Great North Road (Peter Hamilton)

This one was overambitious of me. I think it is a good story, with lots of intriguing sense-of-wonder science fiction stuff layered over a gritty police procedural dealing with a very odd murder - but it's almost 1000 pages and I just couldn't pull it off. I ran out of energy and time less than a third of the way through, and moved onto another. I could argue that it failed to grab me sufficiently, but in all honesty, I think it was a failure of my patience, not a failure of the book. Sorry.

Odds Against Tomorrow (Nathaniel Rich)

This is an odd story, but engrossing. Mitchell has always been fascinated with disasters, carrying a card with him listing the probabilities of dying in various odd ways, and this leads him into a career calculating risk for a financial institution, but he feels that he is not getting anywhere in his job and his personal life is essentially nonexistent. He jumps to join a brand new company that helps corporations prepare for disaster, and his obsessions spiral almost out of control as he spins worst-case scenarios for clients about everything from terrorist attack to the Second Coming. When a superstorm targets Manhattan, he is hailed as a prophet who foresaw the disaster, but the reality of his fears is nearly overwhelming. Intertwined with his psychological apocalypse is an unexpected connection with a woman he spoke to once in college, who addresses her own worst-case scenario in a very different way. I was definitely interested and wanted to find out what happened next, even though Mitchell's twisted psyche was always just a touch too over the top for me to really identify with him.

Jack Glass (Adam Roberts)

This quirky set of three linked stories focuses on a murderer called Jack Glass. We are told up front that there are several murders committed in these stories and Jack Glass is responsible for most of them, but exactly who he really is and how the murders are committed only gradually becomes clear. The stories take place in various exotic futuristic environments, one of them planet Earth, with different point-of-view characters, and the stories have different tones and voices, but in the end they all hold together. I was somewhat disappointed in the resolution to the last mystery (I don't know how it could have been anticipated by even the cleverest reader), but overall I found the stories interesting and the puzzles entertaining.

Spin (Robert Charles Wilson)

One quiet evening in October, everything changes. All Earth's satellites fall out of the sky at once and the moon and stars flash and vanish. We quickly discover that the universe outside of Earth's atmosphere is experiencing time differently than we do; millions of years pass every day. The sun rises the next morning as usual, but it's a bland imitation of the real thing, with no sunspots and no aurora. As scientists compute the time differential, it dawns on us that within a few decades we will have outlived the sun, engulfed in its swollen surface, and no matter what this barrier is that blocks us from the universe, we will die. Who did this to us, and why, and how will humanity cope? Though these events are literally world-shaping, Wilson tells it in the most personal, compelling way, by focusing on one man, following him from the childhood night when the stars disappeared to the unthinkable new world he finds as an adult. Through his eyes we observe two people, one vital to the planet, one vital to his own soul, and this makes us care. I very much liked the book. It makes me think about big ideas and about human questions.

The Newlyweds (Nell Freudenberger)

Amina is a young woman from India marries an American man after they meet through an online service, and moves to Rochester. It was a lot of fun to read a book with so many local details (though some of them are wrong). I thought the Indian woman and the Indian life she left behind were very well drawn, but the rest of the story was disappointing. Although some ambiguity in a story is a good thing, there was too much of it here for me. Was her husband in love with her? Was he good, or bad? What was up with that other woman; was she seriously trying to be Amina's friend, or was there some nefarious purpose behind her actions? It's not that the author left unanswered questions, it's that these people and situations were not drawn clearly. The story was well told in each incident, but it all felt like nothing more than a series of incidents that didn't really add up to anything. This all sounds more negative than it should. I enjoyed reading the book, but it left me feeling dissatisfied.

Mnemonology (James Worthen & R. Reed Hunt)

This small but dense scholarly text is not for the lay public. However, for a student of memory, it is an interesting examination of mnemonics; their history, their classifications, their effectiveness, and their use in everyday life, in education, and in rehabilitation. The authors argue strongly that the formal study of mnemonics is important to a complete understanding of memory, and that formal training in the selection and use of mnemonics would be a valuable addition to standard curricula at all levels.

Of Dice and Men (David Ewalt)

The author is a journalist and also a dedicated gamer in the Dungeons & Dragons tradition (under his name it says, "Level 15 cleric"). He writes a history of the development of the pastime, from its roots in prehistoric games up through D&D Next (otherwise known as D&D 5). We get to learn of the collaboration between Gygax and Arneson and about its falling out, of the various companies that owned, developed, and sold various D&D games, and their successes and failures. He talks about the hysteria that equated the game with satanism and about its value for its players. Along with the history, though, Ewalt gives us an inside look at what the game is like to play and why it is so popular. As a player myself (D&D and some of its competitors, such as World of Darkness), I found his story appealing and accurate, and can recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about this game. No previous gaming knowledge or experience is needed.