G.H. Eckel > Recent Status Updates

Rapp is a man's man and a brutal killer. I guess we like him because he's our brutal killer. Good writing, good characters. Lot's of action.

Finally, a book about writing that I can actually apply while I'm writing and editing.

A murder mystery. Competent writing. Not a brilliant conceit. A man who has a motive to kill someone and damaging evidence of having done so (but hasn't, we presume) is represented by his ex-fiance who believes she owes him a big favor.

Good writing. Finding myself skipping parts because the plot is not entirely focused.

Beautiful, effusive writing style. Awesome characters. The plot is bogged down in this thinly veiled justification of "extreme measures," i.e., torturing captured terrorists.

Another, trippy Sylvain Neuvel novel, taking up the gauntlet thrown down by the success of Sleeping Giants. The storytelling is unorthodox--resembling a radio drama more than standard fiction. It pulls you in because the world is on the edge of crisis. A 20-story tall robot appears in the heart of London and a week later evaporates half of the city.

The central conceit that spawned the book, I assume, is terrifying and good: the Chinese have become so wealthy from overseas investments, that they own quite a bit of America and, when the loans our country can no longer be paid, the chinese will rightfully take ownership of America. Good conceit. The pace of action of a book of this type is REALLY slow. Some great scenes. No memorable characters.

Finally a slug of action in the last third of the novel. Carey is brilliant at inner dialog. There's just too much of it in the first half of the novel. His use of similes is magnificent. He's writing far better in the second half of the book than the first. This will lead him into his brilliant writing in the sequel.

Not as good as The Girl With All the Gifts, which is a sequel to this novel. Still the writing is good even if the plot is glacially slow. And the reader appreciates the self destruction of the team caused by their personality disorders or selfishness.

Pro: Gorgeous writing
Con: Not loving any of the characters

Brilliant writing. Zombie books, even this one, which is so well conceived, are not my cup of tea. But the gorgeous language in such an ugly plot keeps me reading.

If you liked the movie, Alien, you will want to read this novel.

Emmmm... thinking this is not my cup of tea. Having trouble liking any of the characters.

Great concept of winning from the top down, except in this world war, the top starts with satellites rather than air space. The invasion is feasible and well researched. THe middle of the book is getting bogged down a bit in side stories.

Slowly evolving, cozy mystery told from first person POV of 3 women, each a bit derailed, obsessive and scary. Although I'd like this to be moving a little quicker, the author is masterful at character portrayal.

A real different writing style that works. Almost all of the book is dialog; no inner thoughts, no POV, all of it reads like a conversation between two people with alternating paragraph in bold; there's no "He said" and "she said." The job of the reader is to pull together all of the different pieces of the story, determine what's really going on, and who to believe. And there's a lot going on.

What a trip. An entire novel written in the style of an inquisition, like a congressional investigation. Every paragraph preceded by a dash; every other paragraph bolded to distinguish speakers. The style gives the verisimilitude of reading a real investigation.

It's at that time with books you love that you don't want to see the end approaching.

Really interesting approach of using an interview style to tell the story of a little girl, now grown up, who fell into a large square hole in the earth next to an enormous metallic hand obviously made extra-terrestrially.

Fricking brilliant. I've avoided this novel because it hits close to home but Green is fricking remarkable in this novel. *Looking to see how I can enter 10 stars*