Terri Yang

Woz's point of view

Revisado: 03-14-17

Well it was informative... though it felt there some holes and self-contradictions by the author which is only natural to happen when someone writes a book about themselves. Anyways... useful for those who are curious about Steve Wozniak and his contributions to the personal computer.

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Better for your college-aged kid

Revisado: 11-30-16

I think this book is better if given to someone entering their career out of college for the first time. The book is mostly filled with anecdotal stories of people "finding their element" and succeeding as a result, which can be inspiring for someone uncertain of their place in grand scheme of things, but it does not really provide any actionable or thought-provoking ideas. I heard the companion book, "Finding Your Element" is more of a guidebook for that, but that also seemed to just be more of a spirit journey guide than anything concrete for the real world.

Definitely useful for feeling inspired, but far less practical than I had hoped.

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Intriguing Biography of Nintendo's Creation

Revisado: 11-30-16

An interesting book about the history of Nintendo, the company, and how it started from its humble beginnings as a card maker to the impressive franchise it is today.

It's very much a look at Nintendo from a business perspective and talks about the political conflicts, the Japanese cultural influences, and international expansion through a historical recounting of their product releases up to the Nintendo Wii. Those interesting in game industry history would likely like this book.

This book focuses primarily on the Mario Franchise, but does touch a little bit on Zelda, Kirkby and others. However, those are mostly ignored in favor of discussing Mario the brand's growth over time.

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Oh you sexy salad...

Revisado: 11-30-16

Hearing Trahearne speak lustfully of taking a woman to bed... worth it. XD

In all seriousness though, it's an OK book. I'm not a fan of romance novels, but of the ones I've read, this one was rather lackluster. The book starts off with a murder mystery that brings our two main characters, Lucilla Cynster and Thomas Carrick, together, but then nothing ever gets resolved. And if you are reading purely for the romance scenes, then, well... there aren't many. And the chemistry is very unexplored ("fate" and "destiny" are the reasons behind their chemistry... not a lot of delving in to the whys). :\ If that's your thing, then I just think there are other romance books out there that build a better story/scene than this one.

But... I like Matt Brenher's voice. And since part of the story happens in a place called "The Grove", it's easy to think it's Trahearne talking from Guild Wars 2. Fans can enjoy. :P

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Dark... for older audiences

Revisado: 08-10-16

I guess my first warning should have been the book's detailed description being basically a disclaimer from the author about the nature of this writing. This book is definitely for older audiences and goes in to topics about the human condition that aren't really that deeply dealt with in fantasy. The protagonist, you hope will succeed and yet there are many times where you really dislike him and his actions. There is sympathy and a sense of disturbance with him, which I guess just goes to show how well crafted the story is by the author.

The world seems to be predominantly about dominance. Over each other, over other races, genders, ages, etc and gets incredibly dark in places. The breaks in the story where you get to know the narrator and his audience serve to break that tension, but also to let the reader know that this story does have a "happy" ending, despite the path it is currently on. I found it worth the listen... and will likely pick up the next book. The audiobook narrator wasn't bad... but I didn't really like his choice of accents for the human dialect. It was difficult to understand.

Someone else mentioned this in their review, but it sums up the emotional reaction to it:
2 characters from the book said it correctly... this is an awful story, but I want to know how it ends.

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Disliked Voice Actor

Revisado: 07-25-16

The book is okay. Supposedly about how we need to adapt to situations and be willing to try with the risk of failure in order to succeed, but then the examples given seemed to go off on a tangent and while I liked the anecdotes, I had to stop and wonder a lot about "so what is he trying to convey here?" because he's not very clear about his point in a lot of these cases.

I didn't like the voice actor used in this. The British accent was a little difficult, though not a big issue (though I can see it being so for others)... but mostly my problem was with the pacing of his narration. He would switch between long drawled-out words and then a series of words rapidly read in succession, making it impossible to speed up the audio to get over the slower parts, and sometimes requiring a rewind to focus and catch what he was saying. His choice to do accents for the quoted texts was kind of... off-putting too. Dramatic performances are not needed nor desired in non-fiction texts....

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Lots of politicking, not a lot of action

Revisado: 07-18-16

Not that the amount of politics is a bad thing, just be forewarned, most of the book is about navigating the aristocratic courts of Arelon and subverting the intents of opponents with strategically planned parties and dialog. The story was enjoyable and I liked the gradual progress unraveling the mysteries of Elantris and the political turmoils of Arelon. Everything culminates to a final confrontation that makes this book a good stand-alone read, with enough intrigue to continue to the next one if it's your cup of tea. The narrator seemed to improve as the book went on, but at the beginning especially, it was kind of a Takei-esque drawl that needed at least a 1.25x speed up to get through. The female protagonist, Sarene, was very believable, which is a bit of fresh air when it comes to fantasy novels. Overall it was a good book to pick up. :)

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You mean I have to wait to listen to more?!

Revisado: 06-09-16

I understand why this book has been nominated for a Hugo Award. :)
Jim Butcher is a pro when it comes to plot pacing and creating endearing characters that make you want to follow and learn more from. I've been a fan of the Dresden Files series and this first book in the The Cinder Spires is an excellent, immersive start in to a whole new steampunk-themed world. The narrator seemed a bit slow at times, but the performance was good enough for me to sink in to and listen away for hours.

I especially admired and felt it worth noting the way Butcher portrayed his female protagonists. Neither hypersexualized nor made in to simpering hormone-driven teenage girls (as most modern fantasy tends to do), they were strong and vulnerable in ways that, had the characters been male instead, would still have been believable in a battle situation. It's a breath of fresh air to have female characters portrayed as strong independent people as opposed to love interests or side-characters to their male heroes.

I'm not familiar with a lot of steampunk books, but I loved the world created in this one, the description of the spires, the ship battle, the human-like race of "warriorborn", and most especially the cats! If cats could voice their thoughts IRL, I'm pretty sure his portrayal of arrogant, disinterested, and proud tribes of felines would be very accurate. :P

While I want to say "I can't wait for the next one!" I really want Butcher to finish up Dresden Files first. THEN continue with this because I will happily hop on to this ship to see where he takes us next. :)

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I'm Biased

Revisado: 05-17-16

My opinion is probably highly biased since I come from an experience design background. A lot of what he explains as behavioral economics comes off as common sense user research to me. I did find it interesting to listen to the observations in the context of economics, but he didn't really say anything revolutionary to make me think behavioral economics is some ground-breaking approach to understanding market behaviors. But again, it's my field so perhaps for economists, the behavioral approach is ground-breaking (which then just makes me wonder what makes an economist see the world the way they did before?).

However, I found much of the book to read more like a memoir of the author's work in behavioral economics than any real explanation of the field. Perhaps a different book by the same author, like the suggested Thinking Fast and Slow, would be a better choice.

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I tried to like it

Revisado: 04-19-16

with all the high ratings on Audible and Amazon I really did try to like this book, but it just dragged on so long in the middle that I feel like I lost 10 good hours of my time. the author tries to do a Karate Kid-like progression of the main character's strengths, but it lacks any of the personal development or sense of progress that the iconic movie made. Jonathan Tibbs, the main character, stays stagnant throughout the whole story, despite his predicament. he doesn't feel like he's improving, doesn't emotionally evolve (which I found ironic since the book even references Hero's Journey in dialog with his roommates), doesn't event describe his progress with his weight lifting. His loner personality doesn't help either since it means he doesn't really have any dialog with anyone, and much of the internal reflection boils down to him wallowing in his own self-pity and unfairness of his situation. Non stop.

there are only 2 points of conflict in this story where his unique superhero-esque situation comes to play... one in the beginning where he's drawn in to his inhuman world, and at the very end, where all the training culminates in to a battle that, while short compared to the rest of the book, is a nicely paced and written battle.

honestly the first 2 hours and the last 1 hour were the most interesting. I feel like you could cut out the entire middle part and add in whatever's in the sequel to this one to make a solid story.

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