Cleanser – DaneCobain.com

F. Scott Fitzgerald – The Diamond as Big as the Ritz and Other Stories | Review

Title: The Diamond as Big as the Ritz and Other Stories

Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald

Type: Fiction

Page Count: 240

Rating: 4/5

Whatever “it” is, F. Scott Fitzgerald has it. I’ve read three or four individual works by him now, and every one of them has been a cracker. They all have that same level of quality that we get from The Great Gatsby, and so while he’s certainly not the kind of writer who’s perfect for everyone, if you like one of his books then you’ll probably like all of them.

This little collection contains seven stories and is the first volume in what I guess amounts to the collected stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Seven stories is just about the right length for a book like this though, and in fact I used it as a little bit of a palette cleanser between two Agatha Christies.

The stories themselves are very much rooted in 1920s flapper culture, and this collection includes The Cut-Glass Bowl, May Day, The Diamond as Big as the Ritz, The Rich Boy, Crazy Sunday, An Alcoholic Case, The Lees of Happiness.

All of them were pretty good, although I think May Day was my least favourite because it was far too long. Although it did at least end with a bang, so to speak. And I’d recommend this as a whole.

Learn more about The Diamond as Big as the Ritz and Other Stories.

Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter – The Long Cosmos | Review

Title: The Long Cosmos

Author: Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 470

Rating 3/5

Okay, I feel like this series has jumped the shark by this point, and I think I know why. Pratchett passed away before the book was finished and so Baxter edited it on his own, and he also explains how the series itself came about in an introduction to it. They basically had the idea for the first book, which ended up being so big that it was split into two. Then The Long Mars came about because they felt like they couldn’t leave it unexplored, and then they added two more books on to the end just to round it off.

To be honest, I kind of got that feeling from reading it, with the series going slowly downhill as it continued. The first book was also packed fall of cool ideas, popular science and psychology and all sorts of other stuff that basically meant I flagged every page of the damn thing to talk about it. By this one, my interest in the series was waning, and most of the flags that I added were references to the earlier books.

For me, if the last book in a series is mostly interesting because of the little references to the earlier books, it’s a sign that it’s not standing up so well on its own. Sure, there is a story line here, it’s just that it’s not particularly interesting and it’s starting to feel as though the same ideas are being rehashed, and along a similar plot too.

I quite liked The Long Mars, but I think it would have worked best if the series had ended there and been a trilogy. Without it, I’d say that the first should have been a standalone, and I’d say while it’s worth checking that one out, it’s not worth continuing with the series unless you really loved it. Luckily, I did.

So I’m glad that I read this one, even though it was a little bit of an anti-climax. I’m a huge Terry Pratchett fan (he’s my most-read author), and so this was a vital part of completing the full set of his published works. It was better than some of it and not as good as some others, but overall if you’re a science fiction fan then you’re probably going to like it. Although I’d probably still recommend starting with the Discworld.

Now that this is done, my next book is going to be a 760-page Stephen King book, and I’m not sure if that’s such a good idea. After reading these, I feel like I need to read something short as a palette cleanser, but I don’t have anything short. But oh well.