Star Wars: The High Republic - Quest for Planet X by Tessa Gratton

 I guess this was okay. It seemed in the end that not really much happened. B-

Sci-Fi book #43 Dragonquest - The Dragonriders of Pern Book 2

 Ehhh... not ast good as the first one. There really isn't a clear antagonist here and plot line either. This book seems to mostly be setting up future stories. Plus there are way too many characters. More than is necessary. B-

Sci-Fi Book # 37 - The Giver by Lois Lowry

For a book aimed at middle schoolers I was entertained by The Giver. Maybe the ending seemed a bit rushed, especially given the amount of world building that goes on in the first half, but yeah, I liked it. A

Sci-Fi book #43 Dragonflight - The Dragonriders of Pern Book 1

 

Pretty much every part of Dragonflight is ridiculous. But sometimes a story about a girl that helps a bunch of telepathic, teleporting, time travelling dragons save a feudal society in the far future hits the spot. A-.

A Thousand Steps by T. Jefferson Parker

 

After almost an entire year I finally got around to reading the one book I bought at last year's LA Times Festival of Books. Did I buy it because I was able to get it signed by an author I had sorta heart about before? Yeah. Was the book worth it? It was okay, I guess. Nothing really worth discussing. C+

Star Wars: The High Republic - Race to Crashpoint Tower by Daniel José Older

 Another Star Wars book to check off the list. It was okay for a kids book, but I'm curious for kids that read it and haven't read Star Wars: The Rising Storm if it makes total sense. B

Sci-Fi Book # 23 - Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein

Have you ever revisited something you'd read and enjoyed as a youth and and on a second reading just totally hated it? Well that was my experience with Stranger in a Strange Land. How did I like this book so much when I was 19? And I wasn't all that surprised either. I had placed the very same copy I read nearly 30 years ago on my "to read" shelf probably three years ago and just never felt motivated to read it. It was "next" for quite some time. Maybe I thought the whole free love and free your mind aspect of it was subversive or something back then. But the thing is that it is actually kind of sexist and homophobic. And for being a book about a man raised on Mars way too much of the book is taken up by a supporting character (that is somehow a super rich author, doctor AND laywer) spouting the opinions that are very obviously Heinlein's. Ugghh.. I had this as 5 stars on Goodreads before.... how embarrassing. 

And one other thing bugged me. And this is something I remember thinking as odd from when I first read it and this time just could not get over it - no one in the book seems to be the slightest bit interested in the fact that an entire alien civilization was discovered on Mars at the beginning of the book. There's some discussion if the Man from Mars has some type of ownership of the planet in a legal sense but that's it. And there's another Heinlein book still on this list! arhhh! C