Review: Assassin Fantastic

Assassin Fantastic by Martin H. Greenberg
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I don't usually read short stories collections and don't really know how to rate them. Reading one short story at a time, I'm giving the book a grand total of 2.8 stars, which is the average of the 15 stories and gets rounded to 3.
Death Rites by Tanya Huff - 4 stars - An ok story, but nothing too special.
Green Stones by Stephen Leigh - 5 stars - I maybe, possibly, probably found a new author I want to read.
Coin of the Realm by Kristine Kathryn Rusch - 3 stars - Or even less than 3 stars.
The Svedali Foundlings by Fiona Patton - 3 stars - Marginally interesting.
History and Economics by Anna Oster - 2 stars - Boring.
Never Say... uh... Die? by Josepha Sherman - 4 stars - Why did it have to be Koshchei?
Dying by Inches by Teresa Edgerton - 1 star - More than boring.
Darkness Comes Together by Mickey Zucker Reichert - 1 star - Hmm. That wasn't even mediocre.
Raven's Cut by Lynn Flewelling - 3 stars - A good story that would get 4 stars from me, if only it wasn't the reason I picked this book. I was waiting for so much more, but what I got was Rhiminee with a distinct Ankh-Morpork-ish flavor.
Myhr's Adventure in Hell by P. N. Elrod - 4 stars - Not overly well written, but I'm interested to get to know Myhr and Terrin better.
He by Leyte Jefferson - 1 star - Exemplary bad.
War of the Roses by Rosemary Edghill - 4 stars - There was at least some suspense, which is always good in a short story.
On my honor by Bernie Arntzen - 2 stars - Off to a very good start, but ends without a resolution.
A touch of Poison by Jane Lindskold - 3 stars - A reasonably interesting read.
Echoes by Michelle West - 2 stars - Kind of interesting, but I'n not sure I understand half of it and it seems I'd need to read a few other books about this character to understand.

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Review: Which Way to Witch School?

Which Way to Witch School? by Scott Santoro
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If only the rhymes were more rhymy, especially those two last lines, that break the rhythm and more or less ruin the impression.

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Review: Merry Christmas, Little Witch

Merry Christmas, Little Witch by Lieve Baeten
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I love those illustrations!!! They are so detailed and thoughtful! We spent so much time looking at them, discussing them, and finding new things there! And the story is also good, even though not as marvelous as the illustrations.

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Review: The Book of Mistakes

The Book of Mistakes by Corinna Luyken
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I especially liked frog-cat-cow thing.

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Review: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

!!! The illustrations are even better than before (and they follow the text more closely). And it's always been my favorite Harry Potter novel. Can I possibly give it more than just five stars?

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Review: Chainbreaker

Chainbreaker by Tara Sim
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

As a whole, I liked this installment much better than the first book, Timekeeper. It was more of a real novel with some great elements of historical fiction. Not a schmaltzy ballad, not too syrupy, less pink snot smeared on the pages. But. This is not a stand alone in any sense. It had the potential to be a great book, but the author failed to see it to any reasonable, even if unstable, ending. And given that the next book will be out in almost a year from now, I just cannot forgive that huge cliffhanger. Too cheap a move.

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Review: Artemis

Artemis by Andy Weir
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I am not impressed. For multiple reasons. I'm not so sure that quitting a career in software engineering and becoming a full-time writer was such a wise move for Andy Weir. The Martian is gorgeous. I read it twice and it's still gorgeous. Technical enough, interesting enough, believable enough. I know the author wants his heroes to solve problems they themselves created and it's executed brilliantly in the Martian. Here? I think it went well overboard. That last part about poisoning the whole city? Was it really necessary? Besides, this is where it becomes not so believable. I'm afraid in real life there would be casualties. Someone was bound to die. Like the toddler our hero passes in a corridor. And not just this one, but all the children actually. Lower body mass, same concentrations....

The whole set up feels false somehow. I'm willing to bet the author grew up in a big city. And he doesn't even know what he doesn't know. He tries to apply his personal social experience on a situation where it's not applicable. The whole Artemis is about 2000 people. Tourists come and go, but there are two thousand residents. Have you ever visited villages with two thousand people in them? Everybody knows everybody. And when I say knows I don't mean just faces and/or names. People living in small communities know pretty much everything about each other. The most anti-social person there would be more connected (and protected) than an average outgoing human being in a big city. Our hero is not the most anti-social one, she can't be. It takes a lot of communication skills to be a smuggler. Yet she somehow driven everyone else out of the profession and at the same time has troubles managing customs. She also lived almost all her life there and can come up with only a handful of friends, all of whom are in a some kind of a relationship crisis with her. So now we have a successful smuggler, a very socially-oriented profession, who somehow doesn't talk with anybody.... Yep, totally believable.

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Review: The Adventure of Feluda : The Emperors Ring

The Adventure of Feluda : The Emperors Ring by Satyajit Ray
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I can very well imagine how kids were waiting for the next volume of their favorite journal to get to read another adventure of Feluda. Those short stories fit that format quite well. Everything else though leaves a lot to wish for. I read this book as part of the challenge and I was struggling to find a book by an Indian author that would unquestionable fiction and with a rating above 4. Different Feluda adventures were literally the only books to choose from with those requirements. So I guess it is quite unique for Indian literature, but... It is quite unoriginal in the world literature. References to Sherlock Holmes border on plagiarism. Three stars only for a bit of local flavor.

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