Sara's reading log

I am a book hoarder and reader. My main genre is SF, but I also love magic realism, fantasy and general fiction. Favorite authors are Iain M. Banks, Ursula K. LeGuin, Haruki Murakami, José Saramago, Isaac Asimov, Ben Aaronovitch and more. My rating system is based on five stars. I rate books based on my expectations and what a books aims to be. This means that the brilliant 'Fahrenheit 451' gets five stars because I thought it would be good, people said it was good, and it was good, but 'A Closed and Common Orbit' also gets five stars because in its series, in its style, I really enjoyed it and was not disappointed.

De cartograaf by Heather Terrell

  • Started on: 2011-02-23
  • Finished on: 2011-02-24
  • Read in: Dutch
  • Rating: ***–
  • Genre(s): Historical Adventure

A book in the style of The Da Vinci Code about a world map from China that predates all European maps from the fifteenth century. This map is found at a dig in Xi’an and promptly stolen.
The story alternates between China in the early fifteenth century, Portugal in the late fifteenth century and now. Te writer tries to write an exciting adventure but for me the story was too short, too hasty and not well developed. The writer also seemed very keen to have the characters recite dry facts to give the story some context, but it felt very out of place.
My conclusion is that the premise of the story was nice, but the writing let it down for me.

  • Started on: 2011-02-23
  • Finished on: 2011-02-24
  • Read in: Dutch
  • Rating: ***–
  • Genre(s): Historical Adventure

A book in the style of The Da Vinci Code about a world map from China that predates all European maps from the fifteenth century. This map is found at a dig in Xi’an and promptly stolen.
The story alternates between China in the early fifteenth century, Portugal in the late fifteenth century and now. Te writer tries to write an exciting adventure but for me the story was too short, too hasty and not well developed. The writer also seemed very keen to have the characters recite dry facts to give the story some context, but it felt very out of place.
My conclusion is that the premise of the story was nice, but the writing let it down for me.