Alex
Ну нормально, можно почитать. Книжка как водится про людей на фоне не очень далёкого будущего: люди рубят лес, а в лесу сами собой ездят машины, которые пытаются этих людей убить.
И под вот этим вот соусом там приключение с путешествием, почти как властелин колец, но с матерщиной.
В целом интересно, но замечал что теряю интерес временами - лор интереснее самой истории.
Ну неплохо.
Язык приятный и читать крайне интересно почти до самого конца. Но не для слабонервных это точно.
Переплетение нескольких печальных историй в российской деревне и псевдо-деревенский язык (баб Зоя, боисси и т.д.) задают какую надо атмосферу. В принципе русская деревня здесь изображена даже как-то слишком позитивно по сравнению с другими произведениями и на этом фоне события становятся только жутче.
Extremely interesting book, lots of food for thought. I didn't see any alternative to capitalism in the book itself though, but it's more about WHY we don't see alternatives now. In the 15 years since the book's release, capitalism has become even more merciless and brutal, yet we still don't want anything else, so I guess whatever author imagined to happen didn't happen yet and it might be too late by now.
It's also kind of hard to read, I had to look up some words in the Miriam-Webster dictionary (and I didn't find some of them!). But the book is short, so it's not actually a big problem.
Worth a read for sure.
Great addition to The Age of Madness. 4 stories, the first three provide background to the industrial revolution from the common folks perspective and the fourth one directly expands the lore of the overarching mystery of the series.
Perfect as usual. I just wish I could hear it from Steven Pacey. It was more than unusual to read and not listen to Glokta's thoughts.
The world-building is quite amazing. I absolutely loved the idea of a war of god-like creatures where humans are just pawns.
But now to the minuses:
- it feels a little like a book for edgy children at times, even f-words here and there just add to the impression.
- somewhere in the third quarter events happen like in a slideshow - hardly anything connects them and that's really a huge letdown, like the author wanted to write a longer book but then decided not to.
- characters (even main, others could be skipped entirely) are not very well written even though everything started very promisingly.
The ending is good. Decide for yourself, but I won't be reading the second book.
Absolutely incredible book. It has:
- Big ass hurricane
- literal villains
- literal heroes
- US president being a dick (ha!)
- US Congress being a bunch of useless dummies (actually the least surprising thing in the book).
- Pakistan shooting themselves in the foot by attacking India.
- Nuclear destruction of the world is avoided by pure chance.
And this all really happened.
The audiobook narration is almost perfect, so much passion and emotions, pronunciation of “Bangladesh” gave me chills every time. Though for some reason the narrator pronounces the second name of Admiral Kruglyakov with feminine ending even though it's written correctly in the table of contents and the accompanying PDF, as this name is used in the book around 100 times, it bothered me a little.
Overall 10/10, better than a whole lot of fiction action books.
Very heavy but very interesting book. It's a series of interviews with people who lived in the general vicinity of the Chernobyl nuclear plant in Belarus when it exploded.
Most of the stories are incredibly sad and I cried a lot while listening to the book. I think I forget sometimes that people in the Soviet Union also had dreams, loved each other, went to school, had fun... The record of their suffering shows that they had a lot to lose and many lost it forever.
The russian narration of the audiobook is just phenomenal, I never listened to a narrator who was able to convey emotions from so many different people of different age and gender.
There are some genuinely scary moments but overall it's a generic ghost story in the setting of the English countryside.
A real scary story is like 30% of the book, the rest is “atmosphere”. If you're not into British stuff - almost nothing for you here.
I listened to the Audible production and it's quite good.
Eh, this one is quite boring IMO. Zachary Quinto is doing his best making voices but it doesn't help with a weak and hectic plot
What's more interesting is the world building - the idea has a potential and I plan to listen to the other two parts of the series. There is not much to lose - they are quite short and free with an Audible subscription.
At times I was amazed at the sloppy writing, it almost felt like a children's book with disturbing interludes here and there. It is also insanely long.
BUT I liked it a lot, it's a very comfortable read which you want to have at times of leisure, when it's raining and dark outside. It's the first book in a very long time that I picked up instead of video games almost 100% of the time.
Not bad, not worse than the original IMO. It gets quite “graphic” at times, so not for the faint of heart.
I found that such a format requires more attention from me than a normal audiobook and leaves way less space for imagination. Nonetheless I enjoyed it.
It's also free with an Audible subscription.
I didn't know a lot about the French revolution before this book and now I know much more than the general population and can keep relatively casual conversation about the topic. I felt like it was decently written and quite detailed as well. Sometimes I was phasing out because it was boring (from Robespierre death until Napoleon it's just one or another kind of coup over and over again) but for the most part it was like a good thriller.
Kinda explains why french don't trust their government by default.
Really solid book. Despite being quite old it feels fresh and without too many clichés.
I loved descriptions of emotions of the main antagonist and the idea of Will Graham - the person with ultimate empathy, who is using it to understand and catch serial killers.
Language is a little bit dated and at times heavy but the pace of the story kept me engaged all the way.
One thing I disliked is Hannibal Lecter, I guess he was important for establishing Graham's background and setting up next books but he is super-annoying and a piece of shit even for serial killer.
10/10, recommend