Freedom's Choice review

The second book in Anne McCaffrey's Catteni sequence is just as good as the first one. Where the first one is about survival, the second one is about fighting back, with the people on the penal colony planet doing their best to thwart the attempts of their overseers to control them.

There's one incident in the middle that is rather abrupt and contrived, in order to achieve something that I don't think would really have happened, but it's minor problem in an otherwise excellent book.

Roll on book three!

Understanding Comics review

Another of Neil Gaiman's recommendations, Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud is a comic about the way in which comics convey information in different ways. It discusses human perception, different styles of art, the history of pictorial storytelling and a host of other aspects of the world of comics. I found most interesting the specifics of the different ways in which the words and pictures can interact, the different meanings and significance of the space between the panels and the different relationships between the panels themselves.

The narrator and guide is a cartoon version of the author, and is very personable and easy to get along with. All in all, fun and informative - and it only took me three hours to read!