In this graphic novel, the story of told of the search of Bertrand Russell for the foundations of mathematics, based on logic. The story is told in two ways, by Bertrand who is giving a lecture about how logic can be used in the world, and by the writers and artists of the book themselves, in their discussions about what the main theme is. It is a very interesting story, but I am not sure I got everything. I understand Russels wish to make sure that mathematics have a solid base, and I understand the writer’s aim of showing the link between passionate logicians and madness (I was reminded of the movie Beautiful Mind). The drawings were beautiful and true to life. The explanations in the back, of the people involved, the concepts and the liberties the writers had taken was extremely welcome. A very good and interesting book. Three out of five stars.

I found this book by accident (in a big, out of the box sale) and the title grabbed my attention. From the description on the back at first I thought the story might be something like The Village (the M. Night Shyamalan movie), where a village is isolated by the ones in charge for no outside reason. But reading the book the story is quickly revealed (warning, possible spoilers ahead if you don’t know about this book). Mary, the main character, lives in a village that is ruled by The Sisterhood, a nunnery, and guarded by The Guardians. The village is surrounded by high fences to guard the residents from The Forest of Hands and Teeth, where the Unconsecrated live. Since the Return they are there, always waiting to take more people, infecting them. They are zombies.
Mary is at a turning point in her life. Will she be chosen to marry, or will she spend her life as a Sister in the Sisterhood. Events quickly spiral out of her control, and she discovers the world she has always known has many secrets. Together with her brother and friends she has to take a chance and look Outside, following the stories her mother always told her about the life before The Return.
The story is pretty fast paced (I read it one sitting), which I liked, but it didn’t leave a lot of room for explanations. I really wanted to know what happened, who They are, what happened at The Return, why the village is there, who The Sisterhood are. Maybe more will be revealed in the two books that follow this one. This book reminded me a lot of The Passage by Justin Cronin, only now with zombies, and for young adults. Four out of five stars.

I know this isn’t a great work of literature, but as a dog lover I just had to read it. This is the story of John and Jenny, a newly married couple that add a lovely Labrador puppy to their family. But the Labrador, Marley, turns out to be a mentally not very normal, huge, slobbering dog. He’s hard to control, he is destructive, he is not very intelligent. But he is extremely loving and loyal. The book covers Marley’s life with the Grogans, including the birth of their three children and their move across the country. In short episodes happenings with Marley are described.
The emphasis is very much on how bad a dog Marley is, and maybe I like dogs too much, but I hardly agree. Yeah he doesn’t listen, but he is not evil. Yeah he is destructive, but mostly out of fear and loneliness, and because he doesn’t know his own strength. I can understand that he tried the Grogans’ patience, but I think he sounds like a very loving dog. Luckily Grogan admits this at the end of the book. The end of the book, and the end of Marley’s life was so sad, I couldn’t help but shed a tear. The book itself is no masterpiece, but a fun and emotional read nonetheless, and a good reflection of what it like to love a dog. Four out of five stars.

Now that I am home so much (with a bad back) I decided to start reading some non-fiction again as a second book. And why not pick up a history of the whole world and all time (that humans were on earth)? This book, the fifth edition from 2007 tries to cover everything in 1188 pages. The first edition was published in 1976, and for this edition the last part was written by Odd Arne Westad because the main author J.M. Roberts died in 2003.
The book is divided into eight parts, each covering a major period of history. The parts cover the time before history, the first civilizations, classical mediterranean, diverging traditions, the making of the European age, the great acceleration, the end of the European’s world and the latest age. The narrative is about major events in history, covering peoples very generally. While this enables the coverage of thousands of years in a little over a thousand pages, this is sometimes very frustrating. In some parts Roberts seems to go out of his way to not mention any names, presumably to not confuse his readers. Yet when I read about the German Emperor drowned in the course of the Third Crusade, how difficult or distracting is it to just say that it is Frederick Barbarossa so I can related this part in the book to other books I have read about the period. And when discussing religions it is weird that Shinto is called a sect, and all other religions are that, religions. Like the author admits in his preface, the book is very Euro-centric, covering mostly Europe and the parts of the world that now have European culture (the Americas, Australia). The Middle East and Asia become more important later on. But it is too bad that not much is mentioned about the Americas, Africa and Asia before the Europeans arrived. His reason for this is that none of the civilizations there were major, and none survived. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t interesting. The weirdest example of this is the picture on the cover of the book, of the Easter Island statues, yet Easter Island is never mentioned in the book.
This review does sound a bit negative now, and I don’t feel that way about the book. Covering such a large span of time and such a big area is difficult, and Roberts and Westad did a great job. Four out of five stars.

This is one of the few (later) Asimov books that has nothing to do with his major universes of Robots and Foundation, but stands on its own. The book takes place in the twenty-fourth century. Humankind has Settlements in space. These are large spaceships where humans live permanently as Settlers. They are still pretty close to earth though. One of the Settlements, Rotor, has discovered a way to travel close to the speed of light. Using that discovery they have found Nemesis, a companion star (a red dwarf) to our sun, and they travel there, in secret.
The book follows two strands of the story, one strand following Rotor, the other Earth. At its heart are the mysteries of why Rotor left, how and where they went. For Rotor it is the discovery of life near Nemesis and what kind of relationship they have with Earth. I really liked this book, because it had everything. It had difficult human relationships, leaders who try to do the best but maybe aren’t right, modern humans, strange planets, new discoveries. A great Asimov, four out of five stars.

This is one of the few books I tried to read but couldn’t finish. I am usually pretty forgiving. Bad writing, far fetched stories, story lines that are forgotten… but this book, it was all too much. For some things, I don’t know if it was the fault of the writer, Julián Sánchez, or the translators (Even the title is a bad translation, it should have been De Antiquaar).
The story (as far as I read/skimmed it) is about an dealer of old, valuable books in Barcelona, who buys a whole collection of works from an old Spanish family. One of the works is a sort of diary from a builder on the Barcelona Cathedral, and it contains some strange allusions to a hidden object, that has something to do with the Jewish community in Barcelona. However, the dealer is murdered, and now his adoptive son is trying to solve the mystery.
It all sounds alright, in a Da Vinci Code ripoff way. But the writing just wasn’t for me. Long, long descriptions of the characters, things that happened in the past but have nothing (yet, I assume) to do with the story. Very long sentences that I just couldn’t follow, and many red herrings in the beginning of the story. One out of five stars, and no finish.

A long time ago I have seen the famous movie The Wizard of Oz. I remember of course Dorothy, Toto, the lion, the tin man and the scarecrow, the yellow brick road and Emerald City. Other than that, not much, and I have never read the book by L. Frank Baum that was the inspiration for the movie. But, I didn’t really need to remember a lot to understand and enjoy this book, Wicked, the story of the Wicked Witch of the West, how she came to be that way.
The book covers the life of Elphaba, her birth in Munchkinland, her difficult youth on account of her being green, her years of study in Shiz and her later years. The Wizard of Oz is an evil man, a dictator who removed the Ozma regent to rule Oz, and Elphaba is part of the resistance against him. But she pays a high price for her resistance. The novel is an exploration of evil, how do people become evil, and who is evil. Is the Wicked Witch of the West evil? Is the Wizard good? And if so, why? Faith plays a big part in the novel, as well as how different races should live together.
I found the book ok. The story was very interesting, but for me, it didn’t need its relationship with the original Oz stories. Sometimes it felt forced, especially the ending when Dorothy appeared on the scene. The story ended pretty quickly, abruptly after that, and to me it didn’t feel right, keeping in mind the 450 pages before that. It was an interesting read, but not brilliant. Three out of five stars.

How can you tell if the science fiction book is old?
In this case, if the story takes place in 1992, the far away future. This copy of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was my dads, and was published in 1977. The story is about Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter hunting for androids, and John Isidore, a man affected by the fallout and considered special. The world is earth, after a great world war. The fallout is very damaging, both to humans and animals, and humans are encouraged (by receiving a free android) to emigrate to other planets. Hardly any animals have survived and it is a task and a status symbol to care for a living animal, the bigger (and rarer) the better. Deckard has an electric sheep, unable to afford a real sheep, and unable to admit this. The book covers one day, in which Deckard must hunt down six androids of a new, more human, type. The book covers his difficult choices and experiences, both covering androids and animals. John Isidore, a special, shares some of the experiences, but looks at them from a different point of view.
Even though the book is very short for todays standards (202 pages in my edition), it covers a lot of topics concerning ethics, religion, love and empathy. I would love to have had more of the story, then again, now that it is so short it helps you think about it. Four out of five stars.

This is another book from my father’s classic scifi collection, My Name is Legion by Roger Zelazny. It contains three stories (the last one, Home is the Hangman, won a Hugo and Nebula ). All stories are told by the same (unnamed) character. He was involved in the creation of a global super databank in which all data about people is contained, their personal information, their travels, their finances, their psychological tests. Because he had his doubts he erased himself from the system and created a backdoor, enabling him to create and erase identities for himself as he wishes. Because he has no legal way to make money, he hires himself out as an investigator of suspicious happenings.
The book takes place in the future, but not very far out, and the world described is not much different from our own. Only in the last story, about an AI robot/machine, a lot of Science Fiction (about space travel) is alluded to. The rest read more like investigative mysteries. The book was an alright read, but not that special. Three out of five stars.

The second volume of the Sherlock Holmes novels and stories, containing The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Valley of Fear, His Last Bow and The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes, the first two being novels, the last two collections of short stories. There is not much new I can say about this book that I haven’t already said about the previous volume. I liked the novels a lot better than the short stories, because you read more about all sides of the story and the story gets more time to build up to the final reveal. The stories are pretty nice, but like in the previous book, sometimes a bit predictable because it is (now) a familiar theme, or stories are alike to each other. Still, this classic must read gets four out of five stars.