LiamCostas

I find Coben a bit repetitive. Same sort of story, same sort of characters. Child I find a little...well, Childish. Baldacci I've yet to try.

I wasn't wowed by this. It read like a Harlan Coben, but not quite as good. What kept me going was wanting to know how/why the woman's family vanished on her. The problem came when the Linwood begins the explanation (which I won't give here), at which point I 'got it' and ended up not bothering to finish the book. And that, I realised, was the problem; it was only curiosity that got me 4/5 of the way through...once I knew the secret, the writing wasn't engaging enough to keep me along for the finale. I read 'A Quiet Belief in Angels' directly after this book, and to be honest the quality of writing in that book, makes 'No Time' appear scruffy and shallow by comparison.

Oh yes! I remember reading Rendezvous with Rama, years ago. That was excellent. Thanks for the suggestion, might go and pick it up from the local 'stones, if it's still in print.

Recently I finished reading the RIVERWORLD books by Philip Jose Farmer. This makes the 6th or 7th time through the series, and I think now, that I'll probably not read the series again. Don't get me wrong, fantastic series...just read it too many times now. So, I'm looking for something of that ilk. I want some more Scifi/fantasy, something original...but the trouble is I find myself irrirated by a lot of books in this genre. The sort of things that bug me are: 1. fantasy - unpronouncable places/names 2. scifi over - description of tech/gadgets 3. scifi - over emphasis of plot, under development of characters 4. scifi - silly science 5. fantasy - slavishly following Tolkein doctrine (elfs, hobbits, orks, zzzzz) 6. fantasy - inconsistant world logic I'm open to suggestions....actually, really hoping for some suggestions

I owe a debt of gratitude to Darren Shan for getting my kids into books. Between the Shan Saga and the Demonata they must have purchased about 18 of his books. If that's typical for a family, then that guy must be selling a helluva lot of books.

Crime/thrillers I've found to be one of the worst of the popular genres for rehashing tired tropes. The other genre I read a fair bit of is historical fiction, and I think the thing that saves authors in this genre from retreading the same tale is that they're basically having to follow historical fact to some degree...and quite often the real stories from history are far more 'inventive' than the stuff authors can come up with. Thriller writers though, do seem to be incredibly lazy these days (without naming any names) fowllowing a sort paint-by-numbers template for most of their stories, it's rare that you can't see the big twist at the end coming.

I loved the 39 steps, absolutely thrilling read from the beginning to the end. The things is, given that it was written, what...? 60 years ago? It reads very much like a contemporary thriller in terms of structure and pacing, and yet of course, it obviously has the language and values of a different era. I have tried reading other Buchan stuff like Prestor John, b-u-u-u-t, one finds ones self nashing teeth at some of the language and cringing at some prett un-pc values. But then, you know, you have to consider when it was written. In a similar way that accusations of rascism by Tolkein (orks being black, good guys being aryan/blond etc) is too easy a shot, I'd hesitate to level the same sort of thing at Buchan.

I'm desperately awaiting the BBCs remake of Survivors. The first show airs this sunday at 9pm on BBC1, I believe.

just finished reading this about half an hour ago and have been googling the subject 'peak oil' as the author suggested I do. I'm left feeling stunned and very...very unsettled by the disturbing nature of the book and all the things I've been reading on the net since. This book reads like a cross between a George Romero film and a beginners guide to Peak Oil. it's basically an end-of-the-world thriller, the basic premise being how quickly things would fall apart if oil stopped flowing tomorrow. Utterly thrilling (well terrifying actually) and very informative. I'd certainly reccomend it for those people who've never heard of PO and need a real kick in the pants to get up to speed on the issue of energy security/PO. But I'm keen to find out from people who've been living with PO awareness for a while....is it really as bad or as imminant as the author of Last Light suggests it might be?