After reading The Telling by Ursula Le Guin, and really liking it, I really wanted to read some of her classics. A Wizard of Earthsea was recommended to me by one of my LT friends, and I wasn’t disappointed. This book is all fantasy, dealing with witches, wizards, mages, magic, dragons and quests. But for me, it had none of the standard fantasy stuff, and it was a great fast paced read.
Ged is a smith’s son, who turns out to have a talent for magic. He chooses to be trained in Roke, but in his pride he goes too far with a spell and unleashes something on the world. The rest of the book is his quest to rid the world of the shadow he brought into it.
I have seen the Studio Ghibli movie, but while I didn’t like that, I loved this book, I loved Ged, and I loved the story. I can’t wait to find and read other parts of the Earthsea cycle. I have nothing more to say, this was a five out of five star read for me.

This book deals with two famous scientists from the nineteenth century, the adventurer Alexander Humboldt and the homebody Carl Friedrich Gauß. They meet, and in alternating chapters their life stories are described. The contrast between the two is large, Humboldt loves and craves adventure, where Gauß wants to stay home and focusses on theoretical science. Halfway through they meet, and the rest of the book is a mix of both their stories.
The writing in the book is great, with some humor and lots of facts. A couple of months ago I read Humboldts abridged travel journal, which made this book even greater, offering a human side to the travelling scientist. A very nice read for those who like the nineteenth century scientists. Four out of five stars.

Het uur van de engelen (Angelology) is an historical adventure novel taking place in a world were angels are real. The children of humans and angels, the Nephilim, are terrible creatures who want to exterminate humankind. Angelologists, scientists who have been researching the Nephilim and angels since the beginning of time, try to win the war for the humans. In this book we follow Evangeline, a young nun from New York, but also the story of her grandmother and her friend.
The story has a nice historical element that tries to explain the mythology here. It’s not quite pro-Christian, but the author makes it clear that humanism, atheism, Darwinism and movements like these are developed or propagated by the evil Nephilim. That wasn’t necessary for me, but all in all I enjoyed the book as an entertaining read. The ending left room for a start of a series of Angelology books, so I was not surprised to see that there is already a sequel. Three out of four stars.

The seventh and final part of the ‘Het Bureau’ series. Maarten is retired, but still returns to the Bureau every now and then to finish up work, to take part in the commissions of which he is still a member, and to keep in touch with the employees. At home, Nicolien and Maarten have a hard time getting used to Maarten being home all the time. He spends his free time taking bike rides around the country and taking pictures. His return visits to the Bureau end in a dramatic realization, that the people there don’t need him anymore, and like to change all he held so dear.
A ‘nice’ finish to the series. Not nice in the subject matter, but nice in the fact that it provides a real ending to the long autobiographical story. Four out of five stars.

This is the sixth book in the “Het Bureau” series, the autobiographical story of Voskuil’s working life. In this part, the institute’s director retires, there is a political struggle to determine who will replace him, several people close to Maarten and Nicolien die, and at the end of the book, Maarten retires himself.
The book, like the last one, focusses more and more on Maarten’s personal life, and his emotional reactions to his working life. The subjects, the papers, articles and conferences are not as important as they were in the beginning, which makes the book a lot more readable. Other than that this is a continuation of the previous five books, and I really liked it. Four out of five stars.

Note: I received an Advance Reading Copy of this book through the You Review program of The American Book Centre.

Robopocalypse is the much anticipated robot dystopian novel by Daniel H. Wilson. Anticipated so much that Steven Spielberg is already making a Robopocalypse movie to be released in 2013. But does it live up to the hype?

In Robopocalypse, we are some time in the future. Robots are a part of daily life. There are service robots to help in the household, computers in cars preventing accidents, robot toys, robots in factories, hospitals and the army. But at one point, we go to far, and the robots turn against us with ruthless precision. Slowly we realize that robots might not be as trustworthy as we thought. Then, one day, it’s Zero Hour and the New War starts.

The story is described by Cormac Wallace, a surviving warrior, after the war has ended. Through the eyes of some of the key players of the war, the events are described. The manner in which this is done is very much like what Max Brooks did in World War Z. The difference, besides the fact that we trade zombies for robots, is the distance between the main narrator and the events described. In Robopocalypse the narrator is one of the main characters in the war, and the events described have just ended. Eyewitness accounts of short amounts of time before, during and after the war, together form the whole story. We as readers get to take a glimpse into what is happening, but because the characters don’t know the full story, neither do we. Only the personal comments of Wallace give a bit of context as to why he has included the fragment. Throughout the book we follow the same groups of characters, sometimes families, sometimes loners who in turn affect the stories of other characters.

I loved the book. The writing was truly scary, especially when the first attacks are being described. I was reminded of the movie Maximum Overdrive, and I was glad we are not living in that world (yet…). The book covers the US mostly, with one character in Japan, and one in the UK. Other than that, there is not much being said about the rest of the world. After finishing it I wanted to know what happened in South America and Africa. For example, was Africa as developed robot-wise as the first world, and if not, what happened there? One of the things I don’t care for in books, and what Wilson did here, is the use of flash forwards. In the book, Wallace ends each chapter with a short description of what happened next, for example in the form of “This would turn out to be a turning point.”. After a few chapters ending like this I was annoyed about it, I want to find these things out for myself. And if the writer won’t describe these things, maybe he should. But that was really the only flaw I found in the book. Of course, some things were a bit unrealistic, some reactions by the characters were very hero-like, but all in all, it was a very entertaining and good book. I hope this and World War Z cause this genre of eyewitness account books to become more popular so we can read more books like this. For me, this book was four out of five stars.

With all the science fiction reading I have been doing this past year, Ursula Le Guin is a writer I could no longer ignore. I really wanted to read The Left Hand of Darkness, but the book was a bit too expensive and the library does not have it. But they did have De vertelling (The Telling). After starting the book I found out this is part eight in a loose series/universe, but that didn’t affect my reading that much. I think the parts of this series are related to each other like those in The Culture universe by Iain M. Banks, which means that while you will enjoy the book more if you know the other parts, you can still read it by itself.
In this story Sutty, from an earth in the future, is sent to the planet Aka to study and observe. However, while she is in transit, something on the planet changes and she hardly has any access to the history of the place because a new totalitarian regime has taken over and destroyed all books, and prohibited history. During the period she is there she finds out more and more about the history, which may give her a key to fixing the relationship between earth-people and Aka.
It took me a bit to get into this story because Le Guin doesn’t give too much of a back story (maybe because of the previous parts). But after getting into the story that didn’t bother me too much anymore. The story itself was very good, because the reader gets to discover Aka along with Sutty. A nice introduction to Le Guin, four out of five stars.

After reading The Crimson Petal and the White by Michel Faber two weeks ago, I, like many others, was unsatisfied at the ending. I wanted to know what happened to Sugar and Sophie and felt the book ended way to early. I was not the only one, I noticed from the reviews on LT and the many letters Michel Faber prints in his introduction to this book, The Apple. In this book he revisits the world of Crimson Petal to tell seven short stories about characters we know from there. These stories take place before or after the events in the main book. However, I am sorry to say, a true ending is still not offered.
There are stories about Sugar before she met William, about William twenty years after Sugar left, about Clara after she was fired, about Bodley and one told by Sophie’s grandson. And although the book doesn’t explicitly tell us what happened after we read the last page of Crimson, it does offer a glimpse. Faber says you don’t have to read Crimson to enjoy these stories, but I think that would take out most of the enjoyment to be had here. An explicit tale of a whore and a strange client isn’t any fun unless you already know that whore. At least, that’s how I experienced it. All in all this was a nice short read, but not more that three out of five stars for me.

Part three of 1Q84, which is really one novel which has been split up into three books (for the Dutch market). After the cliffhanger at the end of part two, this brings the story to a (Murakami) conclusion. Both Aomame and Tengo find out more and more about the Little People and the two moons, and the world of 1Q84. And a third character is given his own chapters in this part, Ushikawa. I won’t describe more of the plot here, because I feel that discovering the world that Murakami created in 1Q84 is what is best about this book.
Now, how did I like the story as a whole. I have read reviews of people who thought this story was a bit too strange. I think it is further out there than most Murakami tales, but for me, it did have the same atmosphere to it. True, this has even more of a magical realism feel, the characters are in a different world altogether. But what I like about Murakami, and about this book, is that the world is only slightly different from hours, and just like us, the main characters have to discover for themselves what it is, and what it means. I have also read that people didn’t care for the characters of Aomame and Tengo. I didn’t agree, I did care for them and really wanted to know what the ending of their story would be. And that’s where the book doesn’t quite deliver. I am not saying it is bad, but the ending is not quite a clear ending. This story is over, but it might be followed by more adventures. Who knows? But that is also part of the charm, this way the characters stay with you. After reading it all, all I can say to Murakami fans, is: get this book as soon as you can. For me, this was a five out of five star read.

This is part two of the latest Murakami, 1Q84 (for my review of part one, see here). The story of Tengo and Aomame continues on. Slowly more becomes clear of the world they inhabit, and what’s going on with all the characters. The story is still being told through alternating chapters, but the stories interweave more and more.
There is not much else I can say that I haven’t already said in my review for part one. The story keeps getting better and better, and the translation into Dutch is very good too. This book gets another five out of five stars from me.