Joey

John Hodgman's dry style of humor is amazing. What is not as amazing is the decision to write a day by day account of the events of the end of the world. Sorry folks, but a 'Day calendar' doesn't translate well to an audio format. The rest of the book is amazing, but this section grows very weary on the ears. Other than that - I completely enjoyed this book - the whit and humor of a deranged millionaire is quite funny.

Not all of the Worlds of Honor books have held, in my opinion, the highest of standards. This one does. It adds some more stories to the already diverse Honorverse - and does it beautifully. All Honorverse fans should read this book - you'll enjoy it!

Its easy to assume that on the third book of a series that is a spin off of another series one might have lost their creativity - new and interesting challenges for the characters might be hard to come by. Not so. John G. Hemry (aka Jack Campbell) takes us on a great chapter journeying where in so many ways, Humanity has never been before. Picking up where the last Beyond the Frontier Book left off - Invincible - this story ends with almost endless options for where Black Jack and the fleet will go from there. This book doesn't make a lot of sense without reading the previous two Beyond the Frontier books, Dreadnaught and Invincible but I would suggest going back even further to the Lost Fleet series, before I'd start with the Beyond the Frontier books. Great narration - wonderfully written - with an authentic feel to the tactics, physics and political environment that all the books in these two series have been known for. Enjoy!

I'm a fan of American Chopper - and of course, that means that I enjoy hearing backstory about the Teutul's. This book is not what I'd expect - it contains a mix of biography and business lessons - that - well - frankly should be obvious to anyone who has been in business. Not a bad book, but not a how-to guide on building a business. A few jewels of wisdom, but not a blow by blow guide.

This book is a great fill in to the back story and alternative points of view of the events in other Honorverse books. Here is my complaint: The last narrator - L.J. Ganser - although a good reader is either correctly or incorrectly pronouncing one of the main character's names. I assume since he is the one who is pronouncing it differently, that he is the one pronouncing it incorrectly. This is annoying and truly interrupts the story. Besides that - this is a quality production and well written. Honorverse fans like myself will enjoy this one.

I don't think there is a way to over state the fact that the collective works of Sherlock Holmes have had a HUGE impact on literature. Many of the plots could be transplanted to New York City and appear on an episode of the TV Show 'Law and Order' - it is not a cliche to say that these stories are timeless. Primarily written as short stories and published as such, the short format is mastered by these works. I cannot find anything I would change or improve about these stories - they are a must read!

Jack Ryan - a character that many of us know through the many Tom Clancy movies and books - in his first book. This book blows the movie out of the water - and we understand that although playing many critical roles in the plot, Jack Ryan isn't some sort of all American superhero that comes up with everything himself. Well read, extremely well written - this is the book that got me into military fiction.

This book is hilarious - and is in its own way more sci-fi than some of the sci-fi I've read. Having Wil Wheaton read it is a good thing and a bad thing. Mr. Wheaton has some problem differentiating different characters with accents and such.
On the other hand - Sci-Fi fans are well aware of Mr. Wheaton - and his 'geek cred' elevates this book to some extent.
One thing that may be a result of Mr. Wheaton's lack of differentiation between characters, the script frequently breaks the dialog with things like 'X character said' or 'Y character said' sometimes many times within a minute, which does distract one from the story. Excepting that - this is a great book - and kept me interested from first to last.

I'm a fan of American Chopper - I ride motorcycles, I'm passionate about motorcycles. This book provides many insights into the background of the Teutul family. I'm sure that anyone knows that what you see on a TV show is highly edited, scenes are selected out of many shot, orders of things altered, commentary from the people involved recorded later. As a result, the people you see on TV are not exactly what you think they would be. I doubt that Mikey is as incompetent as you might think - I doubt that Junior is as late as often as you might think and I doubt that Senior raves about nothing for hours on end for no reason. I do know that they are a family and that family dynamics are complex.
If you're a fan of the show - this book deserves your attention, it completes some of the puzzle behind the scenes.
A couple of things that could be improved - some of the words don't appear to be in character with the person who supposedly wrote them.
Second, having a book about the people in question read by someone else, strikes me as odd. I do know that the Teutuls are busy people - but I would think they might have found some time to read the book about their lives. Just a thought.

METAtropolis is an interesting take on the future - financial collapse causes social reform among other changes. It makes one think about the future and our part in it. Be aware that this is an anthology of short stories - if you like one, you may not like the others. That having been said, the only bad thing I have to say about this book is that there isn't more of it. Its that good. I suggest you listen to it - if for no other reason than it will make you think. Oh, if you did like it - check out METAtropolis Cascadia - its as well written and arguably better performed.

If you've watched or read any modern crime or mystery series - you will feel right at home in Holmes' England. Modern NCIS or Law and Order episodes seem to be a homage to the works of Holmes. The short story format of many of the Holmes cases holds the interest and the narration work on this recording is absolutely outstanding. The third volume of the Complete Works does not disappoint, although one could make an argument that the first two volumes contain more popular material. It would seem to me that the Complete works are ordered roughly in the order in which the stories were released - which of course means that one moves forward and backward through time, particularly in this the last volume, when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was writing new stories after the original ones were released.
Enjoyable, well written, well read and with plot twists that abound - this is a must read if you've already read the first two.