★★☆ Crème de la Kreml / Wacław Radziwinowicz

172 quite interesting short articles about Russia. I didn't like some of authors opinions, but must admit that the book provides with some interesting observations and all in all is worth reading.

★★★ Kościół dla średnio zaawansowanych / Szymon Hołownia
★☆☆ Statystyka. Kurs podstawowy / Małgorzata Rószkiewicz

List of all books finished in 2018.

How are these compared to the Hyperion and Endymion duologies? (if you've read them)

Yup, a bug. When I submitted the review, the typing window was endlessly saying that it was contacting GOG's page. So I tried again and saw just now that in fact both messages had been posted... :/

I can't be unbiased, as I love Simmons' works, but I really, really liked them. For me, they're easily on a par with the Hyperion stuff (again, take this with a grain of salt - not only for the fanboism but also because I read the Hyperion books literally decades ago, so they're not fresh in my mind anymore).

I just read them a year ago and I don't remember all that much anymore :P. Ok, will make sure to get back to Simmons when I'm done with some other books. Thanks!

★★☆ To Steal a March on God / Hanna Krall
★★★ Pycha i upadek / Rafał A. Ziemkiewicz
★☆☆ Statystyka / Mieczysław Sobczyk
★☆☆ Święci przyjaciółmi / Segundo Galilea
★☆☆ Statystyka praktyczna / Wacława Starzyńska
★★★ Ameryka nie istnieje / Wojciech Orliński

List of all books finished in 2018.

In Calabria

Read this translated in Romanian and extremely quickly, in about one hour, as part of a World Book Day event I took part in, so I very likely missed a fair number of details. But I can quite certainly say that the book lacks many details as well, being so awfully short, pretty much rushing through the part between the word starting to get out and the real trouble, and ending with a rather confusing scene in which not much is explained. At first I thought the confusion was my fault, as I read those final pages in even more of a rush, while pacing behind other people and after hitting my head hard on a low ceiling, but I looked for the book again the next day, read that part again more carefully, and while I did notice a couple of things I had missed the first time, the overall impression was the same.
Still, the only thing that actually bothered me was how "lucky" the much older man was, even more so since the author is an old man, so I'm not saying it's bad otherwise, but just that there's not much there. It's very light fantasy, has just one location, pretty much covers just one event over a brief period of time, and doesn't linger that much over anything. In terms of atmosphere, it does deliver to a fair extent, and I guess it will appeal more to those looking for something like a modern fairy tale. Did expect to see actual poetry though, seeing as the main character writes, yet that wasn't included even when it was supposedly recited.

Rating: 3/5

Doesn't count as a book, but anyway...
Thing is that at the end of the event where I read the previous book I listed, I could pick a free book out of a handful that were available (or more exactly that were left, at that hour), and the bookstore was closing so I just had a quick look, nothing I'd have actually wanted, so grabbed something that at least claimed some sci-fi and SEEMED not to be in a series... only to find out when I checked on Goodreads later that it wasn't just in a series, but the second one in it. Nothing to indicate that on the cover, which listed MILA 2.0 in big letters and the actual title sort of as a subtitle under it, and said at the bottom at the beginning that MILA 2.0 was the author's first book, so how was I supposed to know it referred to a book with the same name as the series, which was the previous one? And the genre's not something I'd care for either. But said what the heck, this prequel is free, so grabbed it, then the first actual book is available at the library here, and I have a library card, so grabbed that as well, and they have the 2nd on the purchase list, so I'll donate it there after I'll be done with that as well. May be quite a struggle (even more so since it's a translation, and not a good one - spotted a few obvious mistakes in those first chapters included here, as I read them in both editions today, plus the fact that the Romanian edition doesn't use italics for thoughts, and tends to put them as separate paragraphs, so I keep assuming they're spoken, which sure changes things), but ah well.

MILA 2.0: Origins: The Fire

This is a strange choice, to add a preview of the first actual book in the series consisting of its first no less than seven chapters, out of 40, after a very short story. It makes it difficult to decide what to comment on, but I'll go with the whole package just as it is and say it doesn't have much going for it. The writing's all right, I guess, but the short story doesn't actually seem to say much, generating more confusion than anything else, and that preview actually needs to be this long to get to the first possibly interesting bit. For six and a half chapters, there's nothing there but some silly teen drama, and I'd actually emphasize the "silly" part, with a trace of past tragedy and just a few hints of something a bit more interesting. And those hints may be too little, too much, or simply pointless either way, since the reader already knows what the main character is, whether from the end of the short story or simply from the description.

Rating: 2/5

Under the Dome - Stephen King

Published in two volumes in France, don't know about the original release, though.

Another great story, masterfully told by King. Seriously, his style (and the tanslator's skills) is so good taht I could hardly let go of the book.

To just give the general plot: Suddently, a small american town is trapped under what seems to be a force field shaped into a dome. And in a matter of days, the situation will go from "nice little town" to "total hell". Once again, King excels at depicting the shift form being a normal person to being confronted to unforeseeable circumstances and the way people react to it.

It's not horror, even if some descriptions are quite gory, I'd classify this one more into the "psychological horror/thriller/mystery" category, if such exists.

But whatever category it might be, it was really a great read!

So far in 2018: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/books_finished_in_2018/post9

Don't know original, but in Poland it was one huge volume.
Regarding King's style - well, it's love it or leave it writer and so far I'm rather on leave it side. However I'm glad that you've enjoyed it!

Well, the two volumes are 800-ish and 900-ish pages long, here, so that one volume should have been humongous! ^_^

For a very long time, I wouldn't have touched King's work with a 10-feet pole, but a friend introduced me to the "Dark Tower" cycle and it was a shock!

But I think King's enjoyability in any other language than english heavily depends on the translator's skills.

Congo - Michael Crichton

A novel back from 1980. It's about a team going to the unexplorated areas of Congo to find diamond vital to electronics and computers. Not bad, but a bit short and I wish the characters would have been a little bit more fleshed out. The end feels also rushed, after a good path towards a climacic situation. I couldn't help but laugh a little bit to see characters marvel at computer having, like, 256 Kb of memory. ^_^ Not bad, but definitely not essential.

So far in 2018: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/books_finished_in_2018/post9

MILA 2.0

Read this in Romanian, picked up from the Library after somewhat accidentally ending up with the sequel at the end of a World Book Day event. However, being included in the otherwise pointless free prequel, I read the first seven chapters in English as well, so I can say that I guess the writing style isn't bad in itself... But the translation is quite poor, with some obvious mistakes I could spot and who knows how many others, after those first chapters, which I had no way to notice, plus a confusing way to print thoughts up to a point. There are things that can be fixed mentally if you pay attention, but others just confuse and at least a few may well lead to understanding something that's the opposite of the original meaning. Plus, metric units are used in some places, but not in most others, so I'm assuming the translator didn't bother to convert and that's how it was in the original as well, but I can't be sure. It's odd either way.
About the book itself, while there are some interesting scenes, I tend to be pretty surprised that plenty of people like this sort of thing. The fact that the main character is annoyingly emotional and that leads to bad decisions and difficulty in making any somewhat reasonable ones may be explained by her programming, so she and the author may be judged less harshly for it than if she'd have actually been human, but fewer excuses can be found for the success rate of, and I'd even say praise for, irrational decisions after a point. More importantly, just about any other character is one-dimensional, the first six and a half chapters consist almost entirely of particularly silly teen drama and the few scattered hints of something more interesting are pointless anyway when the reader already knows what the main character is, there's instant romance and a sudden return to it later, and the entire book seems like the novelization of the tutorial of an action game that doesn't properly start before the end.

Rating: 2/5

Done with these at least. As an added note, that copy I got for free at that event was missing the last chapter and the very end of the one before it. Wanted to donate it to the Metropolitan Library (where I loaned the other one from when I saw that this was 2nd in a series, and which listed this one as on the purchase list), even sent the form, then realized the issue and had to send another message to say woops, nothing to donate after all it seems :/ So went to the store I got it from then, found a copy there (with all pages, but the ones missing from this one printed a few lines down - text was all in there, but page numbers ended up off the page), read the end, then left them the incomplete one, also saying why. Hoping they'll either send it back to publisher or recycle it, but who knows. (Had sent a message on-line before, was told to tell my story to an employee there and maybe I'll have it exchanged, despite no proof of having gotten it from them in the first place and the fact that I didn't actually purchase it, but I said nah, don't want to keep it and it'd seem like a prank if I'd say I want to donate it, then that I can't, then that I can again. So didn't ask now, and the employee didn't offer, just apologized.)

MILA 2.0: Renegade

Read this in Romanian, after somewhat accidentally ending up with it at the end of a World Book Day event. Spotted a few places where something was obviously wrong with the translation, but while I doubt that it was better than that of the first book in the series, I can't really know. Translating "Renegade" into "Tradarea" ("Betrayal") as the title really doesn't seem right though. Also, that use of metric units in some places but not in others remains, and I still don't know whether it's like that in the original text as well or the translator keeps converting only in some places. The first option seems far more likely, but it's still odd either way.
About the book itself, at least it doesn't seem like the novelization of the tutorial of an action game anymore, but it's oddly mundane considering the potential of the concept. Also shallow, perhaps when it comes to the all too few problems resulting from being wanted by multiple forces in particular, but definitely not only for that reason. Many scenes seem thrown in just because they're the fastest way to move on to the next part, consequences are often discarded, the romance still doesn't feel right at all, whether before or after certain key scenes, the way events will develop and the intentions and motives of others are too obvious yet somehow the main character keeps missing them, plenty of times also being manipulated with hardly any effort, the levels of trust between characters are also hardly natural or reasonable... And that final chapter comes pretty much out of nowhere, reminding me of those scenes at the end of the last episode of a season of a TV series that was supposed to end but just got renewed for another season at the last moment, so somebody had to quickly replace the planned conclusion with a hook. In spite of it all, it's possible that I'd have, grudgingly, rated this higher than the previous book if I wouldn't have read it translated, but as it was...

Rating: 2/5