Reviews and Comments

I was extremely surprised at how much I liked this book. Other reviews say it better than I do, so I'll just throw in my recommendation.

I just put it down, completed. This is one of my favorite books - in fact, I think that Anne of Green Gables is the only book I have enjoyed more than this one. (I think that The Sound and the Fury would round out my top 3, actually).

It is action-packed from beginning to end. The characters are interesting and likable. I can't wait to buy Brock's Railroad, the sequel which is already out, and Brock's Traitor, to be released in the first half of next year. I was happily surprised to see in the historical notes following the book that many memorable parts were actually true stories. The book itself did a great job of adding an exciting fictional layer to this era in North American history.

I would now like to read some Sharpe books, which were inspirational to the author.

Great job, Taylor!

This was the hardest ASoIaF book for me to finish. The last few chapters made up for everything, though. Can't wait for the next one!

This is exactly what I needed after suffering through the phoned-in Ready Player One.

I didn't know whether or not to give it five stars, but I'm going to be thinking about it for a long time and would love to read it again someday (I chose to power right through the book, as confusing as it was, without any outside help). The reader only figures out what the heck happened right at the end. Cool!

I was really looking forward to this. A lot of reviewers gave this really high marks, but I'm terribly unimpressed. The writing style is similar to much of the YA stuff out there, which isn't a good thing. Why would a YA book be written with cultural references which are from the decade before YAs were even born? I'm only halfway through, though, and I'm really hoping that it gets better. It seems like a quickly thrown together story with a lot of retro name dropping, but none of the 80s references are clever. Usually, it's just listing authors, movies or songs. It is impossible to suspend disbelief enough to get past the sloppy parts. How could the hero read every book by every author, see every episode of every TV show, watch every movie - multiple times, in many cases. Some throwaway comments like personal computer storage that holds "3 digital copies of everything in existence" are just.... Gaaaah! I just don't have words for it. Oh well, to each his own, right? I'm glad that so many people enjoyed the book, I just wish I could be a part of it!

Edit: I'm done. I can't change my score... It just wasn't a very good book. It really didn't seem like the book was planned. A lot of things appeared as afterthoughts. For example, the main character got into a scrape with the police. All of a sudden, he explains how the police were about to break down the door, but he didn't mention that he installed a metal cage around his apartment just in case the police would try to break in. No mention of it until this point. He needed to jump or fly to get to a high spot and asked his friends if they had any items to help. His friend had some shoes that could make the wearer fly - but they were never mentioned before or after. The whole book was like this. It Really came off as amateurish. If it wasn't for the retro 80s references, this book would not be popular.

I didn't know whether to give this 2 or 3 stars. A lot of things bothered me about it and it dragged on and on, but I still kept at it.

I knew that this would be a book about a comet hitting the Earth, but aside from that, I didn't know what to expect. This book is absolutely amazing! The authors must have consulted with farmers, engineers, and others - they really thought everything through. The story really heats up around 75% or so. I don't want to ruin the surprise, but the end of the book is so interesting and exciting that I couldn't put it down.

I bought the book from Baen's website, since I really like their marketing strategy of giving away free Ebooks to let people get to know the authors and try a series before they buy. I really wanted to support them, so I was pleasantly surprised to see Lucifer's Hammer available of their site (Jerry Pournelle had just been talking about the book on a podcast shortly beforehand).

I really don't want to give any spoilers, so I'm afraid of writing too much. I do recommend that you read this, though! it is very accessible, even though it was written in the late 70s (the Monty Python reference is just as recognizable now, though! You'll know what I'm talking about when you read it). There is a large cast of characters, and sometimes I had to refer to the list of characters at the beginning to jog my memory. The book is nearly 600 pages (on my Ebook reader, anyway), but it is not a dry read at all. As I said, you will probably have to blast through the last quarter of the book all in one go since it is so action packed, so it won't seem like such a long book.

I've got mixed feelings on this one. I was really unsure of what I was getting into with this book. I really think that the author successfully pulled off the wolf theme, however the focus on what I considered to be relentlessly depressing family drama just isn't my bag. I can see why this hit the top of the charts, though. I'm just more of a sci-fi/adventure kind of fan. Assuming that the author actually did the research, I think I learned quite a few things about wolves and how they interact in packs. Of course, this might not be entirely accurate, but I really have no desire to follow it up.

This was a lot of fun to read. I don't know what to say. It's a classic adventure. If you like pirates, read it.