Dan

This was a great read. Shitty cliffhanger though

 This book tries so hard to be so clever but fails miserably. We get pages upon pages on pseudo philosophical rambling, like the author is explaining the most basic concepts to a toddler. On top of that we can witness the MC having irrational relationship fights for no reason other than drama. Yiekes.

This book tries so hard to be so clever but fails miserably. We get pages upon pages on pseudo philosophical rambling, like the author is explaining the most basic concepts to a toddler. On top of that we can witness the MC having irrational relationship fights for no reason other than drama. Yiekes.

What an improvement to the previous book. I like that a lot.

This is another one of those ‘scifi in name only books'. 95% of the story could have taken place anywhere but since it's a talky book and I like talky books I continued on. Now, with talky books, you need intelligent characters having intelligent dialogue so that when you read a conversation you get goosebumps. Did the author manage to do that here? no, not by a long shot. The Author tries to put layer upon layer of subtext, double and triple meaning in every little gesture in every dialogue that ultimately everything turns out to be almost meaningless. Luckily she recognised this and had the MC's sidekick or the MC's inner monologue explain the actual meaning of every line, making it unnecessarily long and pointless.
This book is a masterclass in ignoring ‘show, don't tell'. We get told about aliens, yet never meet any. We get told about spaceships, yet never see any, we get told about jump gates, yet never use any let alone learn how they work, probably magic, I don't know. There is very little ‘sci' here.
80% of the book is buildup to the last 20% which are somewhat promising for the second book. But having a whole book as setup for a second book, which other authors put on the blurb, is a bit much, for my taste.

All in all it kinda feels like a more highbrow, less interesting, less fun version of ‘The Collapsing Empire' by Scalzi with all the scifi elements taken out.

Liked it, did not love it. Enjoyable but a bit tropey and simple.
Bought book 2

Typical Tchaikovsky. Great beginning, great end, lots of meandering boring pages in the middle.
I adore the man for his great, unique, mind boggling ideas but I can not get onboard with the execution. The author can't write dialogue for the life of him and relies on repetitive, sloggy inner monologue and info dumps. It's just not for me.

Meh, not really scifi, more of deep dive into the mind of an asshole

If you like following girls shopping for dresses and shoes, this one is for you.
If you like cool, adult epic scifi, this one is not for you.

The ending was kinda cool though, I have to admit. Not cool enough to keep on reading though.

It's starting to get repetitive and a bit annoying.

This book is like a colourful, high sugar candy. It's fun to eat but for a meal you want something more substantial and like with candy, if you eat too much you get sick.

this is really bad, should have been a DNF at the batman chapter.

I love Mr. Riddle's writing and his ideas but this one felt more like a draft than a finished book.
The first 1/3 was great and then it went to a downhill slog and a rushed ending. How the MC overcame the big villain corporation was the most laughable thing I have read in a long time. They walked straight in and inserted a virus via usb. yes, you read that right.

Yeah... nope.

I really liked that one

Well, leaving behind the entire cast and introducing a new one for the second time did not do the book any favours.

SO much rambling.

Amazing ending, unfortunately a bit of a slog in the middle. The weakest of the for stormlight books so far, still an amazing read though

Fun, fast, perfect palate cleanser.

Brando Sando can do no wrong. This is just a fun read. Yeah technically it should not be 5 stars but I enjoyed it like a 5 star book.

Reynolds can't write endings for the life of him.
Book 2 and 3 are really really bad.

Awesome story, best of the secret projects so far.
Cute, fun and epic in the end.

Meh

Meh

4 stars for both the book and the series. Did not quite reach the magic of malice but was way better than Ruin.
It does show a bit, imho, that this was the author's first series and for that it's phenomenal. Bought the followup series, looking forward to it.