Review: The Maze Runner by James Dashner

There were a lot of things I enjoyed about this book. It was very fast paced, had some interesting turns, and definitely had me rooting for the main character. It was also a fairly clean book, aside from the constant violence—but I never felt that the violence got too graphic. This is the kind of book I could give to my eleven year-old niece and expect her to finish it in a week, saying “ohmygosh, this book was so awesome!”

With that said, the book did have its flaws. Half of the dialogue was some variant on: “why won’t you just tell me what’s going on?” “shut up, ya skank, and do what I tell you to do!” “no, you shut up, you klunk for brains!” Fortunately, that was easy enough to skim. Also, there was quite a bit of hyperbole: everything that happened was the scariest thing, or the awesomest thing, or the most surprising thing ever. At one point, Dashner described an unconscious character as “lifeless,” and I had to stop and go back to see if the character was actually dead (he wasn’t).

But without giving any spoilers, the main reason I’m only giving this book three stars is because the ending explains everything—how they got into the maze, why the maze exists, what the goal of the maze really is—while somehow, at the same time, not explaining anything at all. It’s like the author spent all of his time worldbuilding the actual maze, and very little on worldbuilding all the other stuff that led to the maze’s creation. Also, there are a lot of loose threads at the end, and while I assume that most of them get tied up in other books, some of them are just plain inconsistencies that can’t be tied up.

But yeah, it was a fun, quick read, sort of like Lord of the Flies run by Aperture Science, except that the kids actually think and act like real kids, and all the allegorical garbage has been scrubbed out of it. I think this is a book that my ten year-old self would really enjoy.

Welcome to 1001 Parsecs Books!

Hello, and welcome to my new book blog! I hope you find it interesting and useful. I launched this site a little over a year ago, but until now I’ve only put up landing pages for the books I share in my author newsletter. I’ve decided to expand it, though, because I want to make reading a bigger part of my life, and I figure that a great way to do that is to involve my friends, family, and fellow readers in the journey.

Here’s what you can expect to see here:

Whenever I read a book, I’ll cross post my review of it here and on Goodreads. This includes books that I do not finish, since I usually give a book three strikes and skip to the last chapter before I DNF it. I used to try to finish every book, but I found that I actually read more books when I allow myself to DNF them.

Every book that I review will recieve 1-5 stars. Here is what those ratings actually mean:

  • One Star — I thought this book was terrible.
  • Two Stars — I didn’t like this book, but it wasn’t terrible.
  • Three Stars — I thought this book was okay, but not great.
  • Four Stars — I thought this book was really good.
  • Five Stars — This is one of the best books that I’ve ever read.

When I like a book well enough to recommend it (usually four or five stars), I’ll put up a book page with affiliate links to Amazon, which earns me a small commission if you buy something there. Also, I’ll mark on the book review whether I own or want to own this book, in print, ebook, or audiobook format. My ultimate goal is to build up a sizeable personal library in all three formats.

In addition to book reviews, I’ll also keep a reading journal of all of the books I read or attempt to read. This will include posts about my reading goals, reports on library visits and any author events that I attend, reflections on books that I’m currently reading, and books that I acquire, either as gifts, swaps, freebies, or book purchases.

Finally, if I come across any short stories that I think are worth checking out, I’ll post about those as well. I subscribe to every major science fiction and fantasy magazine that has a podcast, and I typically spend Saturday morning listening through all of those while doing household chores.

This blog isn’t just something that I’m doing for myself. I sincerely hope that you will find value in this blog too, either by discovering and enjoying new books, considering a book or an author in a new light, or just by being inspired to read more on your own. Either way, I’d love to hear from you! These posts are really more like discussion starters—feel free to post a comment anytime.

Review: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein

I have tried twice now to read this book, and both times I found I couldn’t stand it. Perhaps the third time will be the charm, but I doubt it.

The first time, it was all the moon slang. Some people find it interesting and clever, but honestly, it just grated on me. It’s kind of like the belter slang in Leviathan Wakes, but the whole book is written in it. At least with the Expanse, you can skim over the slang without missing much.

The second time, it was a combination of things. I know that it’s become fashionable to bash all the golden age writers for not being woke enough—and don’t get me wrong, I have no desire to join that crusade. I really enjoyed Farnham’s Freehold, and I thought Starship Troopers was an excellent book as well. But with The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, I really had a problem with how the women were all characterized, and I can’t honestly call it anything other than misogyny. For example, every time Heinlein introduces a female character into the story, the first thing he describes about her is how sexually attractive she is (or is not), and gives us a detailed physical description to back that up. Not so with the men.

But what really got to me was how unrealistic and unbelievable his free love lunar society is. To put it bluntly, it reads too much like an adolescent fantasy where none of the consequences or social implications of such a world have been sufficiently thought through. Granted, Heinlein wrote this book in the 60s, when people still thought that the sexual revolution would lead to more sex, better sex, and a less prudish and more sex-positive culture. With the benefit of hindsight, though, we can see that that was a fantasy as well.

The truth (and I’m sure to get some flak from the woke crowd for saying this) is that on average, people in traditional monogamous marriages who are faithful to their spouses have more sex, better sex, and lead much more sex-positive lives than people who are promiscuous. When we broke down all the traditional boundaries of sexual morality, we cheapened sex and destroyed the family. As a result, people nowadays are having less sex, worse sex, and are far more vindictive and prudish than they ever were before the sexual revolution. Followed to its logical conclusion, you end up with our current transgender craze, where it’s now become fashionable for teenage girls to sterilize themselves, and anyone who stands up to that madness is censored, cancelled, deplatformed, and destroyed.

But in Heinlein’s free love future, where all of the traditional boundaries around sex have been dissolved, none of those things have played out. It’s the ultimate fantasy of sex with no consequences, writ large across society. The point at which it just became too much for me was after the main character, who is supposed to be in a multi-generational group marriage (which I don’t even want to begin to unpack), seriously considered whether he ought to have sex with the pretty young revolutionary girl that he just rescued. Excuse me? A group marriage that still allows for the occasional one-night stand is no marriage at all. A society where that is the norm would probably fall apart within two or three generations, and even if it didn’t, the people who were the product of such a society wouldn’t think or act like they just walked out of the 1960s, like Heinlein’s characters do.

In short, Heinlein’s free love future retains all of the strength and stability of a world where traditional sexual morality has never been disrupted, except that the new “morality” is promiscuous in the extreme. Either Heinlein doesn’t know very much about sex (which I doubt), or he was more interested in indulging a sexual fantasy than in seriously thinking through all the consequences and implications of his world. Either way, I couldn’t stand this book for more than a couple of chapters.

Two stars because everything not related to sex is actually pretty good, as far as I can tell. Maybe I’ll try this book again at some point, but for now, it’s at the bottom of my pile.