Book Reviews

Summary: An 11 year old boy and his sister get suck to a world beneath and realize that their missing father needs them to find him.

I first noticed the Underland Chronicles when looking to see what Suzanne Collins had written beside the Hunger Games Trilogy.  I have been trying to spend less money on books lately (I have a baby coming) and trying to check more books out of the library and read more from the To Read Pile that I already own, so I picked this up because it was at the library.

Gregor the Overlander is clearly a middle grade book, one of that in between age that is neither children’s nor young adult.  And yet again, I will say I tend to not like middle grade books nearly as much as young adult books.

But this is one that moved quickly and in spite of the fact that it is over 300 pages (or 6 and a half hours of audio) I finished it in just over a day.  I actually thought I might have missed a section when I realized I was almost at the end (I didn’t).

Like the Percy Jackson and Book of Three and Wrinkle in Time middle grade series, these are based around a quest.  It is a simple structure, no real sub-plots or significant twists.

Gregor is 11 year old.  His father disappeared without a trace two years ago.  Gregor is the oldest of three.  It is summer and his younger sister is going to camp, but Gregor has to stay home to take care of his forgetful grandmother and his two year old baby sister so his mom can work and support the family.

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Takeaway: I am glad that we have moved past the point where children’s books have to be completely wholesome and teach morals.  Because they can be a bit boring.

Over the last few years I have been trying to read more old books.  Originally published in 1960, Meet the Austins gets counted as an old book because it was published before I was born.

I have read more of L’Engle’s books than just the Wrinkle in Time series as a child, but I had not read Meet the Austins.  Meet the Austins feels like a mid 20th century children’s book.

L’Engle’s Camilia and And Both Were Young were written before this book, but were much more young adult than children’s and they did not feel as dated.

There is just not much that happens in this book.  The Austins are a happy family.  There are four children, John, Vicky, Suzy and Rob.  Wally (the father) is a rural country doctor.  Victoria is the mother.

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Reposting the review of Redshirts because it won the 2013 Hugo Award on Sept 1.

Summary: The Redshirts realize they keep dying.

If you are a fan of science fiction, you probably get the joke about redshirts. In the original Star Trek whenever there was an away team that visited another planet or ship, there was usually one extra person (that was wearing a redshirt). The extra person was supposed to be just a general crew member, but it was almost always that person that got killed or hurt.

In this book, Scalzi takes the idea of the Star Trek meme and writes a world where the redshirts are aware of the problem and try to avoid the captain and upper officers as much as possible.

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Takeaway: Content may be king, but organization is important to communicate the message.

I read because I love to read.  But one of the biggest reasons that I love to read is because I am curious.  I want to know more about the world.  I want to hear great stories that help me to experience what has been or might have been or could be.  The more you know the more you know you don’t know.

I picked up Philosophy: A Student’s Guide when it was on sale from Crossway a couple weeks ago.  While I have a pretty good background in theology and bible, my philosophy background is weak.  So this seemed a good place to bone up on a weakness.

Philosophy: A Student’s Guide is a short (130 pages) introduction to Christian Philosophy.  The basic question is ‘in light of canonical Trinitarian Theism, how do we approach…’.  There is a chapter on Metaphysics, Anthropology, Ethics, Epistemology and Aesthetics.  These chapters were fairly helpful at looking at a particular way to approach Philosophy as a Christian.

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Takeaway: Sometimes desperate situations lead to desperate measures.  But there should always be a limit if we are to claim the title human.

The final book in the trilogy was both fulfilling and a little frustrating.  As I got closer to the end I was pretty sure that either I was going to be unsatisfied with the ending, or there was a fourth book that I did not know about.  (There is not a fourth both, although there is a prequel that I have not read yet.)

In the final book, Thomas and the remaining subjects have completed the maze.  They have completed the Scorch Trials.  Soon after the beginning of the book, Thomas completes a month in solitary confinement.  But W.I.C.K.E.D is not done.  There are more test, more trials, more testing.

What should happen? If there really is the potential for a cure then shouldn’t Thomas and the others participate?  Shouldn’t they make sure that they do everything they can to save the world?

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Summary: A coming of age high school romance between two unlikely teens set in 1986.

In the last year I read almost everything that John Green has written.  And I loved all of it.

So when John Green tweeted how much he loved Eleanor and Park, I added it to my wishlist.  Now my wish list is LONG, but I do track the prices of those books and when it went on sale I picked it up.

Saturday afternoon I was looking for something to read.  I just finished the last few pages of two different non-fiction books and wanted something light and fun.

I started reading and was hooked almost instantly.  In fact I read the entire book before I want to sleep (it was after midnight and was reading in bed, but I didn’t go to sleep before I finished.)

I am a romantic at heart and I love young adult books, so this might not be for everyone.  When I was describing it to my wife, I said it was just like Pretty in Pink, just if the Molly Ringwald character was overweight, and instead of just having an nice alcoholic Dad she had an abused mom and a sadistic drug addicted step-dad, and Andrew McCarthy‘s character were half Korean.  And instead of Duckie… (then my wife said, “so it isn’t really like Pretty in Pink at all.”)

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Takeaway: My brain is not designed for complex physics. But I keep reading anyway.

The premise of the book is fascinating.  Physicist Michio Kaku takes science fiction ideas and objects and evaluates how they might work and how far away we are from being able to actually do what is now impossible.

Light Sabers, Warp Drives, faster than light travel, time travel, replicators are all in here.  The closer Kaku is to the actual science fiction the more interesting the book is.  The longer the description, the more side discussions the more I lost interest.

Kaku is a fairly good author.  Much of the book was very well written and understandable.  (I say this as someone that wants to understand science and frequently reads science but really does not understand it.)  But it gets too detailed too often, especially about half way through the book.

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