Avery
Continuing to enjoy this author!
The narration by Sophie Aldred was also great -- really expressive dialogue without feeling exaggerated. I'll have to find more read by her.
I feel like Shroud is story that lies on a spectrum between The Martian and Blindsight -- more interesting than the former and more readable than the latter (I'd still recommend them all, maybe the Martian a little less).
There was a bit in the middle that felt a little slow and the end kind of fizzled out for me, but worthwhile overall still, I think.
I wasn't sure what things would be like going into this one, but there ended up being more going on than I expected, which was nice.
I wasn't a huge fan of the constant family drama though. Made it feel like things took a long time to progress. The stakes really feel lower right now.
The way that abilities are described has improved a lot from the previous books, far fewer repetitive stat blocks (still reading the audio book so it makes a big difference).
I think some of the economics stuff has improved. Still enjoying many of the characters.
Some complaints are probably a result of listening to this as an audiobook. I like Heath Miller's narration. The voices are differentiated but not over the top, and it's generally very easy to listen to. I also appreciate that full character-sheet level stat readouts are very uncommon.
Unfortunately, every time anyone uses any ability, the entire description of the ability gets read out. This gets a little painful, as the clearly tabular style doesn't read very well while being pretty repetitive, especially where there are like 4 levels of nested effects being defined. Of course, the fact that abilities (especially Jason's) have pretty vague names means that I frequently DO end up needing to listen to the description.
That said, I don't think all the blame lies with the format. Jason's ability set causes to his fights to be super predictable so far. 1) Give afflictions (yes, even a scratch is enough), 2) do damage scaling with afflictions, 3) absorb the afflictions to deal more damage and set up 4) execute. Like, I get and that's fine, but you don't need to explain it to me every time.
The fight predictability gets a little better near the end, and thankfully they start to be described in a little less detail. We'll see if it continues to improve in book 4 (which I guess I'll be reading next)
Still entertaining, and I've just started the third.
That said, there are a few annoying things.
Everyone keeps talking about how Jason just is who he is, and some people like it and some people don't. That's true, but it feels convenient that most of the ones that like Jason tend to be more powerful and influential than the ones who don't. It would be nice if there was some meaningful interaction where his attitude results in a bad outcome, otherwise it starts to feel rigged.
I also don't really get the deal with the awakening stones. Who cares that it's a high rarity stone if you don't know what it gives? It's not like it will be more powerful, as is often repeated. It ends up feeling like a meaningless choice that conveniently works out well in cases, but there's a lot of talk of which one to pick.
Related to the relatively unexplainable purchase of expensive stones, the economy feels super broken. It feels like the main characters can buy just about anything without saving up or making tough choices. Jason's gold coin looting seems way too powerful, considering it basically lets him buy the best gear he can use. Hopefully this will stop being the case if they move on to a larger town.
Some really cool ideas grounded in (as far as I can tell) real biology. I wasn't expecting it to focus so much on the political angles involved in an important scientific discovery, but that was neat too.
I did feel like it dragged at times and could have maybe been a bit shorter -- apart from the cool ideas, not much important happened plot-wise.
Definitely preferred the first, though I probably won't abandon the series. Felt like not much happened and what did was somewhat convenient or meaningless.
I'm a fan of Travis Baldree's narration but the constant French(?) accent on this world was painful. I sure hope there's less of that going forward.
> I felt detached, untethered.
This statement by the main character is also how I felt about most of this book. I don't think it was particularly bad, but for some reason, I found it hard to care about most of the plot beats. Maybe because it felt like the protagonist didn't either.
One explored concept is the potential impact of hardware backdoors and our reliance on a relatively brittle supply chain. To me, this mostly felt too real to be entertaining fiction, yet not explored deeply enough to be informative.
What I wasn't expecting is for this tech-y spy thriller to start giving "This Is How You Lose the Time War" vibes (to be fair, I didn't expect it from that book either). The writing style is less overtly poetic but somehow still had similar energy at times, hidden inside a more grounded narrative style. Maybe as if El-Mohtar's book was crossed with one of Kim Stanley Robinson's half-essay near-future sci-fi explorations (while thankfully staying closer to the first in verbosity).
The afterword by the author made me feel like even though this book might not have been the best fit for me, it might still be worth trying another.
This installment continues to ramp up the stakes satisfyingly, similar to the last book. It's pretty impressive how much mileage Stross is getting out of the general setting/premise while keeping each book feeling fresh.
I feel like either the constant re-explanations that frustrated me with the previous books have gotten less common (or I've learned to tune them out).
What's kinda neat about this one is that its political commentary moves beyond "civil service is clunky and inefficient" to "but it's probably better than the alternative", while remaining true to itself. Definitely some ideas in this one that can still be useful in a world without (mathematical) eldritch horrors.
The book is much less dark than the synopsis made it seem. The reader is reminded a few times how much the protagonist is a dark and twisted hero, which seems.. really not to come through in his dialog and behavior?
That said, the friendly vibes don't bother me either.
I love the idea of grounding the cultivation/soul concepts within a very concrete (literal) structure. It makes the mental "work" and decisions they're making easy to visualize and provides a great framework to (again, literally) build upon.
Solid intro, interested to see where the series goes next.
At a surface level Challenger is a history of the engineering issues faced by NASA up until the eponymous disaster. A little deeper, it ends up being more of a look into failures of project management when it comes to the space missions.
When it comes to the individuals involved, the book is almost universally positive in its depictions (with the possible exception of a few execs/politicians).
When it comes to the bigger picture though. Higginbotham describes a flawed system of government bureaucracy. Hours to get approval to remove a bolt and simultaneously failing to listen to a clear warning of danger.
Its no push for privatization though -- we also see a systemic ignoring and rationalization of a clear (admittedly more so in hindsight) problem. Sweeping life or death issues under the rug when they don't fit business objectives is hard to watch.
As someone in the software industry, we frequently joke about not being "real engineers". While I imagine that's still pretty accurate, compared to the rocket engineers working on the space shuttles, it was eerie to see some of the same patterns of engineering dysfunction. The promotion of a fluke error to the status of "longstanding bug", by virtue of the fact that nothing seemed to break catastrophically, gradually moving the line of what is acceptable risk. Treating designed systems as black boxes and inventing terms or concepts to explain away their idiosyncrasies.
Obviously no project management effort is going to be immune to failures, and NASA also made some pretty huge achievements along the way. Still, it seems like a good reminder to keep an eye out for these "Fifth Risk"-style dysfunctions, and remember that an organization filled with exceedingly competent and kind-hearted individuals has the potential to make bad decisions.
PS -- OK confession time -- I had to get halfway through this book before remembering that Challenger and Columbia were different shuttle (disaster)s. I didn't know much about either story going into this book, so thought it went long, I appreciated all the context. Also, I'll be lucky if I remember three names out of the hundred (more?) people talked about throughout the book.
I'm rating this a 5 with a caveat -- I wasn't a fan of the YA-ness of all the characters being teens at school. The thing is, the stuff they were learning was too cool.
The way that the exercises and concepts are described is so perfect -- just enough detail to feel real and part of a huge coherent system.
Also all this talk of cured meats and pickles and heavy breads kept making me hungry.
Probably the coolest Sci-Fi bit of this book is the premise itself. It gets developed a bit but not a whole lot. The content of the book itself ends up being more about the (in)humanity of living in the real world. All the characters are imperfect, rough around the edges people and the book is mostly about them bumping into each other while trying to survive.
I read the “new translation” of this book, which has some interesting extra bits describing the circumstances of the book's publication. Hard to imagine what the version with all the “gunk” removed would have looked like – it feels like that's the whole book!
> .. and did that imply evil moths?
An enjoyable classic D&D-style fantasy adventure with a greater and more realistic than average focus on the “good vs evil” trope.
I think that if most books in this genre had this amount of self-awareness (without just becoming a parody, which this book accomplishes), I'd read more fantasy.
Never bothered to read this before since I thought it might be repetitive after watching the movie.
Ended up still being very enjoyable. Lots of believable problem solving, things going wrong, never losing hope. The characters are all pretty likable too.
I'm going to rank this one between Project Hail Mary (which I loved) and Artemis (not so much). Looking forward to reading whatever Andy writes next.
For some reason, the writing in this book felt rougher than in the first. Several adjacent sentences that contain exactly the same phrase, feeling jarring. There's no shortage of more generally repetitive content as well – reading the whole character sheet, going through all the quest entries every time there's an update.
Compared to my recent read of The Ripple System, the upgrade and skill options are much less interesting. With only one or two exceptions, there is always one obvious choice which is usually overpowered compared to the “normal” ones. This makes the process of reading through all the options predictable and feel like filler. It also contributes to the feeling of Jake already feeling overpowered.
It would be one thing if Jake had a single great ability, but the combination of mind-blowing bloodline ability, infinite will power and pain tolerance, improbable levels of luck, high intelligence and physical abilities... It would be nice if there was at least one thing that he struggled with. Instead, he feels consistently lucky. Pretty much everything he tries works out, when he does “fail” at something it never seems to matter, and he has seemingly infinite time for meditation, sleep, waiting out potion cooldowns, crafting.
On the upside, the dialog involving the M. Viper is entertaining, which is a nice change. Especially when compared to similar interactions with super/god-beings in Cradle (hard not to with Baldree narrating both).
Will probably take a break from litRPG for a book or two.
Not sure what it is about this genre that makes me feel “meh” in the first half and by the end be looking forward to see what happens in the next one.
I do wish that the stat blocks weren't so long and repetitive. I've been listening this whole time, I know what skills you have! It's especially painful when listening to the audiobook, which is otherwise great.
The main villain in this one starts off as a pretty cliched archetype, but it seems like this might be improving, fingers crossed.
This book felt dated in a lot of different ways. First of all, it carries a refreshing optimism about humanity's ability to cooperate and put war behind them, which most modern sci fi has a hard time doing. Second, is the occasional reference to specific technologies or companies – “The DEC minicomputer in the nose made contact with its IBM big brother [...]”. The third is the degree to which outdated ideas of gender roles (and smoking) permeate much of the book.
At times I liked the detail with which it explored the resolution of the various mysteries, but the dedication to avoiding hand-waving frequently led to the clues or solutions feeling really improbable.
The book is wholly dedicated to this mystery-solving premise, to the exclusion of much plot, character development or relationships. If you happen to guess the solution ahead of time, you're in for a lot of predictable exposition before you can move on to the next thing.
It might be a coincidence but this is the (audio) book I've fallen asleep to the most so far this year.
This is a tricky book to write a review for. Parts of it read like an over-the-top season of 24, while at other points it gets very philosophical.
The pacing definitely felt uneven. It starts with such a high intensity ramp up that the middle and ending had difficulty matching. There are several weirdly slow interludes getting into the weeds on military trivia, neuroscience etc. I guess these could have been attempts to make the sci fi elements “harder”, but felt unnecessary to me.
The one slow bit that I got really into was when one of the characters waxes poetic on his vision of a system of anarchist checks and balances built into a capitalist system. Would be interested to find some non-fiction exploring those ideas further.
By far the strongest writing in this book was anything to do with the kid. As the parent of a toddler, these parts were sometimes hilarious, sometimes painful, but always exactly spot-on.
Can we get a sequel where everyone in the world suddenly gets this ability?
Definitely not just a repeat of the first book, nor a straightforward continuation. I was worried it might just be about the two species figuring out how to coexist on Kern's world, but thankfully this book explores plenty of new territory!
Cool non-human intelligences of all sorts, cool exploration of the splitting up of consciousness into several distinct parts. Some exciting high tension moments, but...
Some of the world building exposition/history felt a little slow, and ends up feeling like it just exists to prolong the tension in the part of the story we're not currently reading.
It also felt like I was being constantly explained the same core traits and tendencies of the various species of creature in the book. A little tiring sometimes.
Still loving the electrical/biological hybrid computers.
> “He's written a quine,” she murmurs
While it took a few chapters to get going and at first I wasn't sure, when I got to this line I knew I was reading the right book.
But that was FAR from the biggest reveal in this book that is practically constructed out of galaxy brained twists.
There are quite a a few narrative discontinuities, which can be pretty disorienting. I imagine that's the intended effect but it definitely made it a trickier read.
Part of me hoped it would spend more time developing the magic system itself rather than escalating to blow my mind several times. If anyone has recommendations for “Magic as a programming language” books, please share because I'm a big nerd.
All is forgiven though, after I managed to hold on through the rest of that insane rollercoaster ride.
Kind of like Peter Watts's Starfish, but after they get back home, if it was less about what actually happened and more about the state of their relationship. Which is to say, I guess, not very similar. It was a bit more “lit” than I prefer, with a focus on somewhat dysfunctional relationships.
The premise going in was excitingly eerie but it didn't develop much past that.
That said, the writing itself was not bad, and I found myself enjoying and noting down several lines that were particularly clever, cool or funny. I also suspect some of the greater themes went over my head.
Anyway, if you want creepy deep sea people but hard sci-fi, try Starfish.