Lee Hunts

I wasn't planning on writing anything for Piranesi, if only because this is one of those books that I thought you should go into completely blind. I'm in agreement with pretty much everyone else on that because you can't really talk about this book without spoilers. I also balked at doing a spoiler review because I tend to do them when I have a lot to talk about, which is usually when I have issues with the book. It is safe to say I did not have many issues. But as I looked at some of the reviews and saw some of the interpretations of the book, I thought I would at least write something providing my take of the ending of the book, and also my interpretation of the story as a whole. Spoilers Ahead Greatest Strength The greatest strength of the book is the perspective shift. I don't mean that there is a shift during the plot of the book (part way through), but that the book's foundations are built on the "shift." We get the story from one perspective, and th...

I just finished reading Ubik, by Dick. You know the one. Frankly speaking, this is one of those novels that I think you should just go into blind. I'm beginning to notice a trend, though I've only read two of Dick's novels. Dick likes to smash his novels full to the brim with countless concepts that could be used to make a novel, all on their own. The mere act of describing this novel would make me look like a lunatic. I commented on this in Androids, and I see more of it here. That said, I do think that Ubik, as scattered as it seems to be in the beginning, manages to tie everything in the novel together in a way that is surprisingly parsimonious, and nothing short of absolute mindfuckery. I loved it. There are some things that are unfortunately underutilized, I can't even mention them for the sake of spoilers, but it really just comes down to the fact that Dick is thick with his conceptual construction. So much is there, so it is inevitable that some elements would ha...

I just finished reading the gargantuan novel, To Green Angel Tower, by Tad Williams. I thought about reading this book in parts, given its length. It's apparently up there with War and Peace in its length, and it is neatly divided into four sections—but I was engaged enough that I wanted to just finish the book. The fact that I heavily used the audiobook in conjunction with the ebook helped with that. This book is not only long, but it is the culmination of a trilogy. It finished The Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn trilogy. I have already reviewed the first two entries beforehand, and I will link them below. To briefly recap, I thought The Dragonbone Chair had potential, and it had an amazing climax. Stone of Farewell was not good, save for scatterings of scenes. It was basically the instantiation of middle book syndrome. But because my critique was simply that it didn't need to exist, I was still committed to moving on to the last entry eventually. Right from the outset, I have to s...