Quick Reviews: Do Androids Dream of Girls Who Play with Fire?

Usually, my reviews are a little more in-depth than these, but because of the wedding/honeymoon/house buying, I've gotten a bit behind on the reviewing. I read these three novels while on my honeymoon.

 

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick

In a relatively dystopian, future version of planet Earth, androids are created to do the crap jobs people don't really feel like doing anymore. Every so often, the misbehave and have to be put down. This is a story of one of those circumstances. This novel is the "inspiration" for Bladerunner, which I suppose means it is tangently based on it. I didn't really care for the film (I know, blasphemy), so I was hoping for something a little different and definitely got it. This book manages to be lighthearted in a heavy way, with both goofy and very serious moments. It's sarcastic without being explicitly so, and as Philip K. Dick likes to roll, it is a good piece of social commentary. I don't think it's as hard-hitting as some of his other books, most of which I prefer over this one. Overall, though, a solid offering and a quick, interesting read.

Score: 3.5 out of 5 stars.

 

The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson

I have to say, I was majorly disappointed by both of these books. I read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and really enjoyed it, so I was caught off guard hoping these would be good. The former of these two have nothing to do with the first novel in the trilogy except for the characters. Lisbeth Salander, the our glam-emo protagonist from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is back in this novel, richer, and a little more grown up (at least appearance wise). She gets caught up in and then framed for the murder of two individuals reporting on a sex trafficking story, and the shenanigans ensue. We have spies, government cover-ups, patricide, fratricide, the whole shebang. This story starts in the second novel and then picks up immediately in the third. Even with all of this craziness, I was still disappointed.

Both of these books, but moreso the last of the trilogy, are unnecessarily long and filled with details which add absolutely nothing to the progression of the plot or the building of the characters. The Girl Who Played with Fire is at least one-hundred pages too long (and probably two-hundred) and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest seems to exist solely as a disjointed five-hundred page effort to tie up all the loose ends put forth in its predecessor. Character after character are introduced, few of which inspire enough emotion to be either likable or unlikable.

This trilogy got progressively worse as it went on, so if you've read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, in my opinion, you're probably best off stopping there and pretending it's not part of a trilogy.

Score:
The Girl Who Played with Fire: 3 out of 5 stars
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest: 2.5 out of 5 stars

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I'm reading Carter Beats the Devil  by Glen David Gold currently, and crazy schedule pending, I should have it done by this weekend. See you soon!