Wulf's Book Reviews

Finlay Donovan Is Killing It by Elle Cosimano My rating: 3 of 5 stars Well, “ Finlay Donovan Is Killing It ” by Elle Cosimano has certainly and clearly managed to kill any link to reality early on… Finlay Donovan, desparate housewife, mother of two, divorced from her serial-cheating husband and in a custody battle with him over their kids, who has probably swatted a fly or two at worst, accidentally murders a person, tries to hide that together with her children’s nanny and goes on to stumble from one mess into the next. Ok, I knew I would likely have to suspend my disbelief a little more forcefully with this one than with other books but the premise didn’t prepare me for the utter nonsense that this book consists of. Not only is Finlay an uncoordinated mess, massively behind at writing her book, drowning in bills and debt, no, she doesn’t really get anything done but hopes things will magically resolve themselves somehow. And, in fact, in this book they actually simply do: Her ...

Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood My rating: 5 of 5 stars » Annie used to have a funny theory: we all have a Year Zero around which the calendars of our lives pivot. At some point you meet someone, and they become so important, so metamorphic, that ten, twenty, sixty-five years down the line you look back and realize that you could split your existence in two. Before they showed (BCE), and your Common Era. Your very own Gregorian calendar. « “ Love on the Brain ” by Ali Hazelwood is - for the time being - my gold standard for romance. It’s the lovechild of romance and nerdiness; it’s The Ultimate Nerdy Romance! Almost every sentence was pure joy to read! » I will slay a murder of dragons for you.” - “I looked it up,” Levi says from the doorjamb. “It’s a thunder of dragons.” « Bee Königswasser meets her arch-nemesis from graduate school, Levi Ward, again when she’s taking up a position as a co-lead with him on a NASA project. She has a lot of good reasons to believe Levi hates h...

Die Geschichte der Bienen by Maja Lunde My rating: 3 of 5 stars “ Sie findet den Weg hinaus aus dem Flugloch, dreht eine Runde vor dem Bienenkorb, ehe sie allmählich den Abstand zu ihrem Zuhause vergrößert. Aber noch ist sie nicht bereit. ” Ein weiteres Mal läßt mich ein Buch recht ratlos zurück: “Die Geschichte der Bienen” von Maja Lunde ist zweifellos intelligent, kritisch und zutreffend. Am Ende – und immer, wenn es auch zwischendurch “menschelt” – ist es auch ein kraftvolles und berührendes Buch. Leider sind die Längen zumindest am Anfang spürbar: Bemüht erzählt Lunde in drei Zeit- und Erzählebenen von der Geschichte der drei Protagonisten, ihrer Familien und ihrer jeweiligen Beziehung zu den Bienen. William, im Jahr 1852, ist mäßig erfolgreicher Saatgutkaufmann und Naturforscher, der – so meint er zumindest – seiner Familie seine Leidenschaft für die Forschung geopfert hat und daran zerbricht. George, der vermeintliche Realist mit großen Träumen, der als Imker in den...

A Soldier's Quartet by Colin Baldwin My rating: 2 of 5 stars DNF at 58%… I really hoped I would like " A Soldier's Quartet " by Colin Baldwin but it was not to be for a lot of reasons. First of all, we’re jumping around in time as if we were Doctor Who’s new companion - from 1918 to 2018 to 1914 and so on and on… This is not only confusing and exhausting, it actually wastes the chance to actually make us care about the German soldier Wolf who first dies and only later do we get insight into some of his life before. Also, the narration about Conrad’s contemporary research into the letter doesn’t really work for me: It’s a thinly veiled memoir of Colin's endeavours and it feels entirely authentic (including some “classic” German habits and traditions) - but, to me, it’s just not very interesting. A lot of it would totally work and amaze me if told briefly and anecdotally in person. Not so much as a book, though. There’s also at least one instance in which a l...

Bots of the Lost Ark by Suzanne Palmer My rating: 4 of 5 stars » “If I am so damaged that I would need to be reset, I would rather be decommissioned and my parts used to repair others. ”« (Highly relatable; I’m an organ donor - what about you?) " Bots of the Lost Ark " by Suzanne Palmer was a fun read! In this sequel short story to the earlier “ The Secret Life of Bots ” which took place 68 years earlier, the bots on the damaged spaceship “Ship” have gone haywire and Bot-9 returns to save the day. Some old acquaintances are back in new roles, the story is nice and amusing and the writing is good. Four stars out of five. Ceterum censeo Putin esse delendam View all my reviews https://turing.mailstation.de/bots-of-the-lost-ark-the-secret-life-of-bots-2-by-suzanne-palmer/?feed_id=661&_unique_id=6306348d2e2d2

Artificial Condition by Martha Wells My rating: 5 of 5 stars The Murderbot Diaries strangely appeal to me. As I’m still on my way to the full length novel, recently published, I’m wondering at the simple elegance and straightforwardness of the novellas. This second instalment in the series is, thankfully, pretty much more of the same in a very good way. We still get a good view of a “construct” that’s basically a robot with human parts - and it shows: Murderbot feels slightly like it’s a person on the autism scale. “ I skimmed it but most of my attention was on getting through the crowd while pretending to be an ordinary augmented human, and not a terrifying murderbot. This involved not panicking when anybody accidentally made eye contact with me. ” This time, Murderbot is literally and metaphorically on a journey: Having recently run away from its benefactor of the first novella , Dr. Mensah, it’s now literally on the way to dig into its own - murderous? - past. Metaphorically ...

The Dance of the Serpents by Oscar de Muriel My rating: 1 of 5 stars “ The Dance of the Serpents ” is book six of Oscar de Muriel's “ Frey & McGray ” series. The series started out interesting enough with Frey being the rational investigator during superstitious times. McGray on the other hand always was basically seeing the “supernatural” all around him and in everything in their cases. There used to be kind of an equilibrium between both of them: It used to be unclear if there truly was a supernatural force involved or if everything was actually due to “natural causes”. We, the readers, could be the judge of that. This worked well enough for the first four books. Along came “ The Darker Arts ” in which Frey’s no nonsense attitude became overwhelmingly dominant and McGray was pretty much demoted to an unhinged clown. cf. my review . This book reverses these roles to some extent: McGray’s superstition - bordering on obsession - gets to dominate everything else. Probably ...