Reviews and Comments

Noooo, it can't end like this! Need to wait for the next one...

Handy guide to tricks and moves which tells you how to solve the Rubik's Cube. However, I believe there's an error in at least one of the tricks which just messes the cube up (I forget which - I would have known in the 1980s), and even with this book I've never managed to complete the Cube even once.

Setting this as read as it's not something that can really be finished 🙂

I'm not sure I enjoyed this as much as Dragons Of Insert Season Here, but it was a fun read, especially when Tas and Mari turned up. It also ended on a cliffhanger - so eagerly awaiting the next installment!

I really enjoyed the original Mistborn trilogy. I read the first book of this second trilogy quite some time ago and wasn't keen. I then picked this up cheap and thought I'd give it a chance. I was disappointed. I'm not sure if it's just that too much time has passed between reading the original books (or indeed the first of this new set) meant I didn't understand the references, or the fact time has passed in the series itself and the setting (a sort of wild west/industrial age) doesn't appeal to me as much. I'm not against fantasy set in more modern time periods, this just didn't interest me much. I'd even go as far as to say I found it quite dull and didn't really care what happened to the characters. It's a shame as I usually enjoy the author's output.

This is a very good guide to the computers that made the 1980s(ish) in Britain. It covers computers that were influential, not just those that were made here. It's refreshing to see a history which isn't US-centric, where even Commodore tends to get written out.

Hmm, this is missing a "what came next" section for the Amiga.

I didn't like this as much as the previous books in the series. Too much recapping, but it did solve the mystery of the land of the dead, so definitely worth the effort.

I love maps. I spent my childhood pouring over atlases and Ordnance Survey maps, looking for interesting features, roman roads, blue symbols. That atlas in particular had countries that probably had ceased to exist before it was bought - but these are not the phantom lands depicted in this book, but creations mostly related to the fall of the Soviet Union.

This book has maps from further back, ones beautifully illustrated and based on vague descriptions brought back by explorers, where the land masses bear little relation to reality, and blank spaces were filled with sea creatures, monopods, and hypothesised continents.

The phantoms are a mixture of sighted islands that could not be located since, mythical lands which may or may not ever have existed, lands from entirely fictitious journeys which somehow ended up on maps, and depictions of creatures and people either invented or based on real sightings that were mangled in transit.

Part history lesson, part travelogue, Digitiser's Mr Hairs visits the streets and locations of London made famous by the Monopoly board. There's a lot to unpack here - London is dense and varied, and continually evolves, so the London of 1935 (when Monopoly came to the UK) is significantly different to London today (or, indeed, London of 2002 when the book was written).