Trey
Much more straight-forward than the first book, but still full of thrills and excitement. I love the constant pace of discovery around the magic system and world-building.
Some of the emotional points are feeling worn, though. I'm eager to read the third and final book, but I hope the characters' emotional range expands a bit.
I really like the magic system and world building here.
The switches between third and second person was, at first, jarring. And then I thought it was gimmicky. And then it grew on me.
The overwhelming presence of female, gay, and trans characters over straight male characters is only obvious if you think about it much at all. I wish LeGuin in The Left Hand of Darkness had used female pronouns throughout for the same reasons that I think Jemisin made so many of her characters female. But it's mostly novelty in this book because the characters are pretty universally relatable.
Overall, I enjoyed this quite a bit and immediately started the second book in the trilogy.
UGH. I did not enjoy this book very much at all.
It's one of those sprawling epics that traces the development of civilization from basic hunter-gatherer tribes up to rudimentary trader society. It's very boring.
My original complaint was that the author doesn't describe anything, but that's not true. He does describe a lot of things, but not many things that I am interested in or care about. So, it reads as very flat and dull. The characters are interesting, but the dialogue is stilted and lame. Their inner lives are rather simplistic.
It's clearly setting up for some bigger, galaxy-spanning story, but because this book was so boring, I am not interested in finding out what happens in the next two books.
Really fascinating story of Emily Post's life. Interestingly, the thing Mrs. Post is most known for – her work on etiquette – came late in her life, but she was rather well-accomplished for a woman of her time before that. She also did some minor work in design and architecture as well as fiction writing.
While Post seems like she was a pleasant woman, she also seems really vapid and silly at points in her life. Her political views were very under-developed and I don't think she spent much time really thinking through deeper philosophical ideas that informed some of her work. But she was really a product of her age.
One notable thing from the book: I really like her approach to etiquette and manners, which was not rigid at all, but flexible and evolved with the changing mores of society. Contrary to popular notions of manners and etiquette, she emphasized making social interactions smooth and comfortable over rules and formality.
Very fun read. The perspective and voice changes took me a minute to get used to. But I love the premise and the resolution. If you're not very close to tech and Silicon Valley culture, then you may not pick up on some of the more subtle references... or even the more obvious ones (Justine Sacco, Kurzweil, etc.) but I don't think the story would be at all diminished by that.
Anyway, very fun.
Meh.
I have many thoughts about this book. There are a lot of things that I really love about it. So many of the characters are really brilliant. And it's very well plotted, I think.
But it's so long. So. Very. Long.
And it ends without a real resolution. So, I guess to get the ending, I will have to keep reading the series. I doubt I will do that any time soon.
Very interesting if gruesome at points.
Lesson: don't talk to bats or crazy dogs.
Speaking of dogs, I think the author is a cat person, but that won't stop me from saying the book is really fascinating. The literary analysis at the beginning is a bit of a stretch and a little long IMHO even if I did enjoy that part quite a lot.
I very much enjoyed the fact that the book does contain a lot of science and that literary bit as well.
Really tense and exciting mystery/thriller. Not what I'm used to seeing from Stephen King. No magic or aliens or other crazy horror things. This is just a good, old-fashioned detective v killer story. The characters are rich and still likable. The pacing is cinematic without coming off as cliched. I enjoyed this far, FAR more than I expected.
Very much NOT a Neal Stephenson book.
Some of the hard science parts seem to have his fingerprints on them and the cliff-hanger sort of ending (along with the clever planting of parallel universe clues) are also strong hallmarks. One does have to wonder if there's going to be a sequel in order to tie up loose ends.
But it's clear to me that the characterization and the majority of the writing went to Nicole Galland... and to good effect. The women are much more normal. The romance is more sensible.
And generally it's a reasonably good read.
My biggest complaints are around the “found document” format and the generally predictable plot.
I didn't realize this was a book about giant robots. It's a book about giant robots, though. So, right up front, I should tell you: I'm not a fan of giant robots.
Why do people make giant robots in the shape of any organism when the engineering effort behind a giant robot could produce a robot of any shape at all? Why should a giant robot be piloted by a single (or pair) of individuals who might be incapacitated in battle by some chance accident? It seems like a whole crew would make sense.
You know what makes more sense than a giant robot? A regular ol' spaceship. Star Trek style. I'm not even a big fan of anime that runs on giant robots. Pacific Rim? Meh.
So, yeah. The whole premise of a giant robot puts me right off.
Giant robots aside, the storytelling technique is interesting even if inconsistent. It's told in a series of reports and recordings. But it's not always clear who is making the report or recording nor why they would record some of the things that have been recorded. But, if you can get past nit-picks like that, it's an interesting approach even though it all but completely lacks descriptive prose. I missed some of those sensory markers.
Some of the characters are sort of interesting. The audiobook performance is really good. But the story is pretty flat.
And there is a giant robot.
A fascinating bit of history, but less engaging that some of his other books. I think the reason it's less engaging is because it lacks a single, central figure who drove the entire project. Sure, there are a handful of notables and each are interesting and exciting in their own ways, but they aren't a team and they don't span the entire story.
EVEN STILL, McCullough delivers again. Well-composed. Interesting. Astonishing. Very worth reading.
I really like the concept of this book, but not so much the execution.
The characters are pretty bland and flat to me. Part of that could be the arc of the story, which is in itself pretty flat except at the beginning and the end.
I doubt I will pick up any of the other books in this series very soon.
Lots of REALLY provocative information here and presented in a thought-provoking way.
But it also contains a fair amount of question-begging and presumptions of fact. That's understandable, I suppose, since outlining an entire treatise on the ethical perspective, research background, and culture from which the author is speaking is usually FAR afield of any text.
I'm not sure if this is a quick read or not. I spent most of my day in airports and so I was able to finish the whole audiobook in a single day of pretty dedicated reading. Nevertheless, I think there's a lot of meat in this book.
The only thing I would say is that you should follow the author's advice and question everything... even the claims she makes both directly and indirectly.
I don't remember the last time I was so deeply moved by a book. Maybe it's because I have and love dogs. I finished the book on the train and had to hide the tears streaming down my face. It's poignant. Tragic. Joyous. Profound.
Bonus:listen to the audiobook. There's a moment at the end where the reader chokes up and apologizes. I'm not sure why the engineer didn't edit that out, but I loved it.
I love this series. It's not very heavy. The magic system is clever and interesting. The world-building is intriguing without being completely mystifying. The characters have serious conflicts but aren't dour and (too) self-absorbed; they remain fun and likable. Sure, I'd probably call it a “beach reach,” but I really like beach reads. So, there you go.