Calvin C

This book walked so Harry Potter could run. In 2022, the book is 54 years old now. The concept of a school for young wizards was an innovation - even the idea of a young wizard at all was unheard of at the time. Everyone knew wizards were old men like Merlin and Gandalf. It is a fine book, but suffers from the Seinfeld effect. What made it amazing in its time is now just normal, and if you strip away any historical context, it can come off slightly uninspired.

It's fun and entertaining enough, I suppose. An intriguing amount of worldbuilding and the interesting magic system is great. However, all the side characters are two-dimensional, and Kvothe himself is the quintessential Mary-Sue ("He's an amazing intuitive magical genius, but it's okay because his weakness is he's really proud about it!") People will excuse this by saying Kvothe is an unreliable narrator, adding a deeper layer to the story... Be that as it may, it's unsatisfying to read if you're looking for something other than a generic young-man-power-fantasy. I would definitely recommend it for teenagers, I'm sure I would have loved it at that age.

A great concept and opening keep the pages turning, but the plot starts to lose steam after the midpoint, where tension barely simmers until the climax, where the author pulls out all the stops. First half is quite good sci-fi, second half is entertaining in the same way as a Michael Bay movie. Middling thumbs up.

A brilliant collection of short stories. Asimov was a gifted lecturer, and easily conveys complex ideas with natural dialogue. He was also astonishingly prescient - it's hard to believe this was published in the 1950s, instead of the 90s, and it holds up amazingly in 2019. A must-read for any fan of science fiction, philosophy, or great writing.

A frame story, much like the Canterbury Tales, where each pilgrim tells their tale. It touches on interstellar war, detective noir, philosophy, religion, and much more. I was skeptical at first but it's well worth the read. If you consider yourself a science fiction buff, you have to try it.