Discussion: ARCHIVED: Forensics: Preface and chapters 1-4 • The Flat Book Society • BookLikes

#18 by: Themis-Athena's Garden of Books date: 7 years ago discussions stats

Giant minions, more like, in Australia ...

#19 by: Murder by Death date: 7 years ago discussions stats

Probably the size of small dogs up in Queensland, where everything wants to kill you. ;-) Here they're smaller than the ones we had back home and praise ALL that is holy, they're wingless. But they're still satan's pets...

#20 by: Themis-Athena's Garden of Books date: 7 years ago discussions stats

Reply to post #19 (show post):

My extremely unreliable memory invokes images of creatures the size of miniature bats -- but yes, definitely Satan's minions at every size.

#21 by: Tannat date: 7 years ago discussions stats

I've been doing some chapter-by-chapter posting so far and my opinion's fairly middling so far. Chapter three wasn't bad, but one, two, and four weren't very fun.

#22 by: Elentarri's Book Blog date: 7 years ago discussions stats

Reply to post #21 (show post):

I suppose it also depends on how much new information you get out of the book. Most of the books is covered in TV series like Bones and NCIS/ CSI... so it's all "old hat"?

#23 by: Tannat date: 7 years ago discussions stats

Reply to post #22 (show post):

There might be something in that. But those shows don't necessarily get the science "right".

#24 by: Murder by Death date: 7 years ago discussions stats

I'm well stuck into chapter 3 now and I'm liking it best so far for both intonation and writing style. This feels like it meets my expectations for the entire book. I hope it'll keep moving upwards as the chapters go by.

#25 by: Tannat date: 7 years ago discussions stats

Reply to post #24 (show post):

If the whole book were written like chapter 3, I don't think I'd be complaining about it.

#26 by: Elentarri's Book Blog date: 7 years ago discussions stats

Reply to post #23 (show post):

McDermit doesn't go into enough detail about the science to contradict anything on the TV shows - the few I have watched anyway.

#27 by: BrokenTune date: 7 years ago discussions stats

I like the history that Mcdermid presents through the cases, but do wish that there was more science in it rather than the mere re-telling of cases.

Btw, I couldn't face stopping reading the book for a couple of weeks while you're all discussing this, so I got a kindle version...which is progressing nicely - thanks to the travel-induced "oh god, why am I up in the middle of the night" type of madness.

#28 by: Tannat date: 7 years ago discussions stats

Reply to post #27 (show post):

Yes, the history can be interesting, as I admitted in the comments to one of my posts. I'm feeling short-changed on the science end, though. It's like she gives up once she gets to the present day in some cases.

#29 by: Themis-Athena's Garden of Books date: 7 years ago discussions stats

Well, I finally started this last night and as far as I can see I don't have much to add to what you guys have said so far, but by and large ... color me more impressed with the writing as such than with the contents.

#30 by: BrokenTune date: 7 years ago discussions stats

I just finished it and, well, that was ... not what I hoped for.

Now, I'm left wondering if this book was really that much better than Gulp.
Maybe just a little.
The writing was definitely better.
And, McDermid kinda delivered on the topics that she gave each chapter but that should be the rule in non-fiction anyway.

Full review to come.

#31 by: Themis-Athena's Garden of Books date: 7 years ago discussions stats

Reply to post #30 (show post):

Yep. Seems we're feeling pretty similar about this.

#32 by: BrokenTune date: 7 years ago discussions stats

Reply to post #9 (show post):

JL, I sampled the audiobook a couple of days ago when investigating options for travel. I decided against the audiobook, tho. The accent (Scottish, at least for the Audible sample) was fine with me, but the intonation sounded very sensationalist (in fact, it reminded me of every Neil Oliver documentary I have ever hated) and I thought this was less so in the written format.