Books Read in 2000

This novel is typical of Simmons's work, but not among his best novels. He sustains the action and suspense skillfully and writes with a practiced ease, but he fails to break new ground here. His recent The Crook Factory is a better novel, and his classic novels Hyperion and The Fall of Hyperion are better places to start if you are new to Simmons's work.

An outstanding debut by a gifted young writer. Smith will be at home with modern writers such as David Foster Wallace and Salman Rushdie. Recommended.

Amusing, though not as clever as it tries to be.

This book has been overhyped. Eggers's story is interesting, and a little heartbreaking, but frankly, he's an annoying narrator, and not quite as clever as he seems to think.

Useful descriptions of many interesting authors and their work. I made many notes in my copy, and if I didn't already have several dozen books waiting to be read, I'd use this to help guide my book purchases.

I had high hopes for this, after the wonderful Programming Perl, also by O'Reilly. This however, uses uninteresting and not-terribly-informative examples as a way to teach an elegant programming language. Beazly's Python Essential Reference is a much better guide to the language.

Beazley's book is much better than either of the O'Reilly books on Python (e.g., Programming Python). It's to-the-point, clearly written, and a useful reference.

I sought this out after reading a strong recommendation by Neal Stephenson. Galveston is an enjoyable and satisfying work of magic realism. I look forward to more from Stewart.

Middle Earth is an incredible creation, and Tolkien deserves great credit for creating a mythology so durable and intriguing. However, The Lord of the Rings is not great writing. The plot is practically a shaggy-dog story — a string of ever-more-outlandish scenarios, some with no good reason for being included. On a page-to-page level, Tolkien is the most dry fantasy writer I've ever read. The experience as a whole is saved only by the magnitude of the creation. That said, I will probably read it again someday (this was my first time), and I'll probably enjoy it more knowing what to expect.

The Harry Potter series continues to get better; this fourth book is better yet than any of the first three. The characters continue to be developed, and Rowling proves that she has a knack for sustaining page-to-page suspense almost indefinitely. Reviews of this book have been done to death in the media, and I have no interest in giving any of the plot surprises away, so I'll just say that this series is very entertaining and enjoyable, and I'm looking forward to Book V. See also, books 1, 2, and 3

Not a bad science fiction novel, with some interesting bits on the weight of immortality. At times it seemed that Delaney was trying something like Anne Rice did with her vampires — tying them in to critical moments in history — but Delaney doesn't follow through on the premise.

Nothing great, but entertaining science fiction.

This, in my opinion, is Powers' best work apart from The Gold Bug Variations. It follows his standard plot plan, which entwines two sets of characters from different times or places, and it concentrates on some form of technology — in this case late-80s "virtual reality". Powers has a gift for presenting technology in a way that is inventive, interesting, and usually accurate, but the technology never overshadows the characters. Wow, looking back at my Gold Bug notes, it's hard to believe that it has been over four years since I read it!

It took nearly 300 pages of this for me to really get into it, but it was a worthwhile journey. This was my first exposure to Wolfe. I'm impressed, but based on what I've heard about his attitude toward Pynchon and others, he's full of himself.

Although Pynchon's cover blurb is hyperbole, this is an excellent quest-fantasy. It's similar in several aspects to Tim Powers's novels (especially Last Call) ... but better.

Very lightweight, but marginally enjoyable.

The author sent this to me and asked me to read it. It's the start of a planned series, and, alas, this installation doesn't stand well on its own. I'm not a huge fan of the fantasy genre in general, however, so I can't really judge it in the right context (not that that's stopped me before).

Neat idea, and pretty good execution, but this didn't hold my attention all that well. Not bad at all, however, for a first novel.

Bagombo Snuff Box is a collection of Vonnegut's early short stories. Most or all of them are considered by the author to be throwaways, and I concur, with the minor caveat that it is interesting to see the first steps of an interesting author. This collection is recommended only to hardcore Vonnegut fans.

Lorrie Moore is great. Anagrams is still the high water mark, however.