Ren

I have to admit, I'm a total sucker for Appalachia horror - and this is the epitome of Appalachian horror.

I LOVE how McCarthy can rewrite a biblical story and make it so damn creepy. There were so many times while I was reading this book that I got chills up my spine. So many intense scenes, like after Culla gets off the ferry, with Rinthy and the tinker, or of course that scene at the very end that just felt like a weight on my chest while I was reading them. I caught myself actually holding my breath reading parts of this book.

SPOILER
There's a ton of theories of what exactly happens in this story, but I believe when Culla falls down and the lightning strikes at the very beginning is when Rinthy and Culla enter the outer dark - hell. It seemed like God (or whoever) was giving Culla the chance to turn around and own up to his sins. He never does, which to me is why he ends up at the swamp, effectively on the road to nowhere like the three men told him about.

Rinthy on the other hand never encounters the same strokes of bad luck. She wants to own up to her sins, she wants her child, sacrificing so many parts of herself to find him. I know a lot of people think Rinthy dies in the end, but I like to believe Rinthy survived, and she escapes the outer dark. Aside from her physical body being in shambles, she did everything to make things right.

Culla on the other hand is stuck, given multiple chances to atone and own up to what he did. He never makes things right, he never admits to his sin. The last line of the book really seems to be saying (in my opinion) that he'll never reform, he has this last shot to do something right but still doesn't. He's stuck in the outer dark forever.

This book was just incredible. I reread the passage about the tinker's body at the end so many times. Damn, McCarthy is incredible and you can really see him start to spin up what eventually would be Blood Meridian here. Loved it.

Just ok. Pretty dry.

This book was so good I found myself re-reading paragraphs over and over again. I loved all of the small details. I predicted a good portion of what was going to happen early on, but enjoyed every moment of reading this book.

So much hope and resiliency in our characters, this was a wonderful change of pace compared to other post-apocalyptic books. Looooved it :)

I hateeeeee billie

I had to force myself to envision this not as a little women spin off because it would ruin little women for me. just not good. going to push this very far back into my brain now

I had no idea what I thought the story of Stalker was about, but this was not it. Fantastic story.

The idea of earth being the equivalent of a stop at the gas station on a roadtrip for aliens will never leave my brain

I really don't know how to feel about this one. The language is beautiful, the plot is simple, but I felt somewhat confused for a good portion of this book because there is absolutely NO hand holding at all. You won't really know what a lot of the concepts are until much later in the book when the authors start throwing you some bones, but hopefully at that point you've put a few things together.

I understood everything by the end, and it was the perfect length for a story like this. I liked how this was challenging, but flowery and poetic enough to make you want to keep reading. I wanted more time getting to know the characters a bit more - they talk about knowing each other a while, but it feels like we only see the crescendo of their relationship. I felt like I missed something in the way their relationship was built because of that.

Either way, this was a really unique way to write a sci-fi story & I think this is the kind of book that demands at least 2 read throughs to fully appreciate; but I definitely do not think this will be a lot of people's cup of tea.

cute lil fun read, not too over the top and I can finally say for the first time in a while that it's a romance I enjoyed :)

Feels unfair to rate this book. I'm sure at the time it was interesting for folks to read about the ocean and a submarine felt futuristic. For a 2025 reader, this was a slog to get through. Not for me.

Is the author of this book ok??



Why did she write the main character saying yes to going on a date with the oncologist who treated her best friend after she died TWO DAYS AGO. WHAT IS HAPPENING this book felt inSANE


also we had a Chekhov's gun with saying Dannie's fiance was never in the gym, and randomly in the book he'd be in the gym. I was so sure he was cheating. Now with the book done, I feel like either he was cheating and the author was told to take it out, or the author simply forgot to write about why he got so into the gym??? There was no defining characteristics about the fiance except he worked in finance and didn't go to the gym.

These characters were SO boring & I hate when authors use cancer as a plot device if they have nothing meaningful to say. I also did not feel AT ALL like our female MCs were “platonic soulmates.” They really seemed like they had a lot of problems with each other...?

This book was so strange, don't read it

Wow. I'm going to write a stream of consciousness type of review for this one, but a few words I can use to sum this up for me - decadent, inventive, challenging, and if I'm being honest? it still fell a little short.

I really had to change up how I read while I was reading this book. I like to sit with a story longer, think about it, and re-read passages but for this one I tried to go with the flow and not think about it too much. The story was much better this way and I'd definitely recommend anyone else who wants to read it to take a similar approach.

Gibson is playing with and inventing so many ideas here - i mean, this was written on a typewriter, but all of the concepts and ideas here we all know of because he created them and other people re-purposed them. I really had to try to dismiss what I know about the cyberpunk genre and realize many of the concepts I know and love in movies and books came from this. It's incredible he was able to create so much of this from scratch. He really wrote the future.

When I started reading this, it came off a bit cringey because of this - the cyberpunk concepts are so overused now - but they started here, and this book for nothing else is amazing because of the concepts created.

The writing here, although dense and difficult to follow, was dripping in style. You may not know what the hell Gibson is saying, but he describes it in such a beautiful way it reads like poetry. The opening line is a great example of this. The guy can really paint a picture with words.

The characters were okay. I really liked Molly, Armitage, Wintermute. I did not like Molly's backstory - a lot of sci-fi authors love to make women sex workers, as if strong women can't exist without sex being a main motivating factor for them - but she was still the best written and most compelling character to me.

In defense of Case, I think he was written to be a blank slate for a reason. He's pretty one-dimensional, we don't get too much of a backstory, and he's just not compelling at all, in fact, he's extremely unlikable because of how selfish he is (and ignorant to how selfish he is, also). Even if this is Gibson's intent, it makes it difficult to get through the book even if he's supposed to be more of a conduit than anything, because he is so unemotional and unlikeable. The other characters we see are more interesting, but the story wouldn't be the same if told from their perspective.


As the story unfolds, and you finally see where everything is going, I really liked how the AI reveals just how much they've been manipulating all of our characters to get what they want. I think the team we follow in this book was selected BECAUSE they have trauma, addictions, and they're easier to manipulate to get what the AI wants - for Wintermute and Neuromancer to coalesce. It's really interesting.

That being said, I wasn't a huge fan of the story. It was a heist story, not something I'm really into, and I'm not really into all of the action that this book had going on. It's just not my cup of tea.

At the end, I felt like I was standing on a cliff waiting for something big to happen and I never really felt that payoff. It wasn't a really satisfying ending to me. We went through so much, but in the end it didn't feel like much at all.

Overall, I enjoyed the ideas, writing, and some of the characters here. The plot, main character, and overall payoff weren't the greatest. I also didn't like how the female characters (even Molly - and i liked her a lot) were written, it felt outdated and fell into a lot of sci-fi tropes around women.

I'm glad I read it though, and think re-reading this down the line would be fun now that I know how things turn out.

learned so much from this.

Did it take me a little over a month to read this? Yes.

Did I enjoy every moment? Yes.

The characters really make the stand. They are all so well written. Just incredible, had so much fun reading this.

M-O-O-N that spells Tom Cullen is one of my favorite characters ever

the zombie western is not a genre I thought I'd be into, but this was fantastic. Could barely put it down.

a few unanswered questions but overall this book was fantastic. definitely PKD's best.

So damn creepy. If you want a horror story centered around grief, this one is for you. It's pretty bleak, but the writing is excellent. Really enjoyed this.

I swear McCarthy can write characters and create a setting like no other. Short but brilliant.

My favorite part of this book is the chapter where they emphasize consent and Nathan talks about how important it is and he wouldn't ever do anything to the MC (I can't write out her name it's actually too cringe) while she's been drinking because it's wrong and drunk people can't consent.

and then the next chapter she gets drunk and they fuck for the first time lol

This book was well written but fell so short. I think the author could have made this much more interesting by cutting a good portion of the story out & nothing would be missed.

Even though I'm just now getting around to reading it, I had actually had my eye on it for a while, before it was published. I think I had a different idea of how this would turn out. The romance was the best part but still felt lacking. I think I was supposed to feel more about Julian and his parents that I just didn't feel, or about Paul's relationship with his father that failed to make any meaningful connection for me. There was a lot here that felt contrived and didn't make much sense. Things happened but nothing felt really impactful & at the end it feels like none of it really mattered at all.

I've never seen Hellraiser so everything here is new for me.

I don't know how Clive Barker does it, but he can make a story sexy and terrifying all at once. He's an incredible writer. The ending had me ripping the pages just to see how it ends.

Loved it

I ❤️ crazy bitches

Here's how I would describe this book:

A few years ago, I used to smoke weed. When I finally decided to quit smoking weed, I had some of the most vivid, strange, and surreal dreams that I had ever experienced in my life. This novella is basically what those dreams were like.

That was definitely a book....a very bad one

Not for me.

Such a page turner. Can't say I didn't enjoy it, I really did. The first 3/4s of this book were so GOOD. The illustrations really took it up a notch.

semi-spoiler
Really is unfortunate the last few chapters go off the rails insane and I really did not appreciate how the author approached gender identity. Felt super outdated, and honestly really unnecessary for the ending we had? Was just weird...but I can't deny the first 3/4s were really, really great.