- Brave Buffalo Fighter: Waditaka Tatanka Kisisohitika by John D. Fitzgerald (1973)
[7/10]
"As you can expect from any Fitzgerald work, you get an excellent picture of the period and setting in which the events take place. You get a detailed portrayal of life in a pioneer wagon train, including the reasons for making the trek in the first place and the risks involved in the journey itself."
- China Men by Maxine Hong Kingston (1980)
[6/10]
"The text is successful in questioning the myths that exits today about the Chinese Americans. It demonstrates how the Chinamen were a major work force in building the American West, and yet they are still viewed as outsiders that were trying to take advantage of the success that was built by people of European descent."
- Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (1999)
[8/10]
"An excellent character-based novel, with fun technology thrown in. Far better and more satisfying than Snow Crash."
- Cuba Libre by Elmore Leonard (1998)
[5/10]
"Leonard provides pretty standard fair: a cowboy, a love interest, an evil secret police captain, a need for revenge, several shootouts, and a few close calls. Good, light reading appropriate for a day at the beach or the down time on your vacation."
- Difference Engine, The by William Gibson, Bruce Sterling (1991)
[7/10]
"An exciting story that also has lots of food for thought."
- Old Gringo, The by Carlos Fuentes (1985)
[8/10]
"There is a power evident in the text, and the search for the meaning is part of the enjoyment."
- Quicksilver (2003)
[6/10]
"I think much of the story line gets bogged down with the interesting things Stephenson found in his research. These elements might have a bearing in the second or third volumes, but distracted from the immediate enjoyment of the novel."
- Red Water by Judith Freeman (2002)
[6/10]
"Red Water presents an interesting, well written slice of early rural Utah life that did nothing special for me."
- Road to Wellville, The by T. Coraghessan Boyle (1993)
[7/10]
"Boyle presents the life of Dr. John Harvey Kellogg -- inventor of peanut butter and the corn flake -- at the height of his career and as the director of a famous sanitarium for biological living."
- United 93 directed by Paul Greengrass (2006)
[7/10]
"United 93 walks us through the transition from before 9/11 to after 9/11. Our lives take place with a much more hectic set of background noises playing than before, and with United 93, we watch the exact moment when the background noise increased."
- Volcano Lover, The: A Romance by Susan Sontag (1992)
[5/10]
"Good steady writing. Steady in the sense of very little variation -- in tone, pace, or style."
- Wine-dark Sea of Grass, The by Marilyn Brown (2001)
[5/10]
"Marilyn Brown examines how the Mountain Meadows Massacre affected the lives of the Mormon settlers in rural southern Utah."
- World Trade Center directed by Oliver Stone (2006)
[6/10]
"Stone does an excellent job of developing his characters, in spite of having his main characters immobolized in a pile of rubble. He also never allows the story to get overly sentimental and avoids overtly manipulating the audience's emotions."
Average score: 6.38
