The Layered Page

From the pacing not as satisfying as the second one, but it sets up a lot of great material for the fourth entry I can't wait to read. The main Plot of this one introduced a few tropes I've seen before. The ending was well executed.

This book is everything the other book was not. Will is still stupid but he has guts, something King Lognion also acknowledges and is conflicted about throughout the book. Will is thrown into Hogwards, I mean Worthhaven, where he learns that all the wizards are essentially handicapped because they are learning magic wrong. So he is basically the only competent wizard in there, and that as a War veteran. From there all the things that have been setup in Book 1 derailed into a complete Train Wreck: Between murders, demons, conspiracies, enabled by the sarcastic lingering knowledge of his Grandpa as a speaking Ring, the Fae and the God Damned cat, Will causes one small crisis after another in a hilarious journey to conquer Seline's heart.

This book does many unexpected things for a book of this genre. And I loved every second of it.

Picked this up twice now. I simply can't hold on to it. Reading it feels like a chore. It's not the topic. I write myself on the intersection of logic, language and imagination on my blog. I am an algorithmic affectionato, but the book is too dense in overlapping philosophical and academic ideas that you lose any sense of practicality or point the author is trying to make.

As a foundational survey into cultural impact of the algorithm it is well suited however. Got a lot as a source from it for my Bachelor.

Also in the age of LLM this not so old book has not aged well "the fear of being replaced by the machine" is a consequence of our algorithmic thinking. No it's the reality now. The author simply underestimated how far algorithms with stochastic pattern matching can get us.

It presents a simple four step framework on shaping your habits. It does so by weaving masterfully real academic sources, with narrative sections which exemplify the concepts which are then highlighted as actionable plan, again with more examples.

It is such an insightgul yet entertaining "read" (listening to it as audiobook)

Itturns to a soul less and opinionated tips and tricks manual with generic template suggestions near the end. Adds a bit of noise to the otherwise very clean 4-Step framework.

This one is tough. I should really love the book for its premise: Philosophical in nature, asks question of existence and conciousness through the "eyes" of the main protagonist cloning itself in form of a neular network. The protagonist, like me, is a software developer, a fan of the Art of War from Sun Tzu and sarcastic, full on geek, sprinkling pop culture throughout the Universe. He is relatable but the superficial use of all that material to just justify some decisions turns it a bit cringe.

But my main problem is the way the story is structured and paced. I have listened to the audiobook (Half a start more and a big recommendation for that version), which accounts for some of the problems, and while the talented reader did different voices and impersonations of famous characters, like Homer (Simpson), it is very hard to keep track of all the branching of generations of Bobs. Add to this the huge time jumps between the clones and the distance, spanning multiple light years resulting in asynchronous communication across cryptically named star systems, and the book is too close to science to be enjoyable as fiction. You have to invest so much effort in tracking the individual characters, their personality and goals. Without much pay off.

From what I can synthesize from the multiple branching storylines, there is three main plots. Original Bob discovers a tribal-age race and plays god with it to protect it against extinction. Meanwhile two other bobs return to Earth to find it in a post-apocalyptic Kinder garden, trying to convince everybody to work towards compromises to benefit the human race as a whole instead of prioritizing their local ideologically close grouping and piss into each other's plate. And finally there is an armament race and chase of cat and mouse with one of the aggressive military-minded space probe collective which is threatening the existence of Bob himself. Other than that there is multiple smaller plots like the discovery of an alien race which might vipe out entire planets for nourishment or the mentally broken australian replicant which one of the bobs tries to help. Unfortunately these way more interesting plotlines just served as change of scenery to the Kill or Be Killed, Evacuating a Kinder Garden or Playing God with primates.

Alltough I can understand the choice as all of them explore some form of Existential Preservation.

Piranesi is a hard read at first. Almost like a puzzle, a system you are thrown in to figure out told from the first person perspective of the name's sake Protagonist in form of Journal Entries. You experience a world contained in a House of many halls, filled with various statues depicting characters, animals and many other situations. The house is filled with regular tides and birds. Piranesi is an adventurer and a researcher of this place. You accept the house as a cohesive sensible place. And Piranesi Is a proud and thankful inhabitant of that world.

Later the book reveals more and more of other characters and how those characters change Piranesi's perception of the world. It becomes an intriguing somewhat heartbreaking chase for the truth. But it also becomes more engaging and a real page turner.

The book is a delicate work about Identity, Memories and Perception and how they shape you relationship to the world and your inner happiness of belonging to it.

"The Beauty of the House is immeasurable; its Kindness infinite."

I read the Kindle version of the book. And had no problems with it.

After "The Emperor's Soul" this was my first real novel of Sanderson, and I am blown away. It is a self-contained world, with such an intruiging yet focused world design, revolving around contrasts and the theme of art and how it interacts with the spiritual world. The characters are so lovable, their struggles relatable and alltough a slow start it is real page-turner as you root for them. I am honest, I did not expect the ending. Without avoiding too many spoilers, there is a mystery tieing the two character's together, and it's "solution" I would have never imagined. I even had a tear in my eye for the final few moments.

Not many books manage to do that.

Thrilling. Conniving. Beautiful.

It's a novella, and can be read across one or two attentive sessions. I wished there was a full story around the concept of the soulstamps. So fascinating!

It's Monty Python in space making a mockery of philosophical questions of being, meaning and existence. Every sentence is a joy to read and prone to make you giggle.

I share the same sentiment with most readers. Exited to finish what has been a very exciting trilogy the third book simply lost me too many times in the beginning. However after getting over the whole Giva arc in the first third of the book the book shifts back to what we love. Crazy plans to overcome a system. And here it is as exciting as ever!

And the ending alone is so powerful. So sad but so beautiful. And once you understand how and why the author wrote it. It becomes all clear. Love.

Mid. Uses the tropes of LitRPG nicely however: Respawning, leveling, weaving it into themes of abilities and scene to scene strategizing. But it's the whole rest of the story -- to believably sell you what is at stake for the main protagonist set inside "just a game" -- that makes it rather cringe: Crippled main char, barely not adult; so not being taken serious, with fatally ill mother in a post apolocalyptic world, where you can basically not do anything other than be inside the game -- how convenient.

The book however thematizes nicely in game politics and has some fun character interactions. The progression to becoming a Dodge tank Is imaginative and exiting. However you can sense that the author is not a gamer. They oversimplify games to simulated worlds with abilities. Muddling gaming up as simulated worlds where laws apply the same across genres. The Arena segment is the best showcase of this narrow conceptualization, and it just triggered me.

The book picked up a few giggles from me. I agree with most, that the magic system is interesting. The main theme of secret identities and forbidden friendships is well crafted but drifts too far into the teen-romance for my liking and feels too edgy for my taste. The book drags on for a while and takes way too long to tell a story that could have been told quicker. Especially the whole military arc. Although entertaining. All this for an ending that did not result in enough payoff, which left a bitter-sweet taste in my mouth and I think I will not continue the series.

Disclaimer: I have consumed this book as a dramatized adaptation, as such most problems I have were with the quality of that specific edition.

The audio was very quiet, I couldn't hear it while cooking or doing the dishes. It required my full attention with on-ear headphones. The accents and characters, especially the protagonist had a very slurry and unmotivated energy, which added to comprehension issues. Scenes and contexts were hard to track, as the audio play was cut like a movie without a narrator. 

Now the story. It began rather slow and uneventful but started to build up the pace towards the end, and actually had me pretty captivated on the last third. While the historical background is well known, the author managed to make it feel like a new revelation.

Pretty much what the title says, a long encyclopedia about cryptography and it's consequences worked into a novel that showcases its application in WW2 and the 90' Data and digital currency boom.
Honestly the book is long and tedious. I read this book on and off for 4 years... I think. Had to put it down many times. But for what it was worth it was an enjoyable read over multiple chapters. Some where packed full of interesting concepts and some where just there for pure comedic relief, but some were just pointless. But I guess that is the spirit of cryptography, hiding the real message inside of a lot of noise. I can appreciate the converging correlated character cast of the two timelines, but the last few chapters where rather boring, leading to a mild and obvious end.
I am happy to have pushed my self to finish the book, and don't regret it.

As a front-end developer and creative coder myself, coming more from the imaginative world of fiction and design rather than pure computer science and corporate development the purely corporate nature of the story was just too dry for my taste, resulting in a lack of engagement and therefore failing to appeal to me or create any noteworthy emotional response.
From what I took from the book it actually is a take on corporate philosophy and software development best-practices disguised as fiction. The hardest part for me was to keep track of the many characters as well as their roles without having any distinct feature or context that makes them appealing or memorable.
However, the book is not bad in and of itself, It just wasn't my cup of tea.
I can still recommend it to people who are interested in corporate intrigue and business logic.

Fast paced mature Fantasy/Steampunk novel, that threats the topic of programming, digital society, hacking and artificial intelligence in a metaphorical story full of plottwists and a healthy amount of political intrigue