Josh

Superb atmospheric writing. Ernshaw does a wonderful job selling Pastoral and building it up in your mind with her fantastic prose. I enjoyed all the characters for the most part and there are some of them where their actions match their personality so incredibly well.

But this book's not a 3 star or higher for me, because there are a lot of plot holes and the twist itself to me, is just something I can't believe as an explanation at all. The atmospheric writing is so strong that this may not actually matter to many people that read the novel, but for me I read a mystery for the mystery. Here the mystery just isn't on point imo. 

The first book I mentioned how there were a few YA tropes present that I didn't care for. I have no complaints on that regard in the sequel. In fact I have no complaints at all. The world is still interesting, the characters continued to develop very nicely, and M. Bot was still hilarious. 

I enjoyed the themes present in this one more as well, especially in regards to Spensa's furthering development as a person. So all in all, the last one was a 4.5 so this one can only be a 5.

This is a heavy one in a way that only historical fiction can be imo. The fact I can remember all the stories about unmarked graves just a couple years ago from schools such as the one's in the book just adds additional gravity. Because you know that while the story you're consuming may be heartbreaking, the scope is so vast that there are thousands of Kenny's, Maisies, Howie's, etc out there. Many, many thousands who never had a voice to tell their story.

I appreciate this book immensely for telling the story it does, because it reminds us that tragedy isn't localized especially when your policy is essentially “kill the Indian, save the man”. Systematic racism like this ripples out and touches entire communities for many, many generations to come. And it's important to recognize that when discussing current issue's that effect such communities.

So the subject matter, the emotional impact, and the historical/cultural importance...I'm there for all that. But having said all the above, the writing just doesn't jive with me. From characterization, to dialogue, to what I felt were plot conveniences etc. There's just too many things I didn't personally like that pulled me out of the book.

I'd still recommend it though, because I firmly believe that understanding the abuses of the past is key to understanding communities of the present. And I think this book can be a starting point towards that for some. 

I really enjoy reading Gaiman's prose and I think he excels at combining multiple genre's till you have a book that is really hard to categorize as it checks so many different boxes. This novel appeals to me on that level and I had a good time with the overall plot/characters. If I had to sum it up I would used the word “solid”. Nothing blew me away and I'd rate it a slightly lower than American Gods , (3.5 compared to 4) but a solid novel that was interesting despite me not being very emotionally invested in the characters.

As far as the comedy goes, which this book is marketed heavily as being humorous, Gaiman just doesn't do it for me. Not only do I tend to not find him funny, but often times it's lost on me that he's even attempting to be funny. So it's not that the joke doesn't land (although sometimes this is true), it's that I often don't see the joke to begin with. I don't really hold that against Gaiman though because that's not a reflection on his writing in any way, it's just something that I ironically find amusing.

I absolutely love the premise of this book. I'm a sucker for human's being the underdog and the prey. So this book was right up my ally with a world where demons owned the night and humans had to hide in their buildings behind wards. Wards that have to be set up precisely and if the lines are marred by a substance become ineffective. This makes an enemy out of things like mud, rain, dirt etc. Anything that can potentially break the perfect line's drawn.

I enjoyed our main character standing up and deciding he was done hiding. And some great battles (the last one in particular) provided heart pumping action. Yet...I find this book extremely frustrating. For starters, it feels to me like the author uses time jumps as a cheap way to develop his characters. Why write development when you can merely fast forward x number of years? This occurs several times over, in particular with Arlen who each time emerges as something more than he was...but you only read snippets of how he got there and that leaves something to be desired.

The second reason is because rape. Authors rarely handle rape well in their stories, fantasy authors even more rarely, and this most definitely is not an exception to the rule.
Leesha is one of our main point of view characters and a big point is made that she's a virgin. You see child bearing in this world is of utmost importance because of how many people the demon's kill. So her being a virgin is a significant deal, but none the less, she wants it to be with someone special. Understandable, but unfortunately near the end of the book, while on the road traveling she is robbed and raped by bandits. My immediate thought to this is “uh oh, fantasy rarely does this type of trauma right” and lo and behold, a day or two later Leesha is completely over this traumatic experience. So much so that Arlen (another main character) whom she's only know for a couple days...she's ready to have a romp in the mud with him. The demon intervenes so their sex is disturbed, but how quickly all this transpires is a joke. How lightly rape is taken is a joke.But it does not end there... apparently she has significant feelings for Arlen (again known him for a couple days) for reasons and now wants to have his baby. This all occurs in the span of 20 pages...but their romance and sexual tension is pretty much all but said will continue through the next book  

The above was so frustrating to me that this book went from a 3.5 or so and absolutely nosedived. It overshadowed any of the positive feelings I'd had up to that point. People I've spoken to about the series have said that stuff like this becomes more prevalent each book, so I won't be continuing on. To bad, because I really was sold on the premise.

Skyward feels like an introductory to a much more complex story. That's not an indictment against the book, but the plot was on the simple side (thats not to say it wasn't interesting though) to me for most of the book. This being in spite of the pacing being rather quick and action packed.

There are some YA tropes in the book that I don't care much for as well, but thankfully not that many. Unfortunately some of these tropes do make parts of the book more predictable then they arguably should be. I really enjoyed the story though because it makes up for the issue's I have with compelling characters whether it be the protagonist, minor characters, or the antagonist. The character development in particular of our protagonist, I thought was extremely well done. And it has a sassy character full of sardonic wit, which is hands down one of my favourite character archetypes.

Interesting world building on display as well (though I wanted more) and when the plot does finally begin to get more complex, things get very interesting. I will definitely be reading the next book in this series with very high expectations.

Good plot, great character writing (in particular the relationships between the characters), and good world building, especially for a stand alone book. I think it's an especially good transition book for those going from YA to Adult Fantasy.

Don't really have any complaints, it's just a really solid stand alone Fantasy with an interesting take on reincarnation.

I liked the first book, but thought the second was a significant step up so I was quite excited to read the third book. Even if it wasn't better than the second book, if it was just in that ballpark I would have a great time. Upon reading this one though, I can't help but think it's an absolute disaster as a mystery.

The series has always applied a form of fuzzy logic in catching the criminal. Strike tends to work heavily off intuition, but I tend to overlook this to some extent because he's not actually in law enforcement even if that's his background. In this novel however you can't overlook it because that's all the case is. At one point he literally says that there's no logic in the suspects he's been investigating for months at that point. Instead he says that “he feels it in his gut” that one of them is guilty. It's incredibly circular. He believes it to be true because he believes it to be. Him not being objective is of course intentional, but I find it incredibly frustrating when mysteries rely on “intuition” rather than deduction.

Then you have the conveniences. These have always existed in some way in the previous books, but never to this extent. Read the synopsis, Strike knows 4 people are suspects, though he dismisses one immediately with fairly flimsy reasoning. So 3 people left, who all happen to be similar builds, all happen to have the same haircut, all have/had sons that they are estranged to, all happen to be in London though it's not where they hail from. How do we know the killers characteristics? Cause for the first time we get their perspective intermixed in the novel, but even though Strike doesn't know that he still picked out 3 people immediately just from the crime (no actual evidence etc),  who fit the perspective given by the killer.  And many, many more instances across the story that would involve spoilers.

The good? Strike and Robin's working relationship is still the highlight of the book. The way they feed off one another is fun to read and you really get the sense of how integral she has turned out to be when it comes to investigating. Too bad that so much of the book is dedicated to the melodrama that is her relationship with Matthew. 

I'll still read #4 cause the first two were good enough to give Rowling the benefit of the doubt, but what a let down this was. 

This book has quite the slow and meandering plot, seemingly getting distracted at every turn. The thing is though, that works with the content of the novel. In my mind while reading it I was just imagining this winding road that will eventually get us to our destination, but along the way we have to see the world's biggest ball of yarn, the Winchester Mystery House etc.

So something that would usually bother me quite a bit, does so less even though it's still not my preference of storytelling style. It also helps that I love the premise and I enjoy looking for the allusions towards mythological stories as well as enjoy the one's that are given explicitly. So even when it feels like the plot isn't going anywhere anytime soon, I'm always on the look out for that hidden god or reference to folklore.

Where the novel fails to grab me though is the main character. Shadow doesn't have much of a personality and little presence as a character. He has no pizzazz. No  je ne sais quoi. What you see is what you get and all I see is a “big guy” that takes up space and little else. This is actually commented on within the book itself to some extent, so him being written that way is deliberate and it does serve a purpose within the context of the narrative overall. Even if I recognize that though it doesn't make his perspective anymore exciting. I don't love him and I don't hate him. He's just lukewarm and that's arguably even worse and it does really put a hamper on the enjoyment.

The idea of being cursed and having to relive your life through out time is inherently interesting to me as I'm a huge fan of Fantasy and time as a plot device. It could be time travel, time loops or other forms of time manipulation...I'm in.

But this book suffers in that the first 250 or so pages, you're just slogging through the relationship drama with very little actual mention of the curse. And the first relationship imo is the weakest part of the book and a large point of frustration and annoyance. 

At any rate, explanations were in order for the curse, but it takes so long to get there, that I actually considered DNFing the book. At that point it was definitely a 2/5 for me, but it picks up from there and I had a much more enjoyable time in the last 200ish pages.  The second half delves into more interesting lives, the intricacies of the curse (my favourite aspect of the book), and some different romances. The latter part I'd put around 4/5 so I guess taking the average of 3 works here. 

I'd actually be interested in reading the same story from Luke's perspective. I think that would have the potential to be quite a good novel.

This is a retelling of the 12 Dancing Princesses fairytale. I'm actually not familiar with that fairytale, but my suspicion is this novel is a lot more creepy than that tale. In fact the novel really excels in two area's. The horror elements are genuinely quite creepy. I'm not overly familiar with YA Fantasy Horrors, but I enjoyed those elements here a significant amount.

The second element which is really paired with the first is the atmosphere in general. The author is quite talented at painting the world. She does a great job making you feel like everyone is really on this rocky, cold, island that survives off the sea. The type of place where the smell and taste of salt permeates everything. 

The plot lands slightly below these two for me as I was quite enjoying the mystery build up, but it did start to become quite predictable. I'd still say it was enjoyable though just because of the horror type elements through out it. I didn't really care much for the romance plot lines though. Extremely cheesy stuff...

The real let down for me though is the characters. The sisters for the most part are just slight variations on the same person. They are vain and boy crazy. Those are for the most part, the two things that define them. The only two exceptions are the main character, who is defined by one extra trait, and the youngest who is far too young to be interested in boys or status. If you took the name's out of the book, I legitimately don't think I'd be able to say which one was speaking at any given moment. I wouldn't say I enjoyed any of the other characters either outside of perhaps Fischer.

I enjoyed the creepy story/atmosphere enough though that this still hit a 3/5 for me.

For a little context, I rated the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy very highly overall. I did this despite having complaints that I mentioned in the reviews about the characterization, the casual sexism, and the info dumps. But I still loved the series, because there are few Science Fiction authors better than Liu Cixin at taking a hypothetical or theoretical principal, inserting it into a fictional setting and building a world out of the things that aren't solvable today or that are dreamed up today.

In that trilogy the plot was so incredibly compelling and the atmosphere of fear and this heavy blanket of bleakness...I ate it up. So even though I have a lot of complaints, I gave the books a 3, 4, and 5 as I became more and more invested in this first contact story with it's incredibly interesting Scientific and imaginative idea's.

This review isn't about the trilogy, but it highlights how something very flawed can still be loved immensely. That is not the case for Ball Lightning. The same complaints exist for me (which given this was written before the trilogy isn't surprising), but the things I enjoyed in said trilogy are gone as well. There's a plot line, but not one that is very interesting,  get the same flat characters in both characterization and dialogue, even more info dumps (some points feel like a textbook), the great atmosphere from the trilogy is gone and hell there's not even an antagonist to root for or against. To me it is very much a book where the hard science fiction was given precedence over the story and the story suffers for it.

I don't like reviews to be all negative though. So what I will say is had never heard of the phenomenon Ball Lightning. So because of this book I had a fascinating time researching more about that. So I did at least get something from the novel.

This was my first Backman book and I've heard people say that his prose are something to behold. I would wholeheartedly agree that his writing style is beautiful. So credit for him and for the translator as well. 

When I started reading this book, I thought it was just going to be a book about hockey. But that's not quite right at all. Hockey is just the backdrop to a much larger story that asks questions about loyalty, tribalism, community, passion, morality, idolization and so on. It's a heart breaking tale in part because of how well written it is, but also because we've all heard this story in similar contexts in real life and I know it will be told countless times in my lifetime.

I can't do justice to the emotional roller coaster I felt during this novel. I was legitimately angry with characters and/or circumstances at points, incredibly frustrated to see how some things unfolded, disappointed in some of the action's characters took, saddened over what some have to overcome, heartbroken over what others have to carry, and laughed along with some jokers. 

I have always cherished books that illicit a strong emotional response from me and this novel is the epitome of that. That being said because it deals with rather serious topics, it can be uncomfortable to read at times, so it's hard to throw a blanket recommendation out there. Something each individual will have to investigate on their own.

The author lays out on the first page the themes of this book and what his intentions are. “I wanted to look more closely at how our sense of morality both mutates and crystallizes as we come of age. I wanted to explore how hatred can complicate love, how love can make us blind to the danger around us, and how racism and hate are at work even in the lives of those who don't think they've chosen a side”.

Well, if that's what the author wanted to show, then I think he did a very good job. Let's start with the prose though. This is going to be a matter of preference, but for me, I enjoy descriptive. Perhaps it's because my first love is Fantasy, but world building matters to me. I enjoy being able to paint an image based on the prose. Zentner has a very sparse prose though, that while I was able to get use to it, it is far from my favourite. It is however very simple and quick to read.

Small quibble aside there, this is a story about a kid who has to reconcile various facts and come to terms with what they might mean. In this particular case he has a step father who is patient, will study algebra so he can help the kids with their homework, believes in hard work, treats his mother well, doesn't drink, doesn't swear, believes in God and family. But he's also a racist. And that's one element of the book. Jessup trying to come to terms with where he stands in context to his family and battling with the fact he loves them.

Another element of the book is his step dad trying to reconcile with his beliefs on family and the fact that his bigotry may not be what's in said family's best interests. These themes are so frustrating, hard to read at times, saddening, and at times downright touching through out the story. Such a myriad of up and down emotions that was so compelling.

Then we have the plot. I don't want to spoil anything here, but suffice to say I was feeling it at first, but then it entered a territory that I thought was frankly a bit to far over the line of believability from a story standpoint and I felt that characters arguably develop to fast. A pet peeve of mine is characters that feel like they're doing a 180 rather than gradual changes. I wouldn't say it felt quite 180 here, but it's definitely not gradual either.

So what do I rate this? You know what it's got significant flaws, but as I sit here contemplating the rating, I realize, I don't care. It's not perfect, but the engrossing themes, the emotional rollercoaster, and depicting a very sensitive issue with humanity...it's a 5 in my book.

 I will preface this with I'm not a huge short stories guy. I find that it often doesn't allow the type of plot or character development unfold that I tend to enjoy. I also tend to like anthologies even less, but as Joe Abercrombie is one of my favourite character writer's in darker fantasy, I figured I'd give it a try.

Overall you get the same action, dialogue, and character writing that I've praised the series so heavily for. In particular Javre and Shev were a great addition to the cast of characters. They have some genuinely amusing moments between them and luckily enough they are the center of attention for a good amount of the short stories. Those stories tend to be the more interesting.

Then you have the stories featuring existing characters and/or characters that are telling an event from a different point of view. Some of these are good, but for the most part they range from the uninteresting to the tolerable. Some highs in there for sure, but not quite enough to overcome the lows this time. Short enough though that still worth a read if a fan of The First Law series. 

 It's an incredibly heartwarming, cozy and at times very amusing story. This is in large part due to the characters that just tug at your heart strings. Lucy in particular is my favourite for his flare for the dramatic and his dark sense of humour. But all the children have their quarks and endearing moments. It's also quite enjoyable to watch Linus develop as a character over the course of the story.

That's the strength of the novel. The weakness? In my opinion, everything else, because it's just to simple and shallow for an adult novel which is what this is marketed as. Even if viewed as for young adults though, I don't think there's enough depth or nuance in the plot or world building. You get a barebones ‘dystopian' world with some black and white overt morality, but little else.

So...the book isn't perfect shrugs...it's still a very enjoyable ride because it simply makes you feel good and at the end of the day that counts for quite a bit. 

This one's a difficult one to recommend to anyone. It's not focused on the thrill aspect of a crime, but rather on deducing who the criminal is. I typically like those much more than the thrillers so for the most part I did enjoy this. However, I couldn't recommend it to hardcore mystery reader's, because the novel does take quite a few leaps of faith with it's logic. I did deduce who the killer was, but there were a lot of things presented as ‘clues' that were definitely a reach. But not enough to completely ruin it for me, still enjoyable.

The novel is also basically just a bunch of interviews in terms of the ‘detective' work. I didn't mind this at all, but I know it won't be some people's cup of tea. Granted I do think the book could be significantly shorter as some of the side stories could be cut out with nothing at all lost. But hey I know a little something about being long winded too. ;)

Something that wasn't my cup of tea though, was the prose. I do think JK Rowling is a great author, but something I noticed in Harry Potter that continues here, is her use of formal language. For example, if I wanted to know what time it was and my character was wearing a watch I might write “he looked at his watch” or something to that effect. In this novel that line would be “he consulted his watch”. It's grammatically correct of course and it can certainly work in many types of novels. Here the issue for me is it stands in stark contrast at times to the dialogue writing which can be very off putting.

To end on a high note though...one of the main aspects of this novel that I really enjoyed is the dynamics between Robin and Strike. I will actually continue this series, entirely because I find those dynamics so interesting and want to see how they continue to develop and change over time. All in all was enjoyable enough that despite it's flaws it was a 3/5 for me.

Quite an enjoyable book although not always the easiest to read. It can be violent, bleak, and quite dark at times although not without purpose. I wanted to point out something I appreciated from the start though, so on a bit of a tangent!

I was hooked to this book almost immediately and the reason for this is how it displays mandatory training. It reminds me a lot of basic training. Exaggerated and embellished of course, but if someone had told me Hurley had been in the military I wouldn't have batted an eye. What do I mean? Small things, for example, the mantra's about killing they yell out during bayonet training are very similar to some of the same things you will say in boot camp. The Drill Sergeant will yell things like “What makes the grass grow green” the response of course “blood, blood, bright red blood”. “Who are we?” “The Quick.” “Who are they?” “The dead”. The dead being figurative here as this was actually before Iraq or Afghanistan, but I digress. 

She even writes about that burning desire to be praised and recognized by the very people yelling at you and making you do push up's. There's enough element of truth to what Dietz is saying and experiencing during said training, that I instantly understand and have an immediate connection with the character.

Moving on though, overall I quite enjoyed the journey. I like the theme's it brings up about war, power, governance, and the power of the people. None of this is new and you can find many stories like this out there, but not every book needs to re-invent the wheel. Sometimes it's enough to add something to existing theme's and execute on it well and that's what we have here.

My biggest complaints I suppose is outside Dietz I don't have any attachments to any characters. Some people die...it's war obviously...but I don't really feel much outside of how it effects Dietz, because I don't ever feel like they're really that important. The other complaint and the main one is that the ending is kind of...well for lack of the better word lame. I would certainly have liked something a bit different in that regard, but while cliche, sometimes it is true that it's the journey and not the destination. Last bit will be in a spoiler even though not integral to the story it's something I certainly missed.

When I was reading this book I thought Dietz was male. It's never stated that they were male, they have relationships with both sexes through the story, so it begs the question why I thought that. Could write a paper on that likely, but I appreciate that the book caused that kind of reflection without it feeling unnatural or shoehorned in.

It was a very quick read and it did have it's moments, but ultimately it failed to deliver. To start with I was having a hard time with this book because I just didn't the vast majority of the characters. They're all defined by one or more significant character flaws that makes empathizing with them somewhat difficult. If I don't like the characters in a book then the plot must be that much better for me to enjoy the book.

Unfortunately the plot here, while initially interesting (for a good 2/3rds of the book even), by the end felt very contrived. It was hard to suspend disbelief with how convenient all the relationships of both the killer and victim ended up being. It just felt incredibly forced. 

While I was able to read the previous 4 books fairly quickly I found myself struggling with this one. One of the main things I liked about this series was the arrogance that often presented itself in a rather amusing way with the character the series is named after. While the plot was often simple, I'd enjoy the banter between the trio as they got up to all kinds of mischief. 

In the latter book that started to take a backseat to a more serious storyline and in the last novel here that lightness is all but non-existent. That would be fine if the plot was strong enough to maintain my interest and it was for awhile, but there is one glaring plot hole that presents itself midway into the novel that stuck out like a sore thumb. It completely invalidates the motive for what's happening at that current time and as such the rest of the book itself since everything hinges on that plot line. It killed any motivation I had to continue, but continue I did.

And continued right on along with a character I absolutely hate in Miranda. I dislike characters whose morality is black and white. Who reek of self-righteousness and when met with anything that challenges their worldview they double down on it rather than question anything. This simplistic and troublesome moral outlook can be used for great character development, but here? There are no real consequences and the behavior is rewarded. While I find it infuriating it is admittedly a matter of taste, but these two factors combine did drop the book down from something I enjoyed to something that was ‘meh'. 

In the end it was a decent series with the last book being the weakest of the 5 imo.

My main complaint with the last book was that there was essentially no plot what so ever. In this book that's changed, however if I could sum it up in one word that word would be meandering. It's just incredibly slow moving and it feels like only a couple things of any real significance happen plot wise. Also there are what feel like weird time skips to me. The characters will be doing something at the end of the chapter and when it gets back to their POV whatever they had been doing is completed.

You expect this in epic journey's of course, because you don't want to read an inch by inch play by play. However, in this case sometimes it skips things that would seem to be things of great tension rather than mundane journeying. Just something I found off putting.

The small events that do occur though continue to drive the characters forward. Some of them get a good amount of development this go around, albeit some arguably too abruptly. Overall though the character writing is still magnificent, to the extent Glokta in particular, is currently one of my favourite characters in all of Grimdark Fantasy and high up there in Fantasy as a whole. That's not a slight on the rest of the characters though as the one's I love and hate (for all the right reasons) are numerous.

I found myself laughing when they're sarcastic or witty, scowling when they do something objectionable, smirking when one of them gets what I think they deserve and a wide variety of other emotions and reactions.  The last book was a 4.25 and while not perfect, I do think the improvements were enough to warrant a 5 here.

This is a grimdark novel so you get the things associated with that like violence and morally ambiguous characters. It's not overly dark though and part of this is because Abercrombie's writing style is layered with wit and sarcasm which adds an element of amusement that lightens things up.

As far as a story though there really isn't one...at all. The first novel is basically a 501 page introduction to the characters. You get their motivations, their personalities, and so on. Basically everything that makes them tick. This is obviously an intentional choice by the author and while I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with it, even as a person who enjoys character driven narratives, I still found myself wishing for a bit more story wise. Ultimately though that's going to come down to a matter of preference.

Going back to the characters, I would say this is the strength of the book. I mean it better be if you're using your entire book as a intro to the series. You have a good variety of characters and I enjoyed most of them. I'm a sucker for wit, sarcasm, and cynical characters and this book has those in spade. Sand Dan Glokta in particular with his sardonic attitude greatly amused me at times, while at others I found him absolutely repulsive.

It's a similar story with the other characters where at times their personality resonates with you, but at others you realize they're heavily flawed and a times to put it bluntly, assholes. The nuance there makes for very compelling character writing which was enough to immerse me in this book. So much so that even without a story I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

While this was a very fast read, I'd be hard pressed to recommend it to anyone. You have subplot after subplot that have nothing to do with the main plot. You'd think like most mysteries maybe they're there to misdirect, but you'd think wrong. 

The ending is completely shoehorned in and one of the most contrived I can recall in recent memory. The novel is essentially nothing more than the serial killer you didn't see coming and only leaves you asking ‘why' to so many things.

The characters also suffer from the same type of shoehorning. The main character is a group therapist, but yet there are no boundaries you'd associate with therapy or even interactions that would remind  you of therapy. Instead there is a massive amount of projection and inappropriate behavior from the main character that one would not expect from a professional. I understand an author is not necessarily an expert in the fields their characters are employed in, but there should be enough knowledge so the reader doesn't have to completely suspend disbelief. And given the huge role psychology plays in the book, you just expect something more then what felt like the depth of an intro to psychology clause. 

None of the other characters are much better mind you so suffice to say I found it disappointing on nearly every level.

I feel that this series has gotten better with each subsequent book culminating into an amazing finale. That being said Death's End was still a novel of two tales for me. On the one hand you have some of the most brilliant future science fiction out there. Idea's that absolutely capture the imagination and you see how humanity progresses and regresses over such a large time scale. It's incredibly enthralling.

Then on the other side, without going into spoilers, you have certain decisions that Cheng Xian is making through the novel, but some of them have extremely weak reasoning and are not very compelling. It gets to the point that it's actually bit frustrating.

So again I didn't like the character writing...is basically what that amounts to. Story of the three books there. Yet, I found the science fiction aspect so captivating and enjoyed the unfolding of this incredibly bleak story to such an extent that it not only warrants 5 stars despite any flaws it may have, but it will also hold a place on my favourites list moving forward. 

For book two in the series my criticisms of the previous book largely apply here as well but to a lesser degree. There are still info dumps, but they are less frequent and are not quite as long winded as in the previous book. The ending in particular in this go around is written in a much better and easier to understand way while still getting the pertinent information out.

The characters still are not the strong point of the novel, however several of them do feel a bit more fleshed out than previous iterations. Zhang Beihai and Dai Shi in particular being two I enjoyed. It's still very much a series of big ideas and little characters though. Common enough in hard sci-fi and while there's nothing inherently wrong with it, my preferences typically don't lean this way.

Not everything is improved though. Where the first novel did have significant female characters, this one really doesn't. Not only does it forgo the stronger female character but it takes two steps back in many ways for the females that do exist. Luo Ji's storyline in particular, just struck me as extremely odd. Keeping away from spoilers, I can only say that it's very creepy and there are some tropes present that I was uncomfortable with as they do dip into sexist territory imo. This can work if there's a compelling reason for it or if there's repercussions for characters attitudes, but neither are true in this case. It doesn't add anything to the novel and it's not important to the little characterization that does exist. So that was a bit off putting.

After slogging through the first 200 pages, the book really opens up. It deals with some of the same themes as the previous novel, minus religion, as the ETO is largely gone from the novel. Watching humans teeter between defeatism, escapism, and triumphalism was very compelling to read through out parts 2 and 3. It's often very bleak, but in a way that you could see playing out to some degree in real life. It's that balance that is just very intriguing to me and kept me glued from part 2 onwards. And the Dark Forest itself tied everything up beautifully and that theory just on it's own provides so much to think about. 

It's not without it's flaws, but if you can make it through the first 200 pages, it's definitely a hell of a ride.