Some books that I don’t like. They looked good enough to get but not to my taste.

Hercule Poirot (Series)

On the plus side, I found a collection for two dollars that was 1300 pages. I made it about 2/3 of the way through before giving up.

• not the author’s fault, but this edition was full of typos and missing pages
• perhaps it is bound to happen with so many stories, but I found them repetitive
• I also didn’t always buy Poirot’s solution as the only possible outcome
  • I couldn’t always follow his logic – it seemed like he had some hidden information, but perhaps this would be easier for an NT person to consume?
  • the logical leaps he makes are just the author’s social intuition

Red Mars

I picked this one up because people I know liked the series and Gemini recommended it with:

It treats the sociology and geology of Mars as a massive, complex system. It’s like The Expanse but with more focus on the “How-To” of building a world

Well, my first watch of The Expanse also fell flat, so maybe it takes a couple goes?

Anyway, I couldn’t stand it – the first character you follow is evil. Or perhaps amoral. Anyway, bad. I couldn’t get into it and I put it down.

Neal Stephenson

The only one I am sure I read is Snow Crash. It started off awesome, but then strange chakra stuff started happening and I wasn’t sure (and no longer cared) what was going on. I have heard good things about Criptonomicon and Anathem, but I am wary of reading anything more by this author.

Dune (Series)

This seems like it would be right up my alley, but I only made it 30 pages in before never opening it again. I found it boring and I didn’t care. Sure, some books take some time to get going, but given the hype, this was a real letdown.