bloguldesefe

Excellent noir whodunit policier, with very good slow burning (&cyberpunk feeling) personal drama on the background of an unoriginal space opera pretext.

This collection holds 12 of PKD's 121 short stories.
To be honest, these are mostly in the “just OK” and “hadn't aged that well” area, and far from his best.
Or his second best.
Or even his third best...

Very good: barretta, orsi, nagata, dyer.
Good: Haldeman.
Ok: larson, yoon.
Not that great, bad and very bad: the rest.
So, about half are actually worth reading, which is pretty good for a milscifi anthology, to be honest.

What is this, YA steampunk fantasy? I hate YA and I hate steampunk, so definitely a mistaken choice for me.

By the blurb, I expected to love this, but it just failed to grab me. Honestly, it feels like written by a teenager. Also, it's a debut and it shows.

Cartea pare compusă din 3 bucăți scrise foarte diferit: mijlocul, cam jumătate de carte, despre perioada când era în CC dar nu încă prim-secretar, este o fascinantă și captivantă mostră de kremlinologie și pare scris cel mai sincer. 5/5.
Finalul, cam un sfert, despre prezent (anii 2000), e mai mult o polemică împotriva a diverși cu care avea el meciuri atunci, dar nouă nu ne spun nimic. 1/5.
Începutul, despre copilărie și studenție, o fereastră interesantă în anii 40-50 din Urss, dar fragmentată, dulcegarită și pe alocuri rașistă (rușii minunați, se rugau popoarele din jur de ei să-i apere și civilizeze, noroc că erau ei mărinimoși). 3/5
Spre uimirea și dezgustul meu, traducătoarea română e mai filo-rusă și sovietic-apologistă decât președintele Urss... (de ex. el vorbește clar de Holodomor și chiar folosește cuvântul, cu toată greaua sa încărcătură, dar ea traduce cu “foamete” cu literă mică).
Per total, merită citită pentru partea de mijloc.

Mediocre art, mediocre script. The written short story is much better.

Huuuuuuge disappointment. The first book was absolutely great, 5/5, but this is just a slug. I gave up at 50%, bored and annoyed since absolutely nothing happens. Nothing! No action, no character development, no worldbuilding... just useless, endless talk.

Mediocre art, terrible script.
The Herbert Anderson couple, always bad at writing, had outdone themselves here in lack of imagination...

Loved the art, very expressive and original. The story, though, is unimpressive and quite ordinary.

Amazing art, mediocre but quite captivating story, but too sadistic and way too info-dumpy.

Good art, mediocre story (but not info-dumpy).
Too wordy, not cinetic enough.

Perfect for RR Martin's (or Gwynne's) fans, with excellent political fuckery and civil war (Princess Miko POV), very good coming of age epic/military adventures (Captain Rah POV) and, unfortunately, also pretty bad assasin-thief crap (Cassandra the posessed prostitute POV).
The sum is very captivating, still, and even though the author can't really write battles, she is amazing at character development (again, not you, Cassandra, but yes, Miko and Rah).
I am diving straight into book 2 and found myself a new must follow author!

Volum mare de informație (tratează vreo 2 secole și cred că minim 100 de “bandiți”), dar nestructurată, superficială și pe repede înainte.
Multe “anecdote” și personaje “picante”, însă tratate tabloid, gen presă lejeră, fără a rezulta vreo imagine de ansamblu.
Pe mine sincer m-a plictisit și nu am rămas cu nimic din ea.

Good writing style (loved how the author approached worldbuilding and character history with 100% "show don't tell"), but the MC is too YA (and emo) for me, so I couldn't empathise and got bored.

Mrs. Tinsley is an excellent writer: the wordbuilding, the atmosphere and the background are all amazingly well built; and the characters are all well-done and feel alive.
On the other hand, she is a mediocre storyteller at best: this is a book without an arch-plot, or otherwise said a book of many side-quests, but lacking a proper main-quest.
Therefore a fascinating read, but never a captivating one: there is no good story to fill that great world and move those good characters towards something epic or at least very significant.
I also was very, very annoyed by the choice regarding the main antagonist (and his unjustified, heavy-handedly done and sudden turn-about at the middle of the story), but that might be a matter of taste - some reviewers liked it, some, like me, loathed it.
Still, I will read the next book in the series when I get it.

There's definitely smth potential here, always verging on PKD, but too disjointed and flashy for me.

No, no, no. This is waaay too wordy for me, just an endless flood of words.
I love epic stories but I love a lot of story (of facts) not of words and I never enjoyed this kind of “wide writing” so frequent in old-school fantasy.
Judging by the blurb I expected to read Neuromancer and got Shannara instead...

Once again, I try KJ Parker. Once again, I find his writing lacking heart and soul, not a story, but more of a summary retelling of a story by a second hand reader. This time the rythm was not too slow, but still weird and grating. Will not try this author again.

I love science fantasy, but this is actually old school (just) fantasy in disguise.
Too many and too extensive descriptions for my taste.
Not great, not terrible, but quite dated.

Feels like American Gods written by Stephen King on a sadistic streak. Really enjoyed the first 75% (the rest feels like an unnecessary epilogue).

Very good writing and style, but also very lame story (the space devoted to a certain sea crit broke the book for me, and i really did not expect, or want, sea adventures)

” Fanii romanului Circe de Madeline Miller vor savura această” bla bla, zice coperta 4. Nici vorbă. Circe e de 5 catralioane de ori mai bine scrisă și (probabil) Miller de tot atâtea ori mai inteligentă.
Acest roman e bazat doar pe shock value, produs prin cele mai rudimentare metode auctoriale (scârbă, dezgust, viol, violență), nicidecum prin instrumente psihologice ca la Miller.
Bizar e că Ariadna e la nivel literar și intelectual pentru cititori cel mult de școală generală - doamna fiind de altfel profesoară de generală, dar alege doar cele mai întunecate și dure mituri grecești antice și le rescrie aproape scabros. Atunci care o fi publicul țintă?

Meh.

Very bland ordinary writing, bland ordinary characters, bland world, plus unnecessary vampires - a ridiculous fad I really dislike (even more than the zombies one).

What this book more than provides in width (at over 700 pages) it lacks in depth. It tells too much of the surface waves (his story) while failing to properly underline the true undercurrents. It concentrates disproportionately on Putin's silovik side, but not enough on his vor (murderer-mobster) one - therefore resulting in too positive an image, too close to his own propaganda. If Putin read this book, he would approve most of it, starting with the title...