Book #124 of 2023: Orion Among the Stars by Ben Bova (Orion #5) Author Ben Bova’s time-traveling super-soldier Orion was originally introduced as an agent who could be sent by his all-powerful Creators to anywhere in the continuum that was in some way under threat, but for the most part, each subsequent novel in the …
Continue reading “Book Review: Orion Among the Stars by Ben Bova”
Book #118 of 2023: Orion and the Conqueror by Ben Bova (Orion #4) This isn’t the worst title of the Orion saga — it’s a noticeable step up from the angst-ridden previous volume — but it might well be the most boring. Much how the first half of Vengeance of Orion was little more than …
Continue reading “Book Review: Orion and the Conqueror by Ben Bova”
Book #98 of 2023: Orion in the Dying Time by Ben Bova (Orion #3) This time-travel adventure sequel offers probably the most problematic of its saga’s dabbles in what the back of this book calls ‘speculative theology,’ taking as its premise the wild notion that the ancient Egyptian god Set is the same being as …
Continue reading “Book Review: Orion in the Dying Time by Ben Bova”
Book #96 of 2023: Vengeance of Orion by Ben Bova (Orion #2) This first Orion sequel is interesting in its own right, but not nearly as good as its predecessor. That previous novel introduced humanity’s demigod champion by hurtling him progressively backwards in time, having to stop an adversary in each era determined to throw …
Continue reading “Book Review: Vengeance of Orion by Ben Bova”
Book #90 of 2023: Goldenhand by Garth Nix (The Old Kingdom #5) My original review of this novel from shortly after its publication in 2016: “A triumphant return to the Old Kingdom, finally resolving the fate of the lost Abhorsen, Clariel. (Note: Clariel’s early life is described in the prequel novel which bears her name, …
Book #82 of 2023: Orion by Ben Bova (Orion #1) I loved this science-fiction novel — and to a lesser extent the loose series that follows — when I was a teen, and I’m glad to find that it holds up pretty well today. It’s definitely a product of its 1984 publication date in some …
Book #78 of 2023: Clariel by Garth Nix (The Old Kingdom #4) I like a lot of things about this Old Kingdom prequel, but it’s objectively a pretty disjointed novel. The first two-thirds paint a fascinating picture of the setting as we’ve never seen it, both by virtue of being so far in the past …
Book #68 of 2023: The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear by Walter Moers (Zamonia #1) [Updated version of my review from 4/23/2020] I absolutely adore this wild and whimsical adventure novel, detailing the tall-tale nautical escapades of a talking blue bear. (Life inside a stable tornado! The famous dueling liars of Atlantis! Impressment on the …
Continue reading “Book Review: The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear by Walter Moers”
Book #67 of 2023: Across the Wall: A Tale of the Abhorsen and Other Stories by Garth Nix Overall I would say that this book of short fiction — most but not all of it situated in either fantasy or an adjacent genre — is a success. The strongest piece is probably the novella that …
Book #56 of 2023: Abhorsen by Garth Nix (The Old Kingdom #3) This 2003 sequel is a thrilling end to the fantasy coming-of-age tale begun in 2001’s Lirael. (Although described upon release as the conclusion to the Abhorsen / Old Kingdom trilogy, these two volumes are really pretty separate from the original 1995 title Sabriel …
The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more