Review; The Will to Live

I just finished reading Les Stroud's "The Will to Live". It's more or less a collection of survival stories retold and editorialized by Stroud with snippets of additional information. I found it to be really interesting and a remarkably quick read. "The Will to Live" is not for the faint of heart, however, and contains pretty gory details of some of the events that I'll leave up to the reader to find. Regardless of this, I couldn't help but to place myself mentally in those same situations and question what I would end up doing.

The story of Douglas Mawson is particularly powerful, and since he works in the same scientific field that I do it was all that much easier to place myself intellectually in his shoes. Of course, no experience on my part comes even close to measuring up to what he went through. His survival boggles the mind. I hope I never have to go through something like that, but if I do I hope I am not found wanting.

On my scale, "The Will to Live" is about a 8.5 or so out of 10. Stroud has a way of words and with images, but he's not yet what I'd call a gifted writer, and that makes the difference between him and, say, Heinlein.

Review; "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress"

I recently finished reading "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress", by Robert Heinlein. It's been out for quite a while now, and wikipedia probably does a much better job explaining the overall plot than I could do in a few sentences. Heinlein is one of my favored writers, I've read quite a bit of his works and I've enjoyed the vast majority of them. He has a way of making the reader address complicated moral, ethical, religious, political, and economical issues while still moving the story along at a solid pace. I'm a fan of such writing.

The thing about "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" that I had the most issue with would be the dialect used in the story. I find it to be cumbersome and a distraction. The use of "loonie" terminology not based in normal utilization was also cumbersome, as there are still a few words that I'm unsure of how they are supposed to be used and the nuances of them. Like "no huhu". For this reason, on the grand scale of things I'd give "TMIAHM" a 9 out of 10. Regardless of these critiques, I found this book to be a brisk and enjoyable read. Heinlein, it seems, can do no wrong.