Juan York

Debated giving this five stars, honestly I'm on the fence :). Wasn't entirely sure what to expect of this book given the subject matter, but it was an interesting take. Similar to Babel, academia and philosophy run throughout the book in a comfortable manner, given the recommended reading for this book I was expecting something more dense but it was much more accessible than I was expecting. Nice mix of characterization, plot and a neat magic system. Ending was a bit predictable, but was still really satisfying and was a nice departure from previous books (which were more in the vain of great tragedies). If this is on your want to read, pick it up, totally worth it!

Good not great. This was probably the weakest of the Sanderson Novella's that I've read so far, that being said it's still pretty good. There's a lot of information/world-building packed into a small number of pages, which is pretty impressive and probably the strongest part of the book. I think as an introduction to the other cytoverse books it's pretty good, but as far as a stand-alone without the rest of the books I kind of found it lacking. But if you're looking to kill an hour or two, totally worth it :)

A personal exploration through time, of the songs, acts, defining moments and the evolution lyrical/production stylings of hip-hop. Each chapter roughly equates to a 5 year period, where Quest lays out his take on the pivotal songs, artists and production of the period filled with interesting facts, social commentary and biographical stories . There are some great through-lines where he discusses the effects of tribalism in hip-hop, society's influence of hip-hop and vice versa and a very personal inspection of the struggle with personal biases as it pertains to art and it's constant evolution. Cool concept, well executed. One of the better books I've read this year.

Overall I did enjoy this book, this is my second read through of the series, honestly I remembered enjoying the series much more the first time around. I think this is due to how I was reading the books, i.e. waiting 2-3 years between releases. There is a lot of regurgitation of previous books, I think this was probably to try and ensure the books could stand-alone, however it's quite a lot of redundant information when reading the books back-to-back.

Dies the fire, the first series in the book is one of my favorite post-apocalyptic reads, and the change over time of the world from technical/agnostic towards religion/magic being real is fascinating. I think I'm probably going to take a break before I go on to the next book and see if that makes the reads any better.

Really enjoyed this, aside from swallowing the main premise, which i won't go into and spoil it, the after-effects of an apocolyptic event and how different humanity might respond was well executed and an interesting read.