Bjørn Borud

Luke Daniels is brilliant

Revisado: 04-07-23

Luke Daniels is, as always, brilliant. The book, however, is not very engaging. In fact, I think the series id a dead end. After 2 books.

I want the Meyer who wrote the 3 first Magic 2.0 books.

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Slow writer

Revisado: 07-27-22

Some perhaps think that meandering around for ages before getting the story going is “charming” or the sign of “a great auteur”. It isn’t. It is inefficient storytelling and presumptuous navel gazing by the author.

Perhaps this works better as a TV series where more capable writers can take up the slack.

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Slow writer

Revisado: 07-27-22

Some perhaps think that meandering around for ages before getting the story going is “charming” or the sign of “a great auteur”. It isn’t. It is inefficient storytelling and presumptuous navel gazing by the author.

Perhaps this works better as a TV series where more capable writers can take up the slack.

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An ejoyable read

Revisado: 05-30-19

Before we go on to the review I think there are two things I should say. One is that I've known the author for 5 years. We have never had the pleasure of meeting in person, but I've known him online. The other thing to know is that like him, I too have gone through the entire ordeal from kidney failure, dialysis to kidney transplant.

As someone who, like Michael, has had a kidney transplant, I found the parts of the book touching on these subjects of particular interest. The author has his transplant in the 1970s and what was remarkable was how little the process has changed in the intervening years. Or rather, I should say, how little the experience has changed, because the medical understanding of the process has made enormous strides forwards. But for anyone experiencing this, the experience is what is important because it is deeply personal, frightening, painful and dangerous.
I'm not sure this book would have put my mind to ease before going through the same ordeal myself, but reading about it after having gone through it myself was interesting.

Michael Gaudet is a painter and I couldn't help but notice how he masterfully incorporates the visual in his book. One might be tempted to think that a painter would be overly verbose or dramatic in their description of form, color and texture, but at least for this book, this isn't so. I admire people who can write with economy. So much so that I notice when it is done well, and at least to me, it was striking how he could get me to see what he was describing vividly without wasting a single word. That's an unusual gift and even many seasoned, award-winning authors cannot do this.

I also caught myself wishing that this book had a companion volume of some of his works. Both his works from the time in which the book takes place, and some of his contemporary work. Both to show his development as an artist, but also because Michael uses a very labour intensive painting technique that produces very deep colors and I think it would enrich the text for those not familiar with his paintings.

I know Michael had discussions with his editor about some of the more supernatural parts of the book, and I'm glad he kept them in. They fit. I think his own description of them as magic realism is so spot on because that is exactly what I got from them. They evoked some of the moods that you can find in the works of another great painter: George Tooker. The warm, magic blurring the line between what is real, and what takes place in the mind. Michael is, after all an artist so it works for me.

While reading the book I could easily imagine him being someone I would have appreciated knowing during my youth. In some ways we couldn't have been more different, but in terms of the intensity of passions (both professional and ... otherwise) we were very alike. And I appreciate that in friends.

As a friend i treasured this look into Michael's life immensely. And I chuckled to myself many times while listening to the audio book.

(As for the narrator: he got off to a bit of a rough start, but a few chapters in he got the hang of it. All in all a good performance)

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Author writes same book over and over

Revisado: 02-24-19

This is lazy writing. And to be honest: the zombie variant of this story is pretty pathetic. Does the author have nothing better to offer than this?

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Luke Daniels is so good.

Revisado: 06-24-18

Note, that I think Scott Meyer did a cracking job with the this book and I can’t wait to get my
mittens the next installment. But Luke Daniels was born to read this.

I LOLd, as the feeble generation would put it.

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esto le resultó útil a 4 personas

Pompous and sophomoric

Revisado: 01-02-18

Starts off rather promisingly and then degenerates into swollen sophomoric verbiage. Last chapter was especially embarrassing and painful to listen to.

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Fun has been drained out of the story

Revisado: 08-20-17

The fun has gradually been taken out of the story and the author now just seems to be "managing the universe the book describes". It feels like the author is performing a chore.

This is a very long way from the first book, which was funny and thought-provoking. Listened to it while traveling and I keep asking myself "should I bother finishing this book?

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Meh

Revisado: 04-24-17

Meh is the word that best describes this book. Meh Meh Meh Meh Meh Meh.

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Amazingly bad job by author.

Revisado: 12-27-16

Given the sales pitch, this book is hilariously bad. The supposed main character is so implausibly unfit to be an astronaut even the author seems to give up on him 3/4 through the book. No, they don't send neurotic people who are unable to pay attention into space. Those get weeded out very early so they don't end up finding themselves in space asking themselves if they are capable of anything at all.

Author also had this weird habit of building up to some suspenseful moments only to drop the reader back into some truly autistic and somewhat weird storytelling. "Let me tell you this irrelevant stuff to up the page count while our inept protagonist builds up to his next neurotic inner dialogue"

And the story is wafer-thin. I'm actually curious how they got a narrator to read this crap.

This author should stick to writing about rudely shaped vegetables in local newspapers.

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