Michael

I guess they had fun writing the book

Revisado: 09-06-24

Stephen King's books range from outstanding to mediocore, but even his mediocre ones usually have some redeeming qualities. Unfortunately this can't be said for Faithful.

Faithful is the first of King's books that I found to be just plain boring, it doesn't contain a compelling narrative. The book is written as a series of journal entries composed by King and O'Nan, about how they reacted to the ups and down of Boston's 2004 run to the World Series. I'm sure it was entertaining to them to experience the run, unfortunately it's unlikely to be interesting to anyone else.

It's not even a good book for a baseball fan as it doesn't contain anything insightful about the game. Listening to these guys rant about the curse of the Bambino or the importance of getting autographs, it almost seems like the book was written by a couple of 12 year olds.

Pehaps if you are a die hard Red Sox fan and you have good memories of the 2004 season you might get some nostalgia out of this book, but everyone else should avoid it.

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Like a Sandwitch With Only Good Bread!

Revisado: 08-04-24

The first and last stories of this collection are good. Unfortunately, all of the stories sandwiched in between range for mediocre to just plain boring. To make matters worse, some of the longest stories are the most boring. I felt like Rattlesnakes didn't work as a standalone (maybe I would have like it better if I read Cujo which it is the sequel to). Most of the other intermediate stories weren't very good with characters I didn't care about or that seemed to be watered down versions from previous novels. I did get a couple of good stories out of this collection and maybe one or two more that were merely OK, so it isn't a bad collection, there are just too many duds weighing it down.

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Below Average for a Heinlein Novel

Revisado: 07-23-22

The idea behind is story is solid and Heinlein always presents interesting themes, but I found the science fiction to be questionable and the main character to be dull.

The science fiction here is just plain bad. I'm not talking about anachronisms, I completely understand how an author from the 1950s would think microfilm would be used in the future. What I don't understand is how the chief engineer on a spaceship is incapable of explaining time dilation to his students. He can't even explain why the ship doesn't have thicker, heavier walls. It would obviously make the ship too heavy. At one point, it is mentioned that the chief engineer is always carefully selected (about him being willing to sacrificing himself to save the ship) so maybe he is selected for his lack of intelligence.

The main character just isn't very interesting. He has conflicts with his father, conflicts with his step mom and step sister, and conflicts with another bully his age, but I just found myself not caring about him at all. Maybe it was edgy to call your dad by his first name in 1950, but we all got over that ages ago.

I got the feeling from the narrator that he was reading the script of a Leave it to Beaver episode, but I can't blame him too much, he is doing the best he can with the material he has.

There just isn't very much to this novel, I'd recommend skipping it, there are many better Sci-fi books you can get rather than this one.

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Prepare To Think And To Be Entertained

Revisado: 02-17-19

Almost all of the stories here deal with big ideas that really make you think, wonder and contemplate. A brief summary of my favorites (very minor spoilers):

1) Nightfall - How might our understanding of nature be different if we had six suns instead of one and night only occurred once every 2000 years?
2) Flowers for Algernon - A mentally retarded man is not only cured but made into a super genius.
3) The Roads Must Roll - Ever ride on one of those fast moving conveyor belts at the airport? Imagine that being our primary means of transportation on a large scale.
4) Mars is Heaven - Explorers land on Mars and are astounded by their unexpected hosts.
5) First Contact - A ship has a surprise first contact with an alien race in deep space. Is mutually assured destruction inevitable?

I took a star off the overall rating because some stories were rather lame. The main offenders being:
1) Twilight - An empty tale where nothing happens. Think Wall-E but with all the good parts removed.
2) That Only A Mother - I feel like the author was going for a massively shocking ending here, but it wasn't shocking at all. The entire concept seems almost laughable when compared to something like Flowers for Algernon.
3) The Weapons Shop - A rather run of the mill sci-fi story. Not terrible, but not very interesting either.

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Novel Premise, Weak Payoff

Revisado: 06-19-16

This book sets itself up to be an interesting coming of age story, but it ends up devolving into old science fiction cliches.

I rather liked the beginning when the main character is sneaking away from home to attend a prestigious off planet university. She is internally conflicted; she is excited to leave, but also scared and not sure if she is doing the right thing. She also suffers from a bit of culture shock, but it is mostly on a superficial level and I think the author could have done more to explore this issue further.

Partway into the story, some violent aliens show up, and this is where the story gets rather boring. The aggrieved aliens have rather simplistic motivations and just they just aren't that interesting. They resolve the conflict in a mundane fashion that involves a rather blatent deus ex machina.

This story had lots of potential, but it seemed like the author copped out halfway through the book by throwing in lamely uninteresting aliens.

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Cool Mystery With A Strong Start, Weak Ending

Revisado: 06-17-16

I thoroughly enjoyed the first 3/4 of this book. There are a wide variety of characters who are both likable and believable. The narrator did a great job with all of the voices. I liked how the main character and Veek were obsessed with finding out what was wrong with their apartment.

I was disappointed with the ending though. I can't say too much without giving it away. I just think the book was more fun when they were searching for the answers. Unfortunately when the found the answers, it just didn't live up to the hype.

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Far-fetched Characters, Mundane Sci-Fi

Revisado: 05-05-16

This is a book about an elderly woman who chooses to stay on a planet when all the other colonists leave, then finds that she is living on a planet that is inhabited by an intelligent native species. Everything is hunky dory until years later, when colonists come back and there is a conflict between the new colonists and the natives.

I liked parts of this story, particularly how the old woman survives on her own and meets the natives for the first time. I also liked how the story dealt with the different level of technologies between both sides and the reasons for it.

What I didn't like was how stupid and unreasonable both parties were. At one point, the humans accidentally kill a bunch of natives. It's clearly an accident and the natives understand it's an accident, but for some reason they are hell-bent on taking revenge.

The humans don't fare much better, every human besides the main character is either comically stupid or arrogant. Towards the end of the book, there is one particular character who makes a whole series of irrational decisions, which ultimately leads to his demise. I just didn't find him to be believable at all, along with most of the other humans.

I've read many sci-fi stories about first contact, and this book is solidly on the weaker side of the genre.

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Emotionally Hard Read

Revisado: 02-02-15

This is a hard review to write because I find the main character in the book to be an utterly despicable person. He does a couple of cruel things in the first part of the book. During the rest of the book, he feels guilty about it, and tries to make up for it. By the end of the story I don't think he has redeemed himself, it's too little and too late, but I guess that's how life goes.

Even though I find myself greatly disliking him, I ended up empathizing with him. He made me reflect on some of the bad things I've done in my life, while not nearly as bad as his actions, and felt guilty about it.

I give this book 5 stars because of the the richness of the story. The book has many interesting characters, but they are all focused through the lens of the young narrator and how he relates to them. The story is driven on how the main character relates to his father, and his servant/friend. There are several minor relationships that are also important (I found the one between him and his father's business partner to quite touching). Towards the end of the book there is one more important relationship, but I can't give it away without spoiling the plot.

This book is highly recommended, but only if you can make it through some taxing emotional material.

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Original Concept, Somber Tone

Revisado: 01-30-15

If John Scalzi can be credited with anything, it is coming up with original concepts in modern science fiction writing. This book is almost as good as his thoroughly entertaining and hilarious Redshirts. Instead of the mild dark humor of Redshirts, The God Engines removes all of the humor and cranks the darkness all the way up to 11. The tone is really gloomy, which I found to be a nice change of pace in genre that tends to lean towards the optimistic end of the spectrum.

The book takes place on an interstellar ship that is literally powered by a "god". There is a physical humanoid god inside the ship which powers the engines. The catch is, this god is an unwilling participant and only powers the ship under the threat of torture and death. It's unclear if it's an actual god, or merely a being of extraordinary power. However, there are other gods, and the people on this ship worship a different god who is at war with all other gods.

The society on the ship is a fascinating draconian mix of military and religious hierarchy. The highest ranking official on the ship is the Captain, the second highest is the Priest ... they don't get along. (The reader narrates them perfectly, he reads their lines in a matter of fact, almost curt tone, just the way I think people like that would talk.)

I won't give anything away about the ending. Many other reviewers have lots to say about the ending (too much in my opinion, I think many are inadvertently giving away what happens). All I have to say is that I think the ending is reasonably well written, but perhaps a bit abrupt.

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Rather Dull

Revisado: 01-16-15

The facts in this book are good, but they are presented in a dull and uninteresting fashion. The author likes to make some bad puns. I can almost picture him giggling at his keyboard after writing each one. The narrator doesn’t help much either. Whenever the narrator expresses an opposing view point he goes into this weird nasal whiney voice, which I admit made me chuckle the first couple of times, but it gets old really fast.

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