Blog | Eric Hendel

Personal blog devoted to long-form book reviews and criticism.

Search This Blog

Home
About
Book Reviews
Publications

Posts

Myst: The Book of Atrus by Rand and Robyn Miller with David Wingrove

September 25, 2019

(Cover Artist: The Leonheardt Group) Some books end up succeeding not necessarily by the skill with which they were written, but instead the dedicati…

Get link
Facebook
X
Pinterest
Email
Other Apps

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett & Neil Gaiman

August 30, 2019

Absurdism Contemporary Fantasy Humor Neil Gaiman Novels Reviews Terry Pratchett

(Cover Artist: Douglas Smith ) It's very easy to poke fun at religion, and that's paradoxically why it's usually a good idea not to. All …

Get link
Facebook
X
Pinterest
Email
Other Apps

Word Puppets by Mary Robinette Kowal

August 15, 2019

Fantasy Mary Robinette Kowal Reviews Science Fiction Short Fiction Anthologies Speculative Fiction

(Cover Artist: Howard Lyon ) There's a story that appears midway through Mary Robinette Kowal's short fiction anthology Word Puppets whic…

Get link
Facebook
X
Pinterest
Email
Other Apps

Waste Tide by Chen Qiufan

July 31, 2019

Chen Qiufan Climate Fiction Cyberpunk Dystopias Ken Liu Novels Reviews Translations

(Cover Artist: Victor Mosquera ) Chen Qiufan's novel Waste Tide is marketed in part as an eco-thriller, and while I don't necessarily disag…

Get link
Facebook
X
Pinterest
Email
Other Apps

Alice Isn't Dead by Joseph Fink

July 19, 2019

Horror Joseph Fink Mysteries New Weird Novels Reviews

(Cover Artist: Rob Wilson ) Alice Isn't Dead is an interesting book in part for its history. First written as a serialized fiction podcast by c…

Get link
Facebook
X
Pinterest
Email
Other Apps

Eric Hendel

Visit profile

All Labels

Absurdism13
Alternate History2
Articles18
Climate Fiction5
Contact Fiction7
Contemporary Fantasy1
Cyberpunk7
Dystopias14
Epic Fantasy6
Fantasy3

Feminist Works8
Grimdark3
Horror4
Humor8
Literary Works12
Magic Realism5
Multiverse Stories10
Mysteries6
New Adult7
New Weird2
Novellas5
Novels37
Reviews27
Robots4
Science Fiction13
Short Fiction Anthologies3
Space Opera11
Speculative Fiction7
Steampunk2
Translations5
Young Adult5

Show more Show less

The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin

(Cover Artist: Ernst Haas) There's a way that Ursula Le Guin's 1971 novel The Lathe of Heaven is often described, and I want to start this review by talking about why this is a summary of this book which I disagree with. Generally, the way I've seen The Lathe of Heaven characterized is that it is the story of a man named George Orr, who believes that everything he dreams becomes real. Terrified of this power, George is assigned therapy with a psychiatrist named William Haber, who sets out to cure George of these (supposedly) delusional beliefs in his brain's ability to change the world. In time however Haber reveals himself to actually be a mad scientist with a god complex--a man obsessed with finding a way to manipulate the reality-bending power of George's dreams so as to remake the world in his own image. Soon, George realizes that he must do whatever he can to keep the power of his dreams from Haber's control, and in so doing protect the universe from h...

Myst: The Book of Atrus by Rand and Robyn Miller with David Wingrove

(Cover Artist: The Leonheardt Group) Some books end up succeeding not necessarily by the skill with which they were written, but instead the dedication and enthusiasm which the authors devote towards their work. Myst: The Book of Atrus is this sort of novel. While this is a story that often struggles with some awkward writing and occasionally stilted dialogue, there's nevertheless a genuinely original narrative at the core of this book that animates much of the resulting material. Written by sibling game designers Rand and Robyn Miller (along with the help of professional novelist David Wingrove), The Book of Atrus opens by introducing its title character, Atrus--a young boy living in the desert with his solitary grandmother, Anna. Set some 40-30 years before the events of the first installment in the video game series upon which this story is based (1993's Myst ), Atrus grows up in the shadow of a dormant volcano in an unnamed desert, and is raised on tales of th...

Lock In by John Scalzi

(Cover Artist: Peter Lutjen) I don't mean it as a bad thing when I say that the plot of John Scalzi's 2014 novel Lock In outwardly resembles that of a slightly tired TV crime drama. In fact, this is a major part of the book's charm. On the surface, Lock In is very unapologetically a noir-mystery centering around the exploits of a chain-smoking FBI agent struggling to solve a set of gruesome murders, with the novel's sci-fi elements manifesting via the fact that this otherwise familiar story is told (essentially) from the perspective of this woman's android coworker. Predictable to the crime-thriller genre, there is an elaborate plot-line involving murder and corporate espionage, and a long list of suspects whom the protagonists must investigate one by one as the mystery deepens. All the while, this story takes place within the context of a larger narrative involving hundreds of thousands of beings who, at least outwardly , appear to be sentient androids who in t...

This Site Does Not Use AI

This blog does not use generative AI. All of the articles and reviews posted here were written by me, and I have done my best to block web crawlers used in training commercial Large Language Models from accessing this material.