s untimely and tragic death. That’s somewhat obvious in the switch towards the end from showing this postapocalyptic story to telling what happened over several months to the characters and the world. I hope the third book in the series develops more slowly, showing the emotions of each of the characters we’ve come to love or hate. In this story, we follow Max’s efforts in the Amazon to learn what his childhood friend Ben Belloc is doing at the Colony, his pregnant wife Tali’s search for a safe place to have their baby, and physicist Xin Rhou’s trek across the melting Antarctic from one destroyed research station to another. They’re all dealing with the rising temperatures due to supernova Aeon’s detonation in the atmosphere. Most of the book was exciting and I will read the third book.

Tuesday Review on Wednesday

 

Four-star review of Live Wire by Harlan Coben

 Myron Bolitar’s search for his kid brother and his attempts to help his clients, former tennis star Suzze T and her husband Lex, is a twisty but solid story. However, there were just too many instances where we got to witness his decision-making process in detail, and then he did something that wasn’t, or at least not exactly, one of the options. OTOH, I know one of the themes of the story had to do with making wrong decisions and taking the wrong path, so that aspect plays into it. Each of the characters is well developed, the story is well-written and the descriptions were top notch. This is the last of the Myron section of a very long series and somewhat of a turning point before the beginning of the YA series featuring his nephew Mickey.