Fast Honest Reviews

  Laborious very laborious. I did not enjoy this book, it was flat and boring. To be honest, the cover by William Teason sold the book, I wanted to have this illustration on my shelves and the 1963 print. Shirley Jackson is really good with characters’ descriptions, tone, and mood, I found the plot dull and I was looking for something much darker. However, the book’s description seemed promising. Well, it is also the beauty of reading, sometimes magic does not work.

  I definitively understand why this book is a classic and I really enjoyed the novel. Shirley Jackson knows how to write a story and tips to keep the reader engaged. I really enjoyed how the characters are developed at the beginning and the description of Eleanor’s travel to the house is such a great transition to Hill house. The book is not about horror, blood, or gore. If you are looking for such things, you may have to look for another book. The haunting of hill house is about fear, the fear you carry in your flesh and in your mind. The house is the trigger. Take the forest as an example. If you walk with friends during the day everything is alright but if you walk in the same forest at night and alone, the experience is different. Primal fears will trigger a lot of anxiety, the fear of the dark, a little noise, the fear of the beast, the fear to get lost, or the fear to be alone. The mood and atmosphere in this novel are a delight, The author will allow you to see and feel eve...

  Reading novels is one of my passions and brewing beers, mead and wines is another hobby I cherish a lot. I am always looking at ancient brewing recipes and how I can simplify processes. The homebrewing industry often wants to sell stuff you don’t ever need to brew a good beer. This book covers an ancestral way to brew in a very simple way. And, it is so satisfying to go into your garden, grab some herbs, and craft a brew to enjoy later with your friends. This book is all about farmhouse Ale mostly brewed in Scandinavia. You will find a tone of information about the history, techniques, ingredients, and of Sahti master brewers  mindset . The book is fascinating and very well put together. If you have never brewed a beer before you will probably need to read about how to brew or watch videos to know more about lautering and other processes. Overall this book is fantastic and should be on a shelf if you are a homebrewer.

  Blade runner is haunting me since I am a teenager. I discovered three things about the book, first, the novel was named “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” and not Blade runner, two it is not all about replicants, and finally this novel is superb. The movie focuses a lot on the hunt, Tyrell corporation, and humanity vs artificiality. Don’t get me wrong the book is all about that too, but there is so much more. I discovered about Mercerism’s and the quest for humanity to renew with empathy, humans lost unity and face a terrible world in this book. The novel describes also what is the daily life of humanity after World War Terminus, and develops the struggle for survival in a post-apocalyptic world after a nuclear war has irradiated the Earth. The book is very dark, with decay, oblivion, and resignation being the new normal in a world where dust is toxic, most animals are extinct, and humans adopt fake electronic pets and lie to themselves to support the world around them. The s...

  The book starts with a classic slow introduction to characters and their environment, however this part is a bit long, about 150 pages before to get some action. The overall feeling I have is that the book doesn’t know which direction it wants to go. So at the very end it is a very confusing novel. The story is very disjointed, it is very difficult to get into it. As soon as some action is coming, the author jumped into another direction and it is very frustrating. The buildup never ends and the rythme turns slow too often. There is too many characters and I wasn’t able to get attached really to any of them. I was really disappointed and very quickly I got bored. I jumped a bunch of pages because I was not able to find a lot of interest into the story. Not bad but not good either. 

  I don’t want to wait to tell you, that this book is really good. I highly recommend it. A few weeks ago I visited my favorite bookstore for the creative and the curious, Curio Mrvosa , and asked Alex to recommend a book. I was burned out with classic fantasy and I was coming out of a period of reading almost only technical books about ironwork, blacksmithing, beekeeping, and roleplaying games campaigns. I needed something different, something new. His recommendation was Replay. This book was so delightful and new. Replay revived my desire to read and to get out of my comfort zone. The main character is kind of an asshole and you will probably want to slap him on different occasions, it is so good to read about a character you do not identify as a hero or to you. The story is great, dialogues too, it is very well written, the book received a World Fantasy award in 1988. Buy, borrow, and read this book.

  To be honest I was a little bit skeptical about this novel and about novels linked to a franchise and especially Alien. I had some disappointments with a franchise like Warhammer 40,000 in the past. To speak the truth, the included free scenario for the Alien role-playing game published by Free League was the trigger. I really enjoyed this book, it is well written and the action is very well transcribed. You get really attached to some characters and rapidly cannot stand others. This book remembers me of Aliens the movie directed by James Cameron. Marines, raw dialogues, people trying to survive, hope fades in the face of horror. This book is really entertaining. If you are a fan of the movies or if you want to find new ideas for your next game try this book. Terror, acid, and death are waiting for you.

  I have profound respect and admiration for Alan Moore, however, let’s say it at the beginning. I did not enjoy Voice of the fire, I stopped reading the book midway. Don’t get me wrong, Alan Moore’s pen is flamboyant, dialogues are fierce, and you can literally breathe the author's intention to transport you deep into his stories. Personally, I had a really hard time getting into the two first chapters. So laborious to follow, it was almost a ritualistic experience. Also, I was not able to glimpse a plot, maybe because I closed the book too early. If you go over different reviews, you will discover that readers are divided, people enjoyed the book, and others were not able to finish the book and enjoy this fine piece of literature. I encourage you to try, however, it is not an easy read.

I want to start with the most important dear readers, the Loop by Jeremy Robert Johnson is great. It is a heart racing thriller where violence almost horror are melted under the sign of action and mass hysteria. The rhythm is intense and it is impossible to get bored with this book, it is like to get on a train that almost never stops. Dialogues are effective, the way the protagonists communicate with each other makes you feel part of the group. This book is dark, intense, you never want to close the book until the end. A very cathartic experience, which is not for the most sensitive readers.