Helpful votes received on reviews:
94% (17 of 18)
Location: Wellington, New Zealand
In My Own Words:
Any feedback is welcome, whether it be good or bad. Please let me know. My philosophy on any review is to treat the item as neutrally as possible, and I will give the positive qualities of a bad book/product, and the bad qualities of a good book/product wherever possible. My goal in a review is to be clear and useful. About me: I used to live in Halifax, Nova Scotia on the East Coast of Canada. … Read moreAny feedback is welcome, whether it be good or bad. Please let me know.
My philosophy on any review is to treat the item as neutrally as possible, and I will give the positive qualities of a bad book/product, and the bad qualities of a good book/product wherever possible. My goal in a review is to be clear and useful.
About me:
I used to live in Halifax, Nova Scotia on the East Coast of Canada. I'm now in Wellington, New Zealand.
I've trained as an Electical Engineer and work as a computer programmer for the last few years.
I train regularly in Chito-ryu Karate and read and write regularly on the subject as well as overall karate history.
My other interests include reading science fiction and fantasy, physics for the layman, nature (especially whales, I'm a regular whale watcher) and just about anything good that might come along.
Oh yeah, I watch tons of movies and have kept a record of what I watched since January 1996. I find that the more I watch, the more jaded I become to 'average' movies. Also, I realize how much of a big deal expectation and mood are for enjoying a movie. Reviewers who can't take at least some of this into account aren't worth your time.
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Reviews
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While "Neverness" beats this novel for originality, this one is better in every other way. The author is now more polished there is more of what I liked about the Neverness universe presented in this book. Mostly, we see Danlo's search for the God Ede, which leads him to system after system in what is certainly a quest for the holy grail. I feel that if you liked the other Neverness books, or any other books by Zindell, you will also like this book. I don't think that there are any other authors who capture the feel of these novels, only Frank Herbert is close in his Dune series. I feel that Zindell is actually better though. I'm sure that many would disagree, but you don't… Read more
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A cyberpunk novel for sure, I felt that it was much more toned down than say William Gibson's "Neuromancer", still, I'm sure that it will probably always be compared to that novel. I haven't read any Neal Stephenson before, this is my first try.That surprised some of my friends, who said, "I'm amazed you haven't read it, eveyone who likes sci-fi and computers should read this book." - I've read it and I agree. There is plenty of interesting virtual world description and new tech to entertain any technical readers. None of it comes across as dumb or out of date or foolish etc... It all seems like a reasonable extrapulation of current trends. On top of that, there… Read more
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I fall in between the other reviewers on this one. I liked the book, but found that there were a few obvious items that they didn't include that I would have liked. The Homeworld:Cataclysm guide uses a tabular list of the ships, their cost, armour, firepower and speed etc... all viewable at once. I thought that should have been here too. In general, the book has good ideas, but I found that frequently, I had radically different strategies than the book that worked at least as well. This is ok, but still, I found that my was was quite obvious. The suggested strategy in
"The Bridge of Sighs" level (building 5 cloaking field
generators to cloak your entire fleet) is a little… Read more
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