Wulf's Blog

Summer of ’69 by Elin Hilderbrand My rating: 4 of 5 stars This is the story of a family, holidaying in Nantucket over the summer each year. We’re getting an insight into their life during the eponymous “Summer of ‘69”. Exalta, the grandparent generation, is the matriarch of the family. Her husband, Penn, passed away years ago and is idolised by Exalta who herself has been a prisoner of the (sometimes questionable) morals of the time...

Homo Faber by Max Frisch My rating: 5 of 5 stars “Ich nannte sie eine Schwärmerin und Kunstfee. Dafür nannte sie mich: Homo Faber” Es muß in den frühen 90’er Jahren gewesen sein, als ich im Bücherschrank meiner Mutter ein Buch im recht nüchtern und sachlich gestalteten weißen Schutzumschlag sah – “Max Frisch”, “Homo faber” und “Bibliothek Suhrkamp” stand dort. Suhrkamp kannte ich – sonst nichts.(Heute weiß ic...

Criss Cross by James Patterson My rating: 2 of 5 stars “The past will hunt you down” it says right there on the cover and I wish it was sarcasm by Patterson to put it there. Because the past hunts only him down. Let’s start at the beginning, though: In typical Patterson redneck manner, he lets Cross witness the state-sponsored murder of a killer he put away – right after Cross framed the guy… Cross himself about the framing part: �...

“(Confession time: that moment, when the humans or augmented humans realize you’re really here to help them. I don’t hate that moment.)” It doesn’t happen often but I’m running out of words. So, go and read my previous reviews first, I’ll be waiting here for you. Everything I stated before still holds true for this book. This first full-length Murderbot Diaries novel proves that Wells can obviously write at any length without ever b...

Home: Habitat, Range, Niche, Territory (The Murderbot Diaries #4.5), by Martha Wells My rating: 4 of 5 stars This short story primarily focuses on Mensah (irritatingly called by her first name Ayda here) is nice enough but doesn’t live up to the standards of the rest of the series. Most disappointingly, Murderbot itself is hardly ever present and just at the moment when it got interesting, the story was at its end....

Exit Strategy by Martha Wells My rating: 5 of 5 stars “I had options, and I didn’t have to decide right away. Which was good, because I still didn’t know what I wanted. But maybe I had a place to be while I figured it out.” So, four novellas and I’ve devoured them. One short story and one novel (so far) to go. I haven’t had this much fun with a book series since… Hitchhiker’s Guide, I guess. Whereas the latter is (almost) purely h...

Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells My rating: 5 of 5 stars Well, here’s yet another great instalment in the “Murderbot Diaries” series. It starts exactly where the previous novella left off and this leads us to yet another exciting adventure. While it’s, again, more of the same in a good way, this time we get to know even more about Murderbot’s ethics and morality because he has to deal with a human-form or pet robot. Miki, the “pet”, i...

Artificial Condition by Martha Wells My rating: 5 of 5 stars The Murderbot Diaries strangely appeal to me. As I’m still on my way to the full length novel, recently published, I’m wondering at the simple elegance and straightforwardness of the novellas. This second instalment in the series is, thankfully, pretty much more of the same in a very good way. We still get a good view of a “construct” that’s basically a robot with human parts ...

All Systems Red by Martha Wells My rating: 5 of 5 stars “And in their corner all they had was Murderbot, who just wanted everyone to shut up and leave it alone so it could watch the entertainment feed all day.” I’m not a Science Fiction fan. I’m not especially fond of novellas. This one, though… I can’t even really explain what appealed to me about this novella: Murderbot neither really feels like a robot nor like a person but still s...

Beach Read, by Emily Henry My rating: 3 of 5 stars When I decided to read this book, I was expecting a light, funny romance before going back to more “serious” books. I basically wanted what the title promised – an early “Beach Read”. Unfortunately, this was obviously not to be. First of all, January, our heroine, is annoyingly insecure. Her mother got cheated on by her late father and both the cheating and the dying entirely shatte...