August 2017 – Page 2 – Tales of the Marvelous

What if the world you and I are living in is, in fact, a dystopia? That could (tragically) be the beginning of a review of a nonfiction book, but instead today I’m talking about another parallel universe book: All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai. What if the world we think is real is actually the product of meddling with time travel, and we’re living in the universe gone wrong?

Tom Barren lives in a 2016 that looks a lot like the future envisaged in the 1950s. Flying cars, high-tech medicine, an endless supply of free, non-polluting energy, universal peace. It’s all because of a new, energy-generating technology discovered in 1966. When Tom travels back 50 years to the dawn of his age, he inadvertently meddles in that key point in time–and wakes up to find himself in our 2016. But then he has a dilemma–because while the world might be happier in his original universe, his life is significantly better over here.

This is one of those books I picked up because it had such an interesting premise–and it largely delivered on the promise, even if it didn’t turn out to be exactly what I expected. I was so fascinated by Tom’s world and the events that led to its creation. There was quite a bit of that, although the world is presented more through contrast with ours then by spending a lot of time in it–which kind of makes sense. For Tom, replicators (or the equivalent) are normal, so they probably aren’t going to come up until he’s trying to make sense of a microwave. We saw the alternate path of history and how a small shift could change it much more clearly, and that was very cool to explore. Continue reading “Book Review: All Our Wrong Todays” →

Today’s Book Blogger Hop question is: Do you ever go “way back” to when you first started blogging and look at your old review posts? Do you see any differences from then to now?

My earliest posts really are pretty far back by now–since I’ve been writing this blog for almost seven years! I look back occasionally, when I want to see what I said about something that comes to mind again, to reference with a link back if a topic comes up now, or to choose a Classic Review to repost.

I don’t think my taste has changed hugely since I started blogging. It may have become broader–I read less YA and more nonfiction, and the various challenges I’ve had over the years have influenced the more specific topics I may have covered (like fairy tales or parallel universes). But overall, if I liked a book way back when, I still like it now–and if I disliked one, well, I probably haven’t reread it, but I usually still think I had good points.

My reviewing has become more immediate. In early blog days I did more reviewing of favorite books I hadn’t reread recently. It didn’t take long, though, to realize that it’s a lot easier reviewing a book I just read, so that shifted pretty fast.

The biggest difference to me may be subtle to other people. I think I’m more confident in my reviews now. At first I think I felt a need to defend my opinion–now, I still will tell you why I like or dislike something, but it doesn’t feel like an assertion so much as a statement. That may not look very different to anyone else, but I can see it!

Readers who are also book bloggers, do you ever go back farther? How has your reviewing change?