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Bookreviews

This is a list of some of my published book reviews. The majority of these reviews where written in Norwegian and published on a different website that limited the amount of words, and later translated to English and posted on this site. These reviews are short. Any longer reviews were originally written in English.

Acorna - the unicorn girl

Don't be fooled by the cover of this book. The title and the cover easily creates associations to cheap pulp fiction of the type filled with sappy romance, unicorns and fantasy worlds. Like the posters everybody had on their walls in the eighties. But it just ain't so. This is science fiction at it's best.

The series about Acorna is some of McCaffreys best writing, and she has written a lot. This book is one of her later works and she has started a wonderful cooperation with Margret Ball, creating a near to perfect book.Read more »»

Submitted by Brendan Johan Lee on Thu, 08/06/2009 - 20:45
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Acorna's quest

This is the second book in a series of six books about Acorna written by Anne McCaffrey. The book can be read by itself, but one gets much more from it if one knows the prehistory and has read the first book in the series - even though you get a good summary of the prehistory in the first chapter.

The same rules that applied for the first book apply for this book also: The cover and the title give a very wrong impression of what type of book this actually is. It looks like pulp fiction, the type with horses, unicorns and driveling love stories. Don't be fooled.Read more »»

Submitted by Brendan Johan Lee on Thu, 08/06/2009 - 20:26
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1984

1984 is science fiction at it's absolute best. We enter a future version of 1984 were "Big brother" rules. This is a cracking good read, excitement and a clear political warning all at the same time.

Many people use this book as an argument when discussing surveillance which just isn't quite right. This story isn't about total surveillance (only the middle class is snooped on).Read more »»

Submitted by Brendan Johan Lee on Thu, 08/06/2009 - 20:02
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Third Watch: Acorna's Children

This is a book that should never have been written. McCaffrey should never have continued this series and should have let the series die with the books about Acorna. The story is dull, boring and very predictable. The main characters are bleak shadows of what they once were and the new characters are not very believable and it almost seems like they were created in frustration while trying to push the story forward.

There is no drive to the story. It resembles a plastic bag floating meaninglessly in a river.Read more »»

Submitted by Brendan Johan Lee on Thu, 08/06/2009 - 19:35
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The Wishsong of Shannara

This is the third book in the original trilogy about Shannara, and it doesn't disappoint. The books is at least as exciting as it's predecessors and a book every fantasy lover must read. On the cover there is a quote stating that if you haven't read Terry Brooks you haven't read fantasy, a quote not that far from the truth.

Brooks has, over the last to books, matured greatly as a fantasy author. All of the cliches found in the first book is gone.Read more »»

Submitted by Brendan Johan Lee on Thu, 08/06/2009 - 19:15
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The Rose Rent

A widow who has donated her old house to the cloister asking only for one white rose from the garden each year is kidnapped. At the same time somebody is working their hardest to make sure that the rose rent isn't payed. Yet again brother Cadfael must step in and solve the mystery.

This is Peters at her absolute best. This is an amazing story. She serves us, not only a very authentic story with very believable characters and environment, but a very exciting and nerve-racking story.Read more »»

Submitted by Brendan Johan Lee on Thu, 08/06/2009 - 18:34
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The Hermit of Eyton Forrest

A young boy looses his parents and inherits the title Lord from his father. A body appears in the woods and a servant the young boy has befriended becomes the prime suspect. Meanwhile the boys grandmother wants the boy to leave the cloister and come home so she can form his mind in her image. Yet another mystery only solvable my Cadfael has appeared.

This is a very good book and describes the medieval England in a fantastic way. Ellis Peter really knows how, in addition to creating fantastic stories, to create authentic characters and environments.Read more »»

Submitted by Brendan Johan Lee on Thu, 08/06/2009 - 18:19
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The Elfstones of Shannara

"The Elfstones of Shannara" is the second book Terry Brooks wrote in a huge series about the Shannara world and is part of the original trilogy. This is genuine fantastic reading. Brooks matured greatly after writing the first Shannara book, and though the first book was well written it cannot compete with the second book. This is written art.

The story takes place two generations after the first book and the main characters are new. Even though some of the original characters are still included it's quite obvious that the legacy has been passed on.Read more »»

Submitted by Brendan Johan Lee on Wed, 08/05/2009 - 18:15
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Python scripting for computational science

Python scripting for computational science is an unusually good textbook. The author goes straight to the point without beating around the bush and the book is full of simple to understand examples. There are three things to be aware of before buying this book. First of all it's written for people who are into computational science. In other words not a good choice for those who simply want to learn Python. If that's your goal there are much better choices available.Read more »»

Submitted by Brendan Johan Lee on Wed, 08/05/2009 - 18:03
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Syntactic Theory: A Formal Introduction, 2nd Edition

If you actually want to learn syntactic theory this is a good book. However, it's main focus would be for machine use. The methods presented are typical "paper and pencil" methods but are quite similar to the LKB language. You will, however, not learn anything about algorithms by reading this book.

The language is compact and dull and the use of footnotes is extreme. It's amazing that it actually is possible to put that many footnotes in a single book. The examples are plentiful and because of the huge font often span over a large number of pages.Read more »»

Submitted by Brendan Johan Lee on Wed, 08/05/2009 - 17:53
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