Dan
As with most modern books, this should be shorter.
Why are we spending so much time in this book not exploring the cool scifi concept but petty squabbles between petty humanoids?
I think I just do not like Mr. Tchaikovsky writing style, he is the kind of author that spreads out a 5 line dialogue over 6 or 7 pages. One line of dialogue followed by 1.5 pages of meandering and internal monologue until the second line follows and so on. At the end you do not know what the dialogue was about. That happens multiple times in the book. And then there was this infuriating scene where one of the main chars makes a discovery about the main plot and everyone around him knows about it but we, the readers, do not get to learn about it until chapters later and until then they go running around “but this important thing we learn is important and we need to tell” “but what we learnedness to get out”, “isn't it awesome what we learned, so mind boggling” and in the end it turns out to be underwhelming. It's so cheap.
Overall the concept, the world, the aliens are all great, I am just not a fan of the execution.
This is hard to rate, on the one hand the actual story, when it happened, was fantastic, on the other hand much of this book was world building which was done in a, for me, boring way. The usual stereotypical ‘ragtag group of' space pirates/smugglers/traders/scoundrels but with a heart of gold goes through boring pirates/smugglers/traders/scoundrels stuff and we learn about the world in the process. You have read that in a 100 books a 100 times before. But the world, the universe, is fantastic with a rich history and multiple alien races and it just feels real.
Looking forward to book 2
This was the most frustrating read this year, not because its bad, which it is but because there is an awesome book hidden between the endless pages of repetitive monolog somewhere.
This should be a 2 book series, not 3. More than half of the book is just pointless recap of what happened before and the same inner monologues again and again and again and again. No one can make a decision whatsoever, it's mindnumpingly boring.
The awesome parts are awesome though and kept me from DNF-ing it.
The world is great, the magic system is new and fresh, the moral dilemma the book throws at us are nice to think about but ultimately the execution is just not there.
:(
This book has a lot to say about AI, slavery, consciousness, gender and much more.
Unfortunately it does it in the most boring, most unlogical way possible. The plot can only happen in the way it does because everyone involved acts in a way no one would ever act. There are parts of the book where you know exactly what is going to happen, because you have read this all before, done in better ways from others authors yet you slog through the pages only to be surprised how unoriginal that all is.
Instead of exploring the vast multiverse with its many wonders and species we get treated to pages and pages of the boring and sad lives of the unlikeable protagonists.
Skip this one. Read ‘The Long Earth' instead or watch Sliders.
¯_(ツ)_/¯
4/5 stars
This is a nice mix of Star Trek, Star Wars, Indianer Jones and a tad of Fantasy.
I really enjoyed it for 2/3 of the book, the later third was a bit of a drag but still on the good side. It could have used some trimming, I would guess it's 200 pages too long, for example there is a super pointless romance arc out of nowhere and a super super cringy sex scene and drawn out action/fight scenes, which are not the strength of the book.
Anyhow, good story, great world, looking forward to reading more from the Fractalverse
2/5
If you are looking for answers, look somewhere else because this book does not give you any. Most threads stay unresolved, the book has no ending, it just stops mid story.
There are a few great ideas in the book and the series but are just not explored while it focuses on mundane tasks and human bs.
Read book 1, skip 2 and 3.
I hope inhibitor phase is not such a slog.
2.5/5 stars
Puh, what a let down after the awesome story from the first book.
The story here is small, inconsequential and meaningless. Yes we do learn a bit more about the inhibitors (in a few info dumps), yes the writing is vastly superior to book 1, yes the conjoiners are interesting but ultimately that all does not matter if the books fails to tell an engaging story.
