It has been a while since I posted here on my blog. My apologies. With the chaos swirling around our world the past couple of months, I got swept up into the current and floundered a bit.
Since the world seemed to be going mad, I retreated to what I did during those stressful days of high school long ago: I read. And I did it voraciously. During the month of April, I read nine novels, averaging 320 pages per title.
Through the first three months of the year, I had only read eight titles. So far in May, I have already completed Dean Koontz’s City of Night. My rating system is 1=Hated it / 2=Didn’t like it / 3=It was okay / 4=Liked it / 5=Loved it.
TITLES READ IN APRIL 2020
- Island 731 by Jeremy Robinson — Have you hear of the historical Unit 731? This book asks, fictionally, what would happen if it lasted up through the 21st century. Rating: 3. Barely missed out on a 4 because I felt the ending was too easy.
- The Sword and the Stallion by Michael Moorcock — The sixth and final book in the Prince Corum series wrapped things up neatly. Maybe too neatly, because just like the previous novel, I felt the ending was too easily resolved. Rating: 3.
- The Enemy by Lee Child — The eighth Jack Reacher novel was just as exciting and fast-paces as the first seven. It goes back to when he was an Army Major in the Military Police. Rating: 4.
- Gatefather by Orson Scott Card — I enjoyed the first two novels in this trilogy but felt it fell apart in this last one. Rating: 2.
- The Last Emperox by John Scalzi — The second trilogy I completed, and just like the previous one, I liked the first two books much better. Too easy on the resolutions. Rating: 3.
- The Rule of Three by Eric Walters — Why not read a post-apocalyptic novel while the world is falling apart around me? Easy read, but exciting. At first, I wanted a definitive “bad guy,” but then realized that it was a traditional adventure story with the protagonist facing off against nature (the nature of the world after an apocalypse). Rating: 4.
- Dragon Teeth by Michael Crichton — You can’t go wrong with a Crichton novel. A very interesting historical fiction account of the battle between two early paleontologists fighting for recognition of the dinosaur bones they dug up in the west. Rating: 4.
- Dark Matter by Blake Crouch — The protagonist is given a rude introduction to the multiverse when an alternative him invents a device to travel across the dimensions and steal his life. Rating: 4.
- Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions — Written and published in 1844 by Edwin Abbott Abbott, it was very unique. It read like a documentary, but beneath it all, I sensed a subtle social commentary of Victorian England. Rating: 3.
