Ben Saufley
The synopsis had me really interested but I think this book has maybe made me realize I'm not as big on the "space opera" subgenre as I thought I was. The book has some of the trappings of "hard" sci-fi, but is really just a fantasy book with a coat of sci-fi paint. The technology is magic; the near-lightspeed travel – although I'm sure the author had it all worked out – definitely _felt_ squishy as far as what it meant for who was where, when. My order of interest went 1. Terrence, 2. Finn, ....10. whoever was in the palace intrigue subplot.
If I'm going to be reading a book like this, I want to care more about the individuals and I'm less excited by "fate of the universe" stuff. When the stakes get too high and the settings, tools, weapons all become too distant from the "real" world, I zone out. I can't get invested. Maybe paradoxically, this book felt to me at times too distant from anything I could relate to, and also too close to present-day humankind to be believable as 30,000 years in the future.
I didn't hate it. I liked some of the concepts that were toyed with, and at times I found myself rooting for characters. But I mostly found myself counting down until I could put it down and pick up something else.
Eh. It was fine. An attempt to examine prejudice without the baggage of existing prejudices; didn't really live up to that though. Just a kind of simple “ensemble cast”-style story of characters in this new world, none of whom particularly grabbed me. Didn't really lead up to much or have a noticeable climax. Just kind of happened. Writing style unremarkable, so it's not one of those literary “nothing happens but it happens beautifully” kind of books.
I didn't hate this. I really loved the way Collins ended the trilogy; it was so interesting and real, in a universe that wasn't very. So I was curious to see how she'd do Snow. I think the biggest issue I have is the pacing. The heel turn feels sudden and late, even if there are some smart breadcrumbs left along the whole journey. I also expected the heel turn to be in response to something but I think it was sly that it was basically always in him. He was never going to be anything else because of his basic flawed belief system. A lot of “banality of evil” stuff here. So I liked it overall but yeah I think it could've been better paced and while I thing Collin's is smarter than some of her “dystopian YA” peers about the things she writes about, I don't know that this one will stick with me too long, like the epilogue of the trilogy did.
I liked it but I'm not sure I liked it enough to read a second (or third). I think maybe just the whatever it is, Victorian? setting doesn't grab me. The magic hovered between system-based or even scientific, and mystical, and I kind of wish it would just pick a lane. And Marbur and Marlowe are so easy for my head to mix up, and then you add in that Jacob Marbur is nearly the classic Dickens name Jacob Marley...
Yeah. I liked it but didn't love it. Maybe I'll come back to the series in a while when this book has settled into my brain a bit.
I really enjoyed a lot of this book. The style is fun and smart; the way it kind of meandered into the main plot was interesting rather than insufferable, and somehow the very unavoidable presence of the author's voice (which often takes me out of a book) engaged me and kept me reading. But the actual plot of the book was actually kind of weak/straightforward and strangely concluded (what even was the “sleeper cell” the book is so bluntly named after?). Interesting and enjoyable read that was ... I don't know, a little bit of a mess in the end.
There was a lot I really liked about this book but much more than any other Weeks book I've read, it spent way, way too much of its time musing on the breasts and bodies of its female characters. Weeks has definitely done some of this in other books and there's some level to which you can write this off as “we're seeing the world through the eyes of a young male character” or whatever, but it was just too much in this book. It dragged the book down a lot, to an extent that I almost DNF'ed.
Honestly the mystery wrapped up really nicely with nothing coming out of thin air and yet I didn't figure basically any of it out. A very satisfying mystery with what I think is a well-handled “trans!” twist that doesn't belittle the character, reduce her to the twist, or treat her as abnormal. But I'm an outsider there as a cis dude so maybe I'm off base.
Picked up this book at a friend's recommendation years ago but put it down because it seemed grimdark. It isn't! It's not always totally light but it's a lot more intrigue and adventure and heist kind of stuff once you get past the intro. Great fun overall. Did not know where the book was taking me until it was over, but in this case that wasn't a bad thing. It wrapped up (mostly) well.
I really enjoyed this book and then it ... ended before it was over. I know there are sequels but it felt like all the POV stories that were told, each of which I really enjoyed and I loved how they were told so differently, were leading to something at the end that the book just doesn't provide. That's disappointing. I'll probably read at least one of the sequels in a while, but like ... it seems like at least the first sequel would just have to be a part of this book.
Someone would argue, and I'd agree, that this book isn't “for” me, so whether or not I appreciate it is irrelevant. But I kind of wonder who it is for. For 70% of the book it's a solidly formulaic YA novel and... then there's explicit sex. And I don't mean like, the characters have sex I mean it becomes an erotica novel, somewhat out of nowhere. Literary porn, although “literary” might give the wrong idea. It's not written poorly but it's also not written very well. Beyond the themes, the writing level of the whole novel feels very YA and the sex feels, to me, unnecessary, somewhat unexpected, and of an equal reading level except with more, you know, obscenity?
I definitely feel like I'm coming off a prude here and I don't feel like I am one, but the sex scenes feel written simply but with adults in mind and I guess that clashed, for me, with the tone and level of the rest of the book.
The main plot is formulaic but interesting enough, but there's not a lot else going on, and the weird horny stuff felt out of place and wasn't for me and I've said that about plenty of books written by men (looking at you Terry Goodkind) so I'm gonna skip the rest of this series.
Oster's stance on COVID matters has been disappointing to uncover after making it most of the way through this book; but the book in general is a pretty level-headed and un-opinionated overview of data that I found helpful. I'm not taking anything in it as gospel, but it was at least a good high-level overview of a lot of topics, including some I didn't know I needed to know about.
Really enjoyed this. Resolved the series well. Found that I had grown really attached to the characters by the end.
two spoiler things:First, dunno if it was this book or the last, but I wasn't up for the redemption of Tactus the rapist. I did not feel sad when he got his comeuppance.And second, I feel like the twist near the end here could easily have come off as Deus Ex Machina but I believe it was pretty well-executed. My only gripe is that at no point in the trilogy before that point had we seen such an unreliable narrator. Yes, Sevrus had swooped in a few times without warning, but it seemed like we saw real emotion from the protagonist when he “died,” which is more than withholding information. But still, even with that, I liked it. It was set up well and was a big moment of joy when it was revealed.
Honestly I'd rate this book higher if it weren't for the weird side plot with the junior detective. She seems to be on the spectrum, but she's played as this weird, angry “kids these days only care about themselves” character that seems to have no purpose and amounts to nothing other than weird, hateful scorn. I'm probably missing some subtext but it felt very out of place.
Some really interesting stuff that, over and over, descends into silliness that is not just goofy in how it relates sci fi to real world tech, but extremely credulous or over-ambitious and not at all wary of the dangers of the things it's proposing. The actual, scientific, brain stuff is interesting. The “maybe we could recreate The Force from Star Wars” stuff feels amateurish and goofy.
