Jernej Virag
Honestly... this read like a cheap fanfiction more than anything else. The main character (total geek, can't get a girlfriend, etc. you know the drill) meets a pretty smart princess (yeah, really - her characterization is also about as thick as a sheet of paper) and she immediately falls for him.
Even ignoring this horrible “romance” story, the rest of the book is pretty much devoid of everything that made the beginning of this series great: the acid commentary on state of Britich beaurocracy, elements of cosmic horror (the villains in this book are kinda “meh”) and even the climax at the end somehow fails to be gripping.
All in all it feels like one of those filler episodes in tv show which was made just to hit the episode count, has nothing to do with main characters of the story arc and doesn't move anything anywhere. Somehow this managed to be about as disappointing than Annihilation Score. Well at least superhero crap wasn't around this time.
I... have no idea what to think of this book and if it brought anything of value. The extreme nihilisim built on top of an interesting world is a great intro but starts grating towards the end. The book gives you the feeling of being trapped in an insane asylum where everyone is crazy and none of the characters actions make sense. I guess it's just me, but the ending did not really pull enough strings together to be satisfying or to leave a good impression.
I love this series, but this book was just about the worst book I've read this year. The interesting combination of Cthulhu monsters and campy humor is replaced by a low-quality superhero fanfic coupled with an unlikeable main character (even though I was looking forward to a book concentrating on Mo, she turned out to be a very boring character to read about). The idea of CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN resulting in a superhero symptoms just did not make sense to me (and I understand how strange that sounds when talking about these series :) ) and felt too much like Stross trying to jump unto now really tired Marvel/DC superhero bandwagon.
Reading about nightmare bureaucracy was entertaining as ever and learning more about Mo's relationship with her violin was done really well. Unfortunately Mo isn't an interesting character and constant appearance of people in tights continuously broke my interest in the story. Laundry Files was at it's best when it was dealing with eldritch horrors of bureaucracy and elder gods - not when moping around while dealing with chewed out cliches.
This looked (and read) like a book I SHOULD like. However somewhere around the half of the book the action stopped and everything got so long-winded I just couldn't finish it. Maybe next time.
Sadly, the fact that the main character is an insufferable asshat (which noone notices and, of course, he's a natural leader liked by everyone!) and the disturbing amount of gun porn made this unreadable for me. Couldn't finish.
One of the most readable and fun Sci-Fis I've read. Rather small scope and near-future setting keeps ideas firmly entrenched in reality and thus leaving alot of space for characters and mystery of the story instead of endless deus ex machinas of almost magic proportions.
Some characters could be written better, the story could be more gritty but it's still a very readable piece of space opera.
While very interesting in terms of history and story, the annoying tendency of author to praise the “Hacker Ethic” and behaviour over all bounds really gets irritating - especially at the points where he dismisses important work of other academic and science groups, not to mention his casual dismissal (or as I understood it - almost praise) of break-ins and other criminal activity. That greatly diminishes the book in my opinion - while I'm very interested in the story the book is trying to convey, the beyond-all-bounds praise of hackers breaks the flow for me enough to give it only 3/5.
Interesting main plot and great world building is seriously dragged down by character writing and “romance” which makes 50 shades of grey look good. It's a true pity, since there is a lot to like in the book.
I wish I wouldn't have to slog through a volume of boring pointless chapters to get to actuall story progression at the end :(
I think I gave this a fair chance but I just can't get past the hugely unlikeable main character and their wish to grind the axe with the whole world.
This is a very introspective book with a lot of brooding, flashbacks and miserable regret. The characters are all horribly unlikeable and unrelatable which is a death sentence for a book that spends so much time in their heads - to read it you need to have interest and at least some sympathy for the struggles they face. Here I just hoped that they drive off the road into a pole.
The book seems like something from a USA 2020 zeitgeist I can't understand or identify with - I understand why Max may had to write this based on what was going on the news but it doesn't make it any more readable.
I had to stop about 1/3 of a way in and it was easily the most terrible thing I've attempted to read in years.
It's s very stereotypical “awesome leader comes and makes his crew the best ever and everyone is awesome and wins every time” type story. It would be just “meh” if not for a very creepy way the author keeps describing most of the women. They're obviously all hot, “dusky” (sic) and have way too many curves described way too many times.
This book has a typical shortcoming of all too many SciFi novels: great ideas, good world... and boring as hell prose, slow pace, boring characters and boring prose. I really tried to get into the world, but the lack of any motivation to follow the glacial unraveling of the story made me quit about halfway through.
While the universe and worldbuilding is very good, the book is way too long, dragged out with inconsequential events and bad writing.
Good for an easy read, but there are better pieces of Sci-Fi out there.