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.

The Gunslinger by Stephen King

  • Started on: 2011-11-15
  • Finished on: 2011-11-17
  • Read in: English
  • Rating: ****-
  • Genre(s): Fantasy

When I bought (many) books on our last vacation to England I bought a lot of first books in series that everybody seems to love. I bought the first parts in the Discworld series, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant trilogy, Malazan Book of the Fallen series and The Dark Tower. This is the first part of The Dark Tower, a fantasy series written by Stephen King.
Because this book is so different from the horror that King normally writes, and because people are raving so much about this series, I found it hard to know what to expect. But I think this has been a good thing, because it is hard to describe this book. It follows Rolland, a gunslinger, who is following The Man in Black. It takes place in a world like ours, but (to me) it was unclear if it is a parallel world, a dystopian future, a different planet. Some things come from our time (they sing Hey Jude, and one character knows New York), but all in all this world is very different. When reading it I found it hard to find orientation points on which I could anchor my experience with this book. This meant that it felt more like an experience, like an introduction to set the mood, than a full-fledged book one of seven. I am intrigued and want to read more, four out of five stars.

  • Started on: 2011-11-15
  • Finished on: 2011-11-17
  • Read in: English
  • Rating: ****-
  • Genre(s): Fantasy

When I bought (many) books on our last vacation to England I bought a lot of first books in series that everybody seems to love. I bought the first parts in the Discworld series, The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant trilogy, Malazan Book of the Fallen series and The Dark Tower. This is the first part of The Dark Tower, a fantasy series written by Stephen King.
Because this book is so different from the horror that King normally writes, and because people are raving so much about this series, I found it hard to know what to expect. But I think this has been a good thing, because it is hard to describe this book. It follows Rolland, a gunslinger, who is following The Man in Black. It takes place in a world like ours, but (to me) it was unclear if it is a parallel world, a dystopian future, a different planet. Some things come from our time (they sing Hey Jude, and one character knows New York), but all in all this world is very different. When reading it I found it hard to find orientation points on which I could anchor my experience with this book. This meant that it felt more like an experience, like an introduction to set the mood, than a full-fledged book one of seven. I am intrigued and want to read more, four out of five stars.