Josh

This book was great! I liked most of the characters and felt like the magic system was extremely believable - a cleverly twisted fantastical take on the role computers play irl. It reminds me of the Legend of Eli Monpress, but not so much as to detract from its originality. The plot overall wasn't exactly mind bending, and things played out more or less as expected, but I was easily carried away by the story and the pacing is on point. A cleverly portrayed glimpse at the nominal freedom of modern society. There is a touch of romance that seems somewhat sudden and shoehorned in, but there are only so many pages a book can have and it really isn't the point of the story anyhow. Extremely compelling ending; I can't wait for the next one.

My first step into Russian fantasy - there appear to be real thematic and structural differences to my standard fare though those may be solely Dyachenko characteristics. I found this book to be surprisingly disturbing; I wasn't expecting quite so much of a horror element as I found though it did make for an enthralling read. The mystery of what the characters really are build with fantastic tension, but I didn't feel very satisfied with the climax and resolution... I'll definitely read the next one when it's translated, but if it ends similarly unresolved I likely won't continue.

Not a particularly uplifting read - it's a dark book that deals with dark themes well enough. It's on a fairly short time-scale but I didn't feel like the characters developed all that much. Fortunately they're reasonably interesting characters to start with, but the characters do feel fairly flat. I don't think I'm really the target audience for this book, but I'll probably read the next one.