Richard

A few people have written this book is good for geeks. I don't know why geeks would be entertained by generic, gee-whiz descriptions of mundane things like data centers. I could only take about an hour of this drivel. What a waste of time.

I don't know if she's interesting enough to be writing her memoirs/biography. She's a hoot on the daily show (along with hubby Jason Jones), but her uneventful, middle class Canadian upbringing just isn't book worthy. I giggled a couple of times, and listened all the way through, but I can't recommend it.

It took me a while to warm up to Matilda, not being too sure where it was going. Some of the early escapades seemed a little mean, but after the nasty adults became even nastier, Matilda went Obi Wan. It was wonderful.

Wow. If you asked me, I would never say I love murder mysteries. Especially ones with the disturbing scenes of violence. However, these three books were three of my all time favorite audiobooks. I just couldn't stop listening, and the wait for each successive volume to get translated and then narrated seemed interminable.

All three books were excellent, but this was definitely my favorite. The plot twists were original and varied, and the characters all compelling.

My only complaint is the plot reliance on specific pieces of technology, which will prevent these works from aging well I think. Much of the technology used (e.g,Salander's "Palm Tungsten") are already obsolete and forgotten. In ten years, they will be absolute mysteries.

This book was intriguing, but ultimately unsatisfying. I especially dislike the ending. If this is the beginning of a series (Fforde certainly likes his series), I won't be bothering with the others.

John Lee remains one of my favorite narrators, however. With a lesser narrator, I might not have finished.

I'm still looking for the Discworld novel as good as Going Postal. This wasn't it. Also, I think it helps to be a soccer fanatic to truly appreciate the humor here. Because of the soccer story line, it took a while for me to warm up to this, but in the end I enjoyed it.

Like a lot of sequels, this wasn't as enjoyable as the original. Still, a gripping murder mystery in its own right.

I started my Discworld journey with Going Postal and none of the other four I've listened to since have been nearly as enjoyable. This was easily my least favorite. The story line was preposterous even by Discworld standards, but the killer was the accent of Lu-Tze. It invoked the worst of the racist Charlie Chan movies, and made this book nearly unlistenable. I think both narrator and author are culpable here, because the speech of The Sweeper is in pidgin English, and pronounced in an awful accent by Stephen Briggs. I'm hoping my next (yes, I'll keep trying because Postal was so amazing) Discworld is better.

And I say that with fondness. I've listened to Pillars of the Earth, World Without End and now Hornet Flight. They are all very enjoyable, but somehow just a little unfulfilling in the end.

This series is completely out of gas. It's almost painful to listen to. The first three Thursday Next novels, narrated by Elizabeth Sastre were great fun. This one is a slog I'm not sure I can finish. Emily Gray reads so slowly and pauses so long between paragraphs that I think my iPod is broken. Jasper Fforde is incredibly imaginative. I hope he starts fresh next time.

I'm a Terry Pratchett addict, but don't know much about Neil Gaiman. The narration for this book is great, and the only thing that kept me going. There are several amusing scenes in this novel, but the overall story just seemed too forced.