This was an incredibly fun read! Witty writing, and I never knew what was gonna happen next. As a Marylander, I appreciated the Maryland jokes.

Thought provoking and entertaining. I expected this to be lighter, but it turned out to be much more of a puzzle. Some of it was laugh out loud funny and some of it was heartbreakingly relatable to real life. It's fast moving and fun. Highly recommended. Expect more of an Alice In Wonderland type story, with whimsical, dream-like craziness.

The Hike is one of the most messed up books I have ever read. I literally kept asking what the hell was going on through the majority of the plot. This is definitely one of those books people are either going to love or hate for its weirdness.

 

Ben is a normal suburban family man from Maryland. He's off on a work trip when he decides to take a break and go on a typical hike in the woods. But it ends up being anything but typical when he catches a murder and is suddenly running for his life. Things just get crazier from there, from talking crabs to attacking scorpions. Ben has to figure out what in the world is going on in this new world.

 

Again, just plain messed up. I listened to the audio book of this one, and it really felt like I was listening to someones version of an acid trip. I was hooked enough to find out what was even going on but I finished the book feeling even more confused then ever. From giants to crabs to murderers Drew Magary is not afraid to shy away from the weird, and that might be his regular thing, but its not really for me...

Fantasy Review Barn

The best speculative fiction takes a what-if? scenario and then explores the possible consequences of that idea. This book certainly does that. It proposes that a cure for aging is found, a process which stops the body's natural senescence so that a person using it remains forever at the same physical age. They may still die of disease or violence or accident, but the body won't age.

The book attempts to follow the progress of societies post-cure by means of a journal, a time-honoured technique which can work quite well. Here, however, the author uses it to shoehorn in every little bit of speculation about the consequences that he can think of, sometimes in only a few lines, bullet-point style. To say that this makes the book disjointed would be an understatement. It would have been far better, I feel, to focus more tightly on the main character, John, and make it truly personal. Taking a chapter to describe the problems of a character in China, where the cure was banned, based tenuously on the idea that John once knew him, doesn't serve to connect the reader with those problems.

The pseudo-journal follows John's life as society gradually adapts (or rather, fails to adapt) to increasing numbers of people who don't grow old and die. The author tries to demonstrate the various approaches taken by individuals and governments, but it really covers too much ground to make an interesting story. Some aspects worked well, for instance, the changes in technology are never explained, they simply pop up in references to plug-ins and WEPS, used as if the reader is perfectly familiar with them. It became fun trying to work them out. Other aspects, like an outbreak of 'sheep flu' are described in detail, as in a news report, and this was more tedious.

For anyone who likes to watch the apocalypse unfolding, slowly, over several generations, this book might do the trick. It's been nominated for a number of awards so clearly its unusual storytelling technique is appreciated in critical quarters. For me, though, it failed at the most basic level, in not giving me any characters I could connect with, and breaking the story into dozens of disjointed chunks. Two stars.

Ostatnio kilka osób zamieszcza codziennie wpisy związane z 30-day Book Challenge, i choć zazwyczaj w takie rzeczy się nie bawię tym razem postanowiłam zrobić wyjątek od reguły. Czy uda mi się opisać wszystkie pozycje? Nie mam pojęcia, ale warto spróbować :)

 

Zaczynamy!

Dzień 1: najlepsza książka przeczytana w zeszłym roku.

Pierwszy wpis, a ja już muszę złamać zasady ^^

 

Szczęśliwie, w zeszłym roku udało mi się przeczytać wiele naprawdę genialnych książek i wybór tej jednej jedynej jest nie lada wyzwaniem. Dlatego ułatwiam sobie życie i przedstawię aż trzy pozycje.

Kolejność jak najbardziej przypadkowa:

Opowieści praskie, Tomasz Bochiński.

Jeden z najlepszych przykładów rodzimego realizmu magicznego. Zbiór opowiadań, które łączy warszawska Praga. RECENZJA

Kameleon, Rafał Kosik.

W zeszłym roku pochłonęłam trzy powieści Kosika i wszystkie mnie oczarowały. Z tych trzech "Kameleon" najbardziej utkwił mi w pamięci. Dlaczego? O tym przeczytacie TUTAJ

"Nieśmiertelność zabije nas wszystkich" Drew Magary.

Zdecydowanie najlepsza książka, jaką Prószyński wydał w zawieszonej już serii "Fantastyka". I, tak trochę nieskromnie: jedna z moich ulubionych zeszłorocznych RECENZJI :)

 

To by było wszystko, do zobaczenia jutro :D