Review: fun and quirky
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 28, 2013
I was a fan of Smallworld (which I recommend) and was pleasantly surprised that this book was even better.  Many were critical that Smallworld read like a collection of short stories and seemed to meander about, and to some extent, that is true.  But all of those fun scenes made Littlestar that much better.Littlestar is tighter, more directed to a central storyline and of course, very witty.  Dominic Green has an extremely vivid imagination and drops in some  interesting sci-fi concepts into a minor description in the story.  It makes you stop and think about a device or invention in the middle of reading.  Some may see this as a digression, but these actually build out the world more thoroughly.  And you should expect it based on the first book.The Anchorite is now much more understandable as a character.  What was once a quirky sidestory is now a fully-fleshed individual.  I do have trouble keeping the Reborn family straight and some differentiating characteristics and a refresher on the first book would have been helpful.I also found the Llewelyn character and attendant plotline to be tedious and it could have been cut significantly to move the story along, but other than that, the book was good.Dominic Green is definitely funny, smart and is having fun in his writing.  I will continue to read his stuff.  And now a shameless plug for my own bookThe Medici Iris: A Tale of Murder, Sex, Drugs...and HorticultureIf you like funny and quirky, you will probably like it as well