The lair of Lars J. Nilsson. Contains random musings on beer, writing and this thing we call life.
As you can see on the posts below, I reviewed a couple of books today… Well, truth be told I moved from LivingSocial and their Visual Bookshelf Facebook app to Goodreads instead.Visual Bookshelf was just way too slow. And also, LivingSocial is doing Groupon like offers nowadays, so I don’t really trust them to stay around. So [...]
fungrimFooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets by Nassim Nicholas Taleb My rating: 4 of 5 stars A really enjoyable book although somewhat idiosyncratic and un-even. The author does not apologize though and have even refused to even it out for the later editions. That way it stays personal and interesting. [...]
fungrimThe Books of the South: Tales of the Black Company by Glen Cook My rating: 3 of 5 stars Very good indeed. I felt some of the originality went away as the story teller becomes, not a spectator, but a leader and “cause” in himself. However, it is still very good and I’m looking forward to the “glittering [...]
fungrimChronicles of The Black Company by Glen Cook My rating: 4 of 5 stars Excellent. It takes you a while to get into the language, which is a bit more terse than your usual fantasy brick. You can see where Steven Erikson is coming from. This is far better than most run of the mill fantasy, even though… a map wouldn’t have hurt. I [...]
fungrimMaking Money by Terry Pratchett My rating: 3 of 5 stars We’re back with Moist von Lipwig, the crook from Going Postal. But while GP was excellent and refreshing I’m afraid this one felt more like "business as usual". Sure it’s good. Sure it’s funny, but compared to GP, or Night Watch or the Tiffany [...]
fungrimThe Terror by Dan Simmons My rating: 4 of 5 stars Slow start. I had to restart it once because he lost my attention. However, after some 180 pages I was well land truly hooked. This is perhaps the best Simmons I’ve read besides The Hyperion Cantos. Very, very good. View all my reviews
fungrimThe Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper My rating: 4 of 5 stars As many others here, this was a re-read for me. I read them as a child and loved them, although I seem to remember only bits from them from the last read, which could possibly be explained by them being a bit uneven. For example, the difference in pace and style between book one [...]
fungrimToll the Hounds by Steven Erikson My rating: 3 of 5 stars This is I’m afraid the low point of the Malazan series. And had this been book 2 or 3 it is possible I wouldn’t have continued reading the sequels, and would have been very disapointed. Here’s my problems: 1) Occasionally narrated by Kruppe, a character. This is [...]
fungrimDawnthief by James Barclay My rating: 2 of 5 stars Not very exciting. In fact, since I somehow had expected gritty realistic fantasy, but got some sort of bland, although action packed, sword and sorcery instead, I’m a bit disappointed. If someone compares this to Erikson or Cook, don’t believe them. This is "dungeons [...]
fungrimThe Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie My rating: 3 of 5 stars Not a bad book at all. Most reviews below have covered the details so I’ll just add and/or stress a few points. First, the start of the book is kind of awful. You’re promised a "cliffhanger" and get exactly that but it’s not very effective. Also it [...]
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