Colin's Updates

Colin is 60% done with The Hanging Tree

Sun, 11 May 2025 11:05:28 -0700

Colin Forbes is 60% done with The Hanging Tree.

Colin is 35% done with The Hanging Tree

Sun, 11 May 2025 02:39:55 -0700

Colin Forbes is 35% done with The Hanging Tree.

Colin started reading 'The Hanging Tree'

Sat, 10 May 2025 09:05:17 -0700

Colin started reading The Hanging Tree by Ben Aaronovitch

Colin is currently reading 'Mickey7'

Sat, 03 May 2025 06:14:00 -0700

Colin is currently reading Mickey7 by Edward Ashton

Colin added 'Dungeon Crawler Carl'

Tue, 29 Apr 2025 07:58:46 -0700

Colin gave 3 stars to Dungeon Crawler Carl (Dungeon Crawler Carl, #1) by Matt Dinniman
bookshelves: audiobooks, sword-and-laser-picks, team-sword
Read as the April 2025 book pick (and March Madness tournament winner) for The Sword and Laser.

Rating 3.5 stars

Well, that didn’t get off to the best start. I almost gave up at about 20% in. The humour just seemed a bit �� juvenile?

But, I had a day’s worth of outdoor work to do and ended up binging the remaining audiobook in said day, and enjoying it well enough.

I do kinda understand the hype and the love the book is getting. It plays into so many tropes of the RPG world in a humorous way and is cleverer than I originally gave it credit for.

So, yes, as an entertaining, but not hugely demanding listen it could sometimes hit the spot (and clearly has, with a lot of people) but I can’t see myself spending credits on the subsequent volumes when I’ve already got a ton of other reads that I’m waiting to get to.

Shout out to the audio narrator, Jeff Hays, who turns in a stellar performance and makes the whole thing work.

Colin added 'Just One Thing: How simple changes can transform your life'

Tue, 29 Apr 2025 04:22:59 -0700

Colin gave 3 stars to Just One Thing: How simple changes can transform your life (ebook) by Michael Mosley
An interesting read. Short chapters, each covering a simple behaviour that could benefit you physically or mentally, if you were able to convert it into a regular habit.

Of course, if you tried to add them all to your daily routine, you’d have very little time left for anything else.

Still, food for thought, and I’ve tried to take some of the advice to heart. Let’s see if they stick in the long term.

Colin added 'The Ministry of Time'

Tue, 29 Apr 2025 04:16:42 -0700

Colin gave 2 stars to The Ministry of Time (Audible Audio) by Kaliane Bradley
bookshelves: audiobooks, sword-and-laser-picks, team-laser
Read as the January 2025 book pick for The Sword and Laser.

Unfortunately, this one didn’t really hit the mark for me.

Hovering between a rating of 2 or 3 stars.

Billed as a time-travel adventure, that really only becomes true very near the end of the book. Mostly it’s ’man out of time�� or ‘fish out of water�� tale, which morphs into a rather clumsy and unconvincing romance.

Vague hints of intrigue and adventure take FAR too long to actually amount to anything, only to be wrapped up in a very hurried and not terribly coherent way.

There were a few clever ideas and some interesting side characters, but those who were actually the focus of the action didn’t endear themselves to me.

The more I write this, the more I’m decided. Two stars.

Colin added 'Ithaca'

Tue, 29 Apr 2025 04:14:53 -0700

Colin gave 4 stars to Ithaca (The Songs of Penelope #1) by Claire North
bookshelves: audiobooks, team-sword
Reading this was a new experience, in that my wife and I started listening to the audio book on a long-ish road trip. And while we were both enjoying the book, it turned out that we don’t actually spend enough time on long car journeys to finish a book in a reasonable length of time!

Having finally finished the book 6 months later (!) was it a good one?

Yes, on the whole very solidly written and narrated. An entertaining telling of some Greek mythology from a slightly different perspective to that you may be used to.

I thought we might leave the experiment there, but apparently we’re also going to listen to the second (and, inevitably, third) volumes. Will need to come up with more reasons to go drive places.

Colin added 'The Lost Cause'

Tue, 29 Apr 2025 01:55:03 -0700

Colin gave 3 stars to The Lost Cause (Kindle Edition) by Cory Doctorow
bookshelves: team-laser
2.5 stars - rounded up on a coin toss!

Well, I persisted through that, but it was far from what Cory is capable of.

Biggest problem for me was a complete lack of impetus to the story. While the protagonist may have several short-term goals in the course of the book, there's no one driving force to give us a plot to get excited about. No major goal, no mystery to solve, just a progression of events.

It is possible to write a slice-of-life book that's more about the characters and the relationships than the plot, but this is not that book either. The cast of characters simply aren't that interesting.

Cory has cleary thought deeply about the world-building, envisaging how life might look in a world where the focus is on adapting to climate change after trying to fight it has failed. All stuff that could be thought provoking in a magazine column or a speech, but not enough to support a story of this length.

And, Dear Lord, what is the obsession with describing the food and drink consumed by the characters on every other page? (I exaggerate, but you could base a drinking game on all the times it goes into excessive detail about the comestibles (?) consumed in the course of the book. In fact, in retrospect, that could have made for a much better reading experience!

Colin started reading 'We Solve Murders'

Mon, 14 Apr 2025 05:17:15 -0700

Colin started reading We Solve Murders by Richard Osman