bloguldesefe

My God, the blabbering, the endless, superficial, self-precious blabbering!

Where military? :) - I expected military scifi, got just scifi (that also being quite an overstatement)

I loved the world(building) and the positive characters, but the antagonists are absent and not even one-dimensional, just pretexts. Also, the book is way too long. Loved the first 320 pgs, struggled and got very bored with the last third, when tension should have raised, but actually deflated.

One of the best books i've read in my life (out of thousands, a lot about Ussr).
First, Goltz seems to understand very well both the “Oriental” (Ottoman) and the (post)Soviet mind. Quite different universes, both rarely understood by Westerners (even famous ones like Galeotti).
Second, i loved his tongue-in-the-cheek sense of humor, present throughout the book (a book about dark times, not to forget).
Third, his journalist writing is excellent: to the point, yet highly descriptive in few words. Even so, there are scenes excellently writer-style written - memorable and often tear-provoking.
And fourth: it is very captivating - so captivating that I'm praising it, even though (always and forever) myself being a pro-Armenian (hint: the book is from the Azeri - enemy's - perspective).
Will look for his other war diaries (Georgia and Chechnia) immediatly!

Very detailed, but also amazingly boring. I've read many books written by ww2 German simple soldiers, NCOs and junior officers, and they all were way more interesting than this one written by a superior officer. Expect not a memoir, but a dry report.

Good selections and the author is talented in pointing out exactly and clearly the blunder, but the organization and structure of the book is a terrible mish-mash. So, just like many of his “characters”, Regan is a great Major but terrible General...

Good ideas but really bad (too old-school, pulp) writing. Before the 60s wave, scifi was cringy AF (except Asimov and Heinlein, not included here). Most of the stories here were also dragged down by terribly bad dialogues.

Somewhat funny nonsense, but mostly absurd nonsense. Virtually dialogue only.

Very good story with great surprising twists, unoriginal but well done background/secondary world; but i simply could not connect to the MC and coudn't care less about the characters, and the book kept fringing on (almost) boring me. Good overall, but i will not return for the rest of the series, or anything else from this author.

Good art, lame and confusing story.

Crawlingly, annoyingly slow and too wordy

Good ideas, but boring AF

Well written, but 100% unoriginal. I kept asking myself “haven't i already read this?” and in a way i actually have. Mostly as WoT, and lately as Malice.

Well written, but doesnt really work as a standalone. A lot of questions arise: why is there an army following a former prostitute? How does she pay for that army? Why is everybody afraid of her? What the hell do they eat in a barren land and what supports them economically? Who are the blooded? And so on. A lot of things dont add up. Also, zombies? Again? Isnt the scifi already choke full of them, do we really need them in fantasy, too?

Excellent art, but the story is disjointed, incoherent and very hard to follow. 5/5 the art, 0/5 the plot.

Boring. Did not like the writing style.

Good art, but virtually no story (for 5 issues!) and most of the time i couldn't understand what the hell was going on. Still have no idea what i've read...

Very old school, 50s style. For me, boring AF...

Very good, plenty of action book, much better than Best Served Cold and about as good as Heroes.
It would have been a full 5 for me unless it were so overwrought with plenty of needless digressions and useless fillers, plus at least 2 ridiculous Hollywood style bullshit deus ex machina just to save the day.
There's a great Logen novel hidden in here and I absolutely loved it, but it amounts to (probably) only half the book.

The best fleshed-out and real-feeling characters (as persons) i've read in decades; good (ok) writing; but unoriginal plot and characters (as types) and situations and interactions, all already read many times before (mainly in WoT and ASOIAF.)
One of the POVs (the princesses sisters) also bored me immensely, but this is subjective, just me being a male and in my 40s (so i couldn't empathise neither by gender nor by age).

Too YA for me. Not nearly as well written as Xenogenesis.

DNF this:(
Of the first 8, I enjoyed NO story. Yeah, the art of wordcraft is amazing, but beneath the nice shiny shell lie weak, lame engines. The storylines feel naive, simplistic, old school (and simply old/not aged well) and really lack “a punch”.
Nowhere near the quality of the novels, which I still consider 5/5s.
I also expected SF and mostly received fantasy. Old-school fantasy...

Started great (i loved the pig-dogs) but eventually devolved into sheer absurdist nonsense.

The art is mediocre (original but ugly; don't judge by the nice covers, the inside is not nearly as good). 3/5

The background i really liked (medieval-like amerindians, Inca-like) 4/5.

The story is hard to follow, very unoriginal and, honestly, not good or captivating. It also feels more like a first chapter of at least 4 (just a prelude of a story, it lacks a middle and an ending) but the rest never came (I can see why, it was probably not a succes and discontinued). 2/5

A good showcase to see which classic fantasy authors one likes and which not.

Imho, the only ones here still retaining full literary value and impact for the modern reader are Lovecraft, Merrit and Howard, of which before I only knew Lovecraft.

Macdonald still holds some value, but not impact, and the rest neither, being too slow and convoluted (almost all), too vague (Machen), too archaic (Morris), too deep in humor that does not amuse us anymore (Bramah) or frights and wonders too lame for nowadays people (Chambers, Pendraves, Hearn).
A notable (negative) exception is HG Wells, whose fantasy stories (unlike his SF) I think never held none (value or impact, even for the readers of his time) and are righfully completely forgotten.

Worth reading, in enjoying its content? Mostly no.
Worth buying? Definitely yes, as a showcase to choose further readings (and avoidings).