This is a strange and moving story. The oddness comes primarily in the writing style where the author uses unconventional language and imagery to reinforce the narrator being Death. It can be a bit awkward for the reader at times, but it adds rather than detracts from the overall story and is a rewarding book for it in the end.
‘Here is a small fact
You are going to die. 1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath.
Death has never been busier.Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Himmel Steet. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel steals books. This is her story and the story of the inhabitants of her street when the bombs begin to fall.
Some important information
This novel is narrated by DeathIt’s a small story, about:
- A girl
- An accordionist
- Some fanatical Germans
- A Jewish fist fighter
- And quite a lot a thievery
Death will visit the book thief three times.’
Ringworld by Larry Niven
This is a book that was written in the 1970s and it has a feeling of other sci-fi books of the same period. It probably says more about me than the author, but I don’t feel comfortable about easy cohabitation of aliens and humans. I can suspend disbelief about technology and social advances, but I am not sure I can accept the mixing of intergalactic species outside of the cinematic medium.
‘The artifact is a circular ribbon of matter six hundred million miles long and ninety miles in radius. Pierson’s puppeteers, the aliens who discovered it, are understandably wary of encountering the builders of such an immense structure and have assembled a team of two humans, a mad puppeteer and a kzin, a huge cat-like alien, to explore it. But a crash landing on the vast edifice forces the crew on a desperate and dangerous trek across the Ringworld.’
