Avery

I was interested in this book but never expected to find a new potential favorite hard sci fi author to put alongside Greg Egan and Peter Watts.

Talk about a masterclass in complex exposition. The author manages to introduce countless fascinating new ideas, mostly involving transhumanist societies (similar to the previously mentioned authors) but, unlike some, manages to make it flow so beautifully with the story that you barely notice.

I'll readily admit, as is normal for me in this genre, that I didn't follow every twist and turn in the story. The nature of the exposition almost encourages this, starting in the middle of the action, barely explaining any of the crazy neologisms (many based on valid science) that it uses. What a ride!

Took me a while to get into it, initially feeling like Annihilation with a more academic main character. Eventually though (2/3 of the way through), the Tchaikovsky goodness started to show through in some cool ideas about evolution and ecology. While it had several lines that stood out to me, it frequently felt like they had similar variations scattered repeatedly, like the author was workshopping the idea and couldn't decide which to pick. Maybe a stylistic choice, but one I found annoying while reading.

It's impressive how fresh the third book in the series can feel. Again, I went in thinking I knew what to expect, and was impressed by the new concepts. Even though it's exploring new territory, the core conceptual exploration involving what it is to be sentient continues to be developed.

It's bewildering at times, a little hard to follow, but all comes together in the end.

Gradually getting around to consuming some more discworld books.

Quite funny (if a little corny), with some pretty cool world building stuff. I thought the dryad bit was pretty cool.

I would have probably appreciated more of a full story rather than a few loosely connected vignettes. In general, I found the first half more interesting than the later parts.

Obviously very DCC-like, which is fun, but the wackiness felt a little less clearly motivated (and less funny). DCC can always fall back on "it's for the views" when something crazy happens. Maybe that will clear up in time.

I liked the weird items, the "dog" character. The main character is alright too.

There's decent depth of mechanics, both in the upgrade systems and the fights themselves. Lots of satisfying variation and possibilities for improvement in different axes. Some meaningful upgrade decisions, which is great. I think that the rarity tier of items ends up getting blown out really quick. Would have been nice for rare things to feel rarer. The combining mechanic kind of ends up broken (for Dan) in this way, I really wish something different had been done there. Democratize crafting!!

The setting was much less SCP/backrooms than I had expected/hoped. It's kind of just ends up being random real worldy settings filled with monsters. I actually saw ads for this book before reading it and they really seemed to be overselling that aspect.

A weird thing is that the core concept (Dan having a store) felt like it was invented before the story was written and then shoehorned in. It doesn't really make sense narratively. Both the motivation for doing it, and the certainty that it will be successful are flawed from the beginning.

Still, I'm reserving the right to see where this goes in the second book.