Ben
I hate to say it but I think Darrow is just a bad character. He's so utterly convinced that his actions and just and correct in every scenario, and yet so upset and brooding about everything he does. It comes across arrogant and self-centred, and I don't think he really experienced a shred of character development in this book.
I also thought the ending was extremely rushed! It seems to me that Pierce Brown found himself in a situation where there were still three main antagonists to wrap up and his best solution was, “I know, I'll lock them all up in a tiny room together and have Darrow do his thing and obviously come out on top.”
The middle dragged for way too long as well, and I found myself losing interest as the journey went on and on, with trial after tribulation after trial.
Sorry Pierce, I think I'm done reading your work for a long while, my goodman.
Not particularly fond of this one.
To get the most out of this book, and to not have it be riddled with numerous, unfamiliar references to other magic systems and planets and peoples, you basically need to have read every single Mistborn book, every Stormlight Archive novel, Warbreaker, Elantris, and probably half of the Arcanum unbounded for good measure too. All of that pre-reading for a story which, honestly, I just didn't think was very fun to read.
Despite Hoid technically narrating this book—another person/reference that will add absolutely nothing unless you've read other Cosmere novels beforehand—the tone of voice was completely off for me, and really just seemed like Sanderson himself wanting an excuse to try out a sillier, more self-aware approach to his Cosmere series; a gamble which didn't pay off.
I'm convinced this book was solely written as a vehicle for introducing yet another magic system to the Cosmere. Sanderson is evidently very proud of this spore-based system he's devised; he takes great care to write about every single interaction in excruciating detail at every single point throughout the book. I don't think this wholly bad bad, to be fair—Brandon Sanderson has always made a point of writing magic which is explainable and correct within his universe—but in this instance the rest of the writing really suffered for it. The plot and character motivations are nothing to write home about, with the same “unassuming young girl discovers what's she's truly capable when the person she loves is mysteriously kidnapped by an evil sorceress” trope being used as in probably hundreds of other Young Adult books. Sanderson already used this outline for Mistborn, too, with much greater success. Go and read that instead!!!
Definitely a testament to the book that I couldn't really put it down and read it a lot quicker than my other recent books. The only thing holding it back from five stars, for me, is the relatively simple language used.
And Pierce Brown's insistence on writing “do not” instead of “don't” absolutely everywhere in the book was mildly irritating too
Sort of disappointed with how juvenile the writing in this book felt. None of the characters were particularly well fleshed-out, which meant I really struggled to sympathise with anything that happened to them, and their interactions with other people in the “chads and nerds” social hierarchy felt low-effort and pretty crass for the most part.
The concept was interesting, at least, although I probably would've preferred something slightly more detailed and intricate over the more surface-level, cheesy approach taken here.
8/10
I enjoyed this! It was wonderfully long and beautifully detailed, with a strong story leading the book forward - I've come to appreciate this as a lot because my experience with some Culture novels has been a lot more “wandering”. I loved the juxtaposition of the two main characters in both their worlds: one, a super advanced Culture citizen with the best of technology at her disposal, and the other, living in an almost medieval setting fighting against a conspiracy so relatively tiny it wouldn't even register as a blip of interest on any of the higher-level civilisations in the universe.
I loved the dive into more lore, too. There was discussion and interaction with other Culture-sized civilisations, an expansion into the history of “The Involveds” and the species that came before it, the introduction of the Shellworlds - massive, multi-layer planets constructed by an ancient civilisation to house and nuture other fledging civilisations - and so much more.
Matter is definitely a worthwhile read and a great addition to the Culture anthology.
7/10
A nice little expository piece of fiction, detailing some of Kelsier's backstory. It's been a while since I read the Final Empire Trilogy, so I can't actually remember what the Eleventh Metal is supposed to be, but I love the idea of Noblemen performing scientific research to discover it (although saving the Skaa is undoubtedly better).
5/10
I don't really agree with McCulloch's stance that “all changes and evolution to language are a good thing”, and I think that affected my enjoyment of this book a large amount.
The exploration of different generations of “Internet People” was really interesting, and I do think it's fascinating how different age groups accessed and came to use the Internet when it began reaching the mainstream.
It's very conflicting for me because, as a principle, I entirely agree that language is defined by the people that use it. However, I don't think this goes hand-in-hand with the claim that the way language is changing thanks to the Internet is a good thing, which is what McCulloch's opinion on it seems to be. I'm very much pro-“using punctuation and grammar to create tone and pacing in a body of prose” and it feels like argument is being made that since the rules of grammar were just made up by a bunch of people that they have no real weight behind them and should be disregarded as our language evolves, which I dislike.
I'm sounding far older and boomer-y than I want to by writing this but I massively prefer reading something written with “correct” punctuation and grammar compared to the same text using some of today's emerging techniques (e.g. use of comma ellipses like “hey,,,”, intentional misspellings of words etc.).
Even as I write this, though, my viewpoint's shifting all over the place. Honestly, I think as long internet speak stays on the internet and doesn't say, start appearing in academic papers or more formal texts then that's probably fine. It's definitely harder to use lots of punctuation on a phone - which is probably where most of this kind of communication takes place - than typing the same letter a few more times to indicate intensity, so I can see why people would naturally gravitate towards that kind of language when speaking online. But...it would be nice to feel like these same people know when and how to use the more traditional style too.
