Mike Reiter

An interesting look at the impact of Einstein

Reviewed: 2019-04-02

This book was presented very well. It cover's things that Einstein got wrong but not just in general but things that his theories predicted and he didn't believe. I learned that he was actually the father of Quantum Mechanics even though he felt it had to be wrong. He predicted black holes and an expanding universe but felt that those were just things that made the math work and couldn't be real. It was interesting to see the man that gave humanity the tools to go beyond its previous thinking, was trapped by the same thinking he was freeing others from.

interesting use of location for an engaging story

Reviewed: 2019-03-27

Jaz is a Porter/smuggler in the first and only city on the moon. She is always struggling and hustling to get by and she had one large outstanding debt she fills she must pay off. Fire the shot at a big payout she endangers everybody she cares about. The main character is interesting, helped our quite a bit by the narrator. the other characters are interesting is the intrigue. The setting enhances the plot rather than being a gimmick

Interesting but I was expecting more humour

Reviewed: 2019-03-17

Trevor Noah give the story of his life as a child and young adult in South Africa which covered the period just prior to and just after the end of apartheid. It is fairly interesting. I did listen to the whole thing. His narration is engaging but given what I had seen of him on the daily show and some of his stand up, I expected it to have more humour.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Predictable love story, weak fantasy world

Reviewed: 2019-02-21

Saiya is a wrath living in the modern day city of Stirling Scotland. It is ruled by goblins and under siege from another faction of goblins. Gabriel is a dark elf who has some magic, is en envoy of the government and hates wraths. What follows is a very predictable love story with a very weak story setting. The world doesn't hold together, all this is happening in a world with cellphones and the internet yet somehow this city is isolated while still being in present day U.K.. The dark elf has this seemingly unlimited magic ability but for some reason can't get simple things done. The abilities of the wrath seem to be whatever is needed at the time. Everything else is predictable and you could guess the story from the first three sentences of this review.

The narrator is very good and the only reason I saw this through to the end. I will look for more books narrated by her but I will definitely be skipping further offerings from this author.

A light fun mystery

Reviewed: 2019-01-26

Agatha Raisin owns a detective agency in the Cotswolds. When a church lady is found dead in the witches tree she takes a break from missing dogs and divorce cases to try and solve a murder. The story is an excellent take on an Agatha Christy novel with an interesting array of characters. The narrators voice brings just the right amount of sardonic whimsy to the material.

Much like the first

Reviewed: 2019-01-04

This was a good follow up to the first book. They escape their original environment and head off to explore the underworld. It sort of felt like half a story as it was the journey from their old home to their new home. I think one thing that was missing from this book was the sense of newness. I was expecting that to be offset with more indepth character development and maybe less focus on the main character and his omnipotence and more focus on group dynamics. I like the first book so much that I bought this one right after. Maybe it burned me out on the genre and the story and if I had had some time in between I would have felt better about this book. Since I have to wait for the next one we will see how I feel when it comes out.

Good villian but bad twist at the end

Reviewed: 2019-01-04

This being the first book in the series I was expecting some character flusing out and that is what happened. Shay Archer a newly minted Private Investigator with a very traumatic past of which she has no memory, takes on a case of a woman who is being harrased by her dead ex-husband, whom she happened to have killed.

The story moves at a decent pace. The villian is sufficiently sick and cunning to be scary and the seach for them progresses well. Unfortunately the author decided the ending needed an unexpected twist that for me ruined the story. I won't spoil the ending here. Also there is a collateral death that goes unexplained which made the story feel unfinished because up to this point even minor events get explained.

I never warmed to the narrator's voice. All her male characters had the same voice, sort of a semi-surfer dude voice and the female characters all sounded in the fits of hysteria, even the ones that were meant to be calm.

I would be willing to try another Shay Archer book, but I don't think I would be willing to sit through it with the same person doing the performance.

Interesting world environment

Reviewed: 2018-12-18

First I want to say I didn't really like the narrators voice, but over time I got used to it. It was competent. The author takes an interesting way to get the people into the gaming world, kidnapped by a supernatural being. I found this more interesting than the typical "stuck in a vr machine that delivers pain and can actually kill you". This made the danger more congruous. The world was interesting as were the various world mechanics. The story moves along quite well. I bought the second book right after I finished the first and at the time of this writing, I am just about to start it. I assume it will explore the characters more and develop more plot since the world has been introduced.

Find a kidnap victim of slaughter a town

Reviewed: 2018-11-28

It is another good Ryira novel and the performance by Tim Gerard Reynolds is excellent. I have become comfortable with Mr. Reynolds narration over all the Ryira books, Red Rising and First Empire books and his performance is always very good.

Royce and Hadrian are tasked with either finding a kidnap victim or devastating a town, and Royce is up for either. This is a typically enjoyable Ryira book. If you are a fan of the series you will be a fan if this book.

I do have two complaints. It feels a bit out of place since it comes after the end of the Ryira Revelations. Although if you were starting the Ryira books today, you would probably read this one somewhere amongst the Ryira Chronicles. It would have been nice to see a book that took place after the Ryira Revelations. The Novron Church conspiracy seems a bit tired as the over arching enemy.

Other than that it is a good adventure, the banter between the characters is what you come to expect, although chronologically it must take place before they second Ryira Revelations as their relationship progressed past the point depicted in this book by then.

Takes a while to get going, gets pretty funny

Reviewed: 2018-11-13

If you enjoy the humour from the other's in the series you will enjoy this one. It takes a bit of a different tact that the characters are split up into several groups. I guess after the last couple of books there are so many characters that having them travel together would be problematic. The books starts off slow but once it does pick up speed it is pretty funny. My only disappointment is that it ends on a cliff hanger.