Rezensionen und Kommentare

Another good book from Schirach. This time a single story and not a collection of short stories. I heard they made a movie based on this book and I can see that. The book is as condensed as the short stories were, other authors would've stretched it to two or three times the length. If you follow my reviews you know that I wouldn't consider that an improvement.

I found a novel from the perspective of a German criminal defender very refreshing. As the author shares that with his protagonist the legal parts are highly realistic. Very nice change to the usual US-based court thrillers. I recommend this book if you enjoy that genre.

Ugh, what a tedious read this was. I really like the characters, I like the world, I love good cons and heists. And yet Lynch manages to make the books so damn hard to get through. There is an incredible amount of filler pages, hell, entire chapters that you could just rip out and nobody would notice. I complained about this in the first one already, but it's so much worse in this one. Many plot strings meandering along, until there's a rush on the last 50 pages or so to tie it all up.

I cannot recommend this book and I will not continue the series.

I put off reading Lies of Locke Lamora a long time. One reason was the "Nice bird, asshole" quote that comes up all the damn time. Now that I finally read the book I must say that that quote is over-rated. So damn over-rated. But at least the book is still good. It was indeed very entertaining I liked the characters and the world felt very dense. The interludes were a bit annoying, overall. They did add a lot, but there were also a lot of them. Maybe too many. I guess we'll never know.

If you enjoy fantasy with witty characters, if you enjoy con men stealing from the rich then this book might be for you. I will give the next books in the series a try.

This book was exactly what I was hoping for. Fast-paced, entertaining and pretty dumb. I think comparing it to Dan Brown's books is fair. A lot happens, there's never a dull moment and you should put your higher brain functions to hibernate while reading. If, like me, this is eaxctly what you sometimes want, then I recommend this book.

I don't know. This book is a typical Sanderson, more specifically an early Sanderson. Innovative magic system, which overall is rather insubstantial with its effect on the story. Easy read. But what annoys me a lot in most of Sanderson's book, and in particular his older books, is his schoolboy attempt at witty banter. My god, that can be annoying. Another thing I mention in almost all my reviews of his books is that they need tighter editing. They are way too long, so much boring filler stuff.

Well, after all that I am almost ashamed to say that I do enjoy the books, for the most part. Like I said, they are easy reads, entertaining despite the annoying parts. If you like Sanderson, this book will most likely entertain you as well.

I missed the release of this, so it was a nice surprise when I realized it was out already. It's a typical Reacher. But after so many books, 23 apparently, it starts to get a bit old. I don't remember how the non-Reacher characters spoke in earlier books. In this one everybody talks like Reacher. And I found it a tad annoying. The story itself was nice, though. Like I said earlier, a typical Reacher. He's in some small town in the US, runs afoul of the local bully and wanders into some evil people doing evil things and puts an end to it. But I think by now I just read these books out of habit. There's just no development.

My excitement for this book only went downhill. I watched the movie a couple of times and really liked it. Smilla was such a fun character and the story was surprising. So after a couple of decades I finally decided to read the book. Smilla was still fun, the background about Greenland and her life there was interesting. But after a while the inconsistent pacing became rather annoying. So my rating went from 4 stars after the first chapter , down to three somewhere in the second half to two at the end. While all the background info certainly added to the book, the author didn't know when to stop. It was just too much filler and not enough meat. Sometimes less is more.

This was an interesting read. It follows in the footsteps of Uprooted, where Novik started to re-examine Eastern European fairytales. I found Uprooted quite entertaining, so Spinning Silver was an easy sell. In this book the author goes even deeper into the lives of ordinary people in an extraordinary world. We start by following Miryem, the daughter of Jews living in some small village in some Eastern European-ish country. Their world is very familiar, except for the presence of supernatural creatures, the Staryk. Throughout the book we see many first person perspectives, besides Miryem's. The idea was, I guess, to show how people in fairytales might experience the events of their story. When the storyteller talks about "the moneylender's daughter" we don't get her backstory, her thoughts, her actions. In this book we do and I liked that.

After all these years, Shadowrun is still the perfect combination. Cyberpunk and fantasy, it can't get any better. Sure, some of the tech is a bit dated, even 30 years before the story is set. But still, these books will always be special to me.

In this first book of a trilogy, we see a Western salariman working for Japanese megacorp Renraku fall from grace and his transformation to a Shadowrunner who doesn't shy away from dealing with dragons. We get magic, tech, and glimpses into a world that has seen the appearance of magic and it's associated creatures (like the aforementioned dragons). If that sounds like your thing, give this book a try!

A tough read. I really liked the idea behind the book, but actually reading it was not very entertaining. I don't mind that the book does not subscribe to a grimdark POV, but instead has the heroes win it all. It's just that I find the Americans to be very annoying. And overall I guess I wouldn't mind some darker events. All in all an OK book, but not more.

Nice follow-up on Gereon Rath. A few things were a bit odd and Gereon continues to be annoying, but I still enjoy the books. I guess I recognize some of his character flaws in me. If you enjoy police procedurals and reading about Berlin at the end of the Weimar republic, this series is for you.