Charlie

I'm not usually in to fantasy but this one grabbed me. Likely because it wasn't pretending to be about kings and queens and dragons and magic. It's all entirely created works with lots of different kinds of sentient life, none of which are human. It helps that Martha Wells is an excellent writer.

This is not like Murderbot at all so don't expect that. But she's still very good at her craft.

Great quick read. But not simple or trashy. Just well written and a great, unique idea. I loved the main character and his dilemma felt understandable. I picked this book up on whim and an m glad I did!

I do not understand how this gets high ratings. I read a lot of sci fi and space opera. This is not well written. The dialogue is flat and the descriptions way too long. This book needed a great editor to cut it by a third, at least. And someone needs to tell the author to back off the thesaurus. Fifty cent words are my necessary to write characters readers care about nor do they make the story feel deep. They're distracting.

This book does not need to be read and I won't be picking anything else up by him

Good. Weird pacing. I think the autor was trying to tell a story about how hard it is to be a new parent without just talking about having a baby. But it made for a hard to follow timeline and pace. Entertaining

Humor writing is hard to get right. Moore does a good job doing that. This is not his greatest but it's good, engaging, funny and the characters are superb. The story was inventive.

I liked this. It was well placed and the main character was great. Much better written than the sookie novels

Definitely love death. And Mort. And ysabell. And Arthur.

Really well written. Lyrical in a lot of spots . Extremely uncomfortable book to read as a white person but I'm glad I did. It's a very clear story about the difficulty of being Black in America and the contradiction of not understanding what it brand to be black. The author is obviously questioning that but also embracing his Blackness and that if many others in a way that makes it clear that being Black is a higher state of being. At the same time, it's also an equal state of being. I imagine it would be an uncomfortable book for many Black people to read as well.

Barley a Culture novel, imo. But a great read nonetheless. Very much fantasy instead of SF. Right without the dragons and magic thankfully.

A relatively honest accounting of his life. He owns up to his not best moments and tries a lot of stories that are very entertaining. You get a sense of his discomfort and surprise at his success. I liked him even more after finishing this.

Pretty fun and interesting takes on interstellar travel and life. The main character can get tiresome sometimes but her closest friend is a great character and the story is pretty interesting. There a few extra plot lines that could be removed but overall, worth ith the read

Good book but tries really hard to have its point home: Authoritarianism is bad and AI is not good for humanity. Not be right and really didn't need to be said so on the nose. A little subtlety might make for a more pleasant read. As it is, the week and a day it or took me felt a lot longer.

Not bad. Entertaining and easy. A beach read. The end was a bit unsatisfying but considering the story, it should have been I guess. Just too undefined

I really enjoyed the first 85% of this book. The writing was short and clipped, which created a sense of ever-present stress. Considering that this is the way the people in this book live, it was a smart way to write. The story was engaging and believable. I mean, a world driven by consumerist demands in which people lose all sense of worth (not to mention jobs) because of the take over of AI? Throw in constant worries about climate, air quality, and over-use of the Internet and you've got a speculative fiction book that's on target for today.

Sadly, the end of the book was a dud. It just stopped. Things were left unanswered and issues were resolved without any clarity as to how. They just were. I read some of the interview with the author in the back of the book and she thinks she does that in all her books to work with her audience. If all her books end like this though, she's not working with us, she's giving up. It's like she felt bored with the resolution so just skipped building that part. It's unfortunate. You can leave things unclear and up to readers' imaginations and that can work really well. But you gotta put effort in to that.

Still, good world building and engaging writing till that last 15%. And it's short, so it didn't feel like I was wasting time.

I really enjoyed this book. Not only was it engaging and entertaining and very well written, it was totally unexpected. I thought it would be brain candy with not much to think about it. Turns out, not so much. A really interesting story with one of the most fascinating characters I've read in a long long time. I hope for more from this author soon.

I never liked a Tom Robbins book before. Tough last one I tried I was in high school. Now 51 and reading not Still Life... I really liked this. Very funny and full of his impressions of life. Well told story and overall enjoyable. I look forward to trying a few of his other books again.

First discworld book I read. Funny. Good. Looking forward to more

I love her writing so much. This book is much more straight forward, timeline wise, than the others I've read. It's still really wonderfully written and easy to read

This was not my favorite in the series. I just didn't believe in the character Anna as much as other main characters in this series. Somehow she felt forced, which is surprising considering the personal nature of whose he was and what she experienced according to the author. Still an interesting place in the timeline of this series.

Solid book. The main protagonist is very moody and this is conveyed via ponderous paragraphs of interior monologue. Those good be cut some. But there's a definite progression of character and it's well written. It's kind of an evil Harry Potter in a dystopian Martian fantasy scape. looking forward to book two

I was quite surprised how much I enjoyed this. It's not my usual fare but I got the sense it was truly written in his voice. It impressed me how honest he was about his faults and mistakes. And I think it's important people who care deeply about this kind of thing to hear his side, unvarnished. It can't be argued that he wasn't treated horribly and his family did not stand up for him in the way he needed. Very sad. Really good read.

This was definitely one of my favorite books of this series.

I wanted to like this book. Really I did and maybe I would if I was not often tired and busy. But this is one of those hooks that is written in it's own kind if stole and it just didn't draw me in and was hard for me to follow. The writing was good, the author is obviously good at it, it just didn't grab me. A little too out there for me right now. Maybe some day

I like these books. This I've was a bit more convoluted than the first, but moved the story in a really interesting way. Looking forward to number 3

This book is too long by a third at least maybe even by a half. So much extra was put in just because the author enjoyed writing scenes that really didn't need to be there. There's pretty sketchy character development and the plot is only okay. It feels pretty hackneyed at this point. Plus, in the last couple hundred pages of the book, some of the language suddenly becomes pretty offensive for this day and age. Some very unfortunate use of accented English is used and there are definitely some words that would not pass muster today. Even if this may have been one of the first of the genre That doesn't necessarily mean it's still any good. For over 900 pages. I'd say skip it