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An epic of gargantuan proportions, Musashi follows the life of the legendary Japanese samurai Miyamoto Musashi. Eiji Yoshikawa paints a serene picture of feudal Japan with a particular emphasis on the Samurai way of life. I cannot help but compare this book to The Shogun, since it deals with the same time period and the same events. The Shogun chooses to focus on the unimportant cultural frivolities and paints the Japanese as a mysterious group of people who’d jump to commit seppuku at the slightest provocation. Musashi delves deeper beyond the superficialities and presents a detailed breakdown of the Japanese psyche. Even the unadorned language is evocative of the simplistic Japanese way of life. ...

Murderbot is back! This time with a longer and slightly more detailed plot. It’s interesting to see how the series is turning into a mystery-thriller. The best parts of the book are the places where they try to deduce exactly what is going on using the limited set of information that’s available to them. The way they piece things together keeps you turning the pages.

Muderbot is back again, this time with Asshole Research Transport (ART). I enjoyed this one far more than the first book in the series, as we get to see a lot more of the sarcastic, introverted side of Murderbot. The only downside is, as usual, things ended quickly and a little abruptly, and some details that I was waiting for were conveniently omitted. I expected the side quest to be tied into the primary story line but alas, it has not happened… yet. ...

This was one of those stories that came to an end just as things were getting interesting. The entire story is narrated from the perspective of murderbot, a SecBot with a hacked governor who appears more human than the rest of the crew he (or it?) is travelling with. The cast, setting, and build up are extremely well thought out and exciting, but it flat lines towards the end leaving you confused and unsatisfied. ...

Shogun paints a detailed picture of Japan in the 1600, explained mostly through the eyes of a ship-wrecked English pilot. What starts out as a story about people with strange customs and beliefs soon turns into an intricate plot filled with cunning and treachery. It took me about 2 months to plow through this 1200 page behemoth of a book. The plot felt overly complicated to me. Overkill does not begin to describe the plans that the characters in the book hatch, all of whom seem to be proficient in playing out the long game, the very very long game. ...