Arnaud

Slow start, took a while for me to be interested in any of the threads but eventually got me VERY invested. Appreciate that the series is continually getting more focused on individual stories.

Probably my favourite of the series so far, really focused which I definitely prefer (and a style he seems to prioritise in his later fantasy series)

Fantastic usual from Adrian. Maybe a little overlong, but a fascinating philosophical look at AI and tech being extensions of our cultural morality - and what that might look like taken to the extreme.

Note: Listened to audiobook. My complaints could be a result of translation style or narrator style.

I have no idea how this book is so popular. If you're not into sci-fi and you get recommended this, please ignore and read Adrian Tchaikovsky or Ursula K. Le Guin instead.

The first few hours were vaguely interesting in terms of Chinese history, but I struggled to connect to any of the characters. It's far too long before anything interesting happens and the characters personalities are not enough to carry the story. When interesting stuff does start happening - great stuff. Interesting and funny while being a little mysterious - excellent!

Then the mystery doesn't get resolved, but a bunch of stuff you'd need knowledge of the mystery to understand happens which left me extremely confused. Maybe I'm stupid but I had no idea what was happening for about 3 hours in the middle.

The last 4 hours are genuinely brilliant - there's great hardcore sci-fi elements in a sort of epistolary framing, which I found super interesting.

YMMV, I won't be reading the sequels.

More of the same, great stuff. 

Great read, as I'm coming to expect from Adrian Tchaikovsky. He's taken some of the key aspects of cosmic horror and put it in a cool futuristic sci-fi setting. Really well developed characters, but I wanted to hear more about the worlds and societies featured. Excited for the next one! 

Give me vol. 5 please

Murakami really takes his time with character exploration and I love it. Reminded me a lot of self-actualisation in a counselling context. Great introspective read. 

Not for me. The setting and characters had so much room for interesting exploration, but the characters in this book don't change at all throughout the decades long story. 

Just incredible. I thought Artemis was a great book but Andy Weir takes it to another level with this one. Special shout out to the quality of the audiobook production, they did a fantastic job. 

I don't know much about transactional analysis, but there's definitely some interesting frameworks in here. Not a fan of the idea of the counsellor being a teacher to their client though, especially when the counsellor is like ‘let me tell you about acting like a child'
‘do you think I'm acting like a child?' 
‘what do you think?' 
‘I think I'm acting like a child' 
‘wow, you came up with that all by yourself, how clever!'