Clemens
I started to read this book around 2002 or so but for whatever reason I stopped reading it. Finally, after such a long time, I picked it up again and finished it and I can't really find a reason why I never finished it in the first place.
It is a wonderful alternative earth history story book following several characters interconnected through time. It has some a bit more dull places, but overall it is a very engaging story about a what if scenario. What if Europe was ravaged by diseases and therefore the middle east and china become the so called super powers.
Wonderful book, wonderful story.
Can't say anything bad about this book, but also not a lot of positive either. Something in the middle. Not bad, not good, not very exciting either.
It felt I read something for kids or early teenagers rather than a book for adults.
Not really sure I would recommend this book, except if you are at a younger age, at where this would be a great start into other books from Neil Gaiman.
I have no idea how to rate this book. Or how to even write a review.
Never before did I go through a roller coster ride in a book like this.
At the beginning I wanted to throw this book out of the window (or rather delete it from my Kindle), burn it (delete from my computer) and write the most horrible review possible about this unreadable dreck.
Well, then after about 200 pages in it suddenly started to grew on me, the writing style, the stories that started to interact and I was really looking forward to the outcome.
And then it ended and I am like, so that was it? I felt a bit unsatisfactory. Like you can almost come during, sex, but right before ... it ends.
So, if someone looks for advice if this book is readable, I honestly can't. On one side I say, it was sure not worth the long time I read this book (good three months) and the amount of concentration you have to out into it. You just can't open that book and read it, you really need to concentrate on it. This is really hard work. But it can be really nice to read, and really interesting, but then it ends like this ...
And the footnotes. Good 400 footnotes. Oh and some of the footnotes have footnotes too. And then some of the footnotes footnotes have footnotes. Never before have I seen that in any book I ever read. And some of those footnotes are like full chapters long. You really need to read them. Reading them post the book is kind of awkward (that is what I did).
After all this, I just give it three stars. The first 200 would have been 1, then I would have given it 4, but at the end I will settle with three. Three is good. Neither bad nor outstanding. Good. “Befriedigend” as the german would get in school. Let's leave it at that.
Reading these kind of books makes you always question the humanity.
Besides this basic fact this book is a true page turner. Fascinating from the first to the last page. Slight nitpicking I do have on parts where “Character X wears Y and her/his hair is Z” stuff is really not something I need to have in this kind of book.
Second nitpick is that it feels too short and with some unanswered or open questions.
My first impression after I finished reading this book was: Well, Hollywood did over action shit everything, even back then, when I thought they made good movies.
Anyway, my first book from Umberto Eco and I choose this one basically because I knew the movie. I really enjoyed it, but there are parts that need your 150% concentration or you will miss out parts and get lost in the rest of the page.
I am not giving it five stars because I thought there was a bit “umpf” missing. Really can't put my finger on it, but I just can't give it top marks.
Still, I loved it, and I am looking forward to read more books from him.
Like the first book it is a mixture of really good, mediocre and shit parts. In the overall view the good trumps the bad parts, but not enough to give to four stars. I still think some parts are just uselessly long and do not play any part in the overall story. The description of the relationship between the main character and one of the main women is still neckbeard level horrible. It could have been much more, or not.
But then, it is a story about a guy told by that guy as an old guy.
If the third book ever gets released, we might get a answer to all this why and ifs and whats.
“This is a great book, but it is also not that great”
That is my impression of this one. Hard to write anything more without spoiling too much but basically I really liked the writing style, the story is very interesting too, but there are parts in there that just feel like they drag on without really much content in them.
Still, if you are interesting into a good fantasy novel that does not go way too much into hardcore fantasy stuff, this is a highly recommended book.
That was a really great read. Most of the book was very good with an really interesting story, interesting characters, great background and on top of that it was written really well. Parts of it were so good that couldn't really stop reading.
Other parts had a bit of a drag in it and felt disconnected from the overall ark.
Overall I highly recommend this book and I am looking forward to read more from the Culture series.
Fucking shit right here.
I loved to read it and then I hated to read it, then I loved it again, then I wanted to just stop reading it all together, then it got really good and at the end stumbled over its own feet and crash face on to the ground.
This book is like Harry Potter got really emo, goes on a everlasting binge drinking contest. It has a really good background idea, great story, but for fucks sake those characters in there are just horrible. Horrible because they are good written, horrible because so much bullshit is written.
No idea if I should love or hate it it. And really not sure if I want to read any other books from this series.
Neither really good nor really bad. It had its moments and it had its passages of utter dullness. The story itself is really good and the idea behind too, but the execution is sadly lacking.
I honestly do not know if I would recommend this unless you are a hardcore KS Robinson fan or a hardcore sci-fi fan. There are better books, you can skip this one.
Reading something from an author you have no idea about is always a gamble. And this author I found through a friend who read a different book that from reading to cover text seemed to be a bit too difficult to start off. So I searched and just bought this one and it was an amazing surprise.
Well written, very interesting story from the first page to the last. Not a pure detective story and not some pure fantasy stuff, but a really good mix of both that just hit right on the spot for me.
Highly recommended.
While by far not as good as the first book, it also is not as bad as I feared. The main issue is, that it drifts off into a sci-fi style that is really not my main interest. Sort of “alternate Universe/what if” scenario. So if you read the first book, be prepared that the second one is not the stunning conclusion as you might expect but really goes off into a total different direction.
