Avery

*FINALLY* back in Pallimustus! Good to have the buds all back together, but it felt like kind of an in between book. Pretty sure I'll continue with the series but felt like some filler at times. I do appreciate that we don't have to enumerate every status effect progression every time it happens anymore.

Took a minute to remember what was going on, but the recap at the beginning helped, and soon I was enjoying being back in this world. Easy enjoyable read like the others. I always enjoy the “back to basics” trope that we get a bit of in this one. The Earth arc is what made me drop this series initially, so I’m excited to see what happens next.

The book was alright. Not a hard read but not particularly engaging either. Maybe the AI stuff at this point feels too close to reality to be fun. The interspersed documentary clips didn't do much for me and sometimes felt repetitive. The end threw a couple curveballs, none of which felt meaningful in the end.

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.

This was great! I didn't know what to expect going in, given that it was Dinniman's first stab at litrpg, but I was pleasantly surprised. Interesting game world and some decent intrigue about the outside world as well. Sort of DCC-lite.

The premise is still so perfect for me that it barely even matters what the content is. For better or worse, as usual, it tries to do something as different as possible from the previous books.

Decently entertaining, doesn't cover a whole lot of interesting new ground but executed well enough. Characters mostly likable.

Had a hard time getting into this one. A bunch of alien species that didn't seem that important. Some space politics. Didn't feel attached to any of the characters.

Maybe the unspace bit just didn't feel like enough after having read Slow Gods, which has a really similar mechanic. To be honest, they're pretty similar books, maybe it's just that I read this one second.

I enjoyed Colour of Magic, especially Rincewind, so I decided to try this book even though I read that this wasn't everyone's favorite arc. It ended up being a more direct sequel than I was expecting, picking up right where the last left off.

Unfortunately, we didn't end up spending all that much time with the characters from the first book, and it ends up spreading itself all over the place character-wise. I ended up not really caring about anyone and had a hard time being pulled in by the remaining narrative. There were some funny moments but it didn't feel worth it.

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.

The blurbs all say it's "Narnia/Harry Potter but more adult". It's definitely derivative, but only "grown up" in that the characters are mopier and preoccupied with sex.

The most redeeming/fascinating plot point that the blurbs miss is that this isn't Narnia, it's a world where the Narnia *and the Narnia books* exist, which is way more interesting. The self reference has the potential to be very neat, but the focus ends up being more on the entitled main characters and who they're sleeping with.

I experienced this book in the main parts.

At first, I was really thrown off by all the strange names and pronouns. Was it performative? It was definitely hard to follow. I then got called out by the book and decided I better try a little harder.

> You can remember the difference between innumerable different types of sausage or sporting teams, but you cannot hold in your mind a mere half-dozen or so categories of people? That must make navigating the nuances of human experience extraordinarily taxing for you.

Halfway through, it was feeling a bit better. The pronouns made sense and were in some cases reasonable and interesting choices that contributed to world building. I started to think of the book as a sort of modern Le Guin Hainish cycle book, by way of Miéville's Embassytown, with a bit of Iain Banks's Culture sprinkled in. That felt like pretty high praise, but there was still something that wasn't sitting right with me. It was dragging in places, or felt a little unfocused. Not sure.

By the end, I started to appreciate the ambition and scope of the book a little better. I found it to have fairly satisfying ending, and wrapped up a lot of what had felt like dangling ends.

In short, I nearly didn't finish the book, and then it gradually made its way to something I would actively recommend. It's a bit meandering, but ultimately explores interesting territory in some interesting ways. A book about the cosmic significance of love.

Very much in line with the other books I've read from this author. In fact, there are some familiar references (antimemetics) and even plot arcs (Ra). Lots of crazy sci fi goodness, if you can keep it all straight. I definitely didn't follow all of it. Needing to connect the dots between all the short stories, jumping characters and timelines didn't help.

Enjoyable and very silly. Didn't think I'd get attached to a colony of ants, and it seems like there's some other stuff behind the scenes that could develop interestingly.

The sections from the perspective of humans were by far the most uninteresting, which I didn't see coming.

I'll probably read the next one soon.

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.

The writing itself is nice to read, and some of the characters are developed interestingly, but there's a bit of a challenge in the ambiguity and meaninglessness of the events. Had to let go a bit to enjoy it fully, and even then the end didn't land totally right for me.

I got some Roadside Picnic vibes -- I preferred the characters and general writing/development here, though I still think Roadside's setting is way cooler.

I think this book does a great job of providing an accessible and fairly actionable description of what has gone wrong with the Internet and digital products in general over the last decade or two.

There was plenty of stuff that I was expecting, mostly the negatives, but I felt it positively surprised me in a few important ways.

First, the book provides a really convincing description of what laws, policies and events have lead to a world where companies can get away with making terrible products.

It also contained a surprising amount of optimism. The recent progress in the EU, some glowing feedback for the Biden presidency and Lena Kahn, and the potential for using the recent tariff news cycle to repeal anti-circumvention laws globally.

As a tech worker, I went into the book fully expecting to be characterized as part of the problem. It was neat to see this group portrayed as one of the forces pushing against the worsening of digital services. While this leverage is going away, it's great to see it being replaced by such a strong grassroots support for more antitrust work.

I feel there were a number of flaws in the presentation. Mostly it would have been nice to have another editing pass. The fact that much of the content was originally published as essays comes out in the repeated explanation (tolerable) and the reused jokes (less so). It could have been nice to have the block of "case studies" near the beginning spread out a bit. I feel he uses the "enshit" prefix about 30% too often. The description of a "new good internet" felt simplistic but maybe that's ok for a general audience. All that said, the important stuff was good, and that's what's important. Would 100% recommend.

I went through a few phases while reading this book. I initially picked it up because the title resonated strongly with me and I'd seen it mentioned a few times.

After the first few chapters, I started wondering if the title was the best part of the book. A lot of the examples felt like truisms and ideas that sounded good, but were hard to put into practice. It felt hard to see where the author was drawing the line, and sometimes the advice felt plain contradictory. The "would you say this to an adult" gut check frequently fails, with examples like "narrate the conflict as if you were a sportscaster".

Two thirds in, I started to see some patterns that made sense. I feel like in some ways, it does the message a disservice to try and sum up the approach so neatly in the early chapters. Once you've read enough examples, maybe then it makes sense.

I started wondering if this book's advice was just appealing because it went along roughly with what I thought was important in my own parenting. Is it just confirmation bias? I decided that it's alright for parents to seek some confirmation that it's all gonna be ok, and read reminders of the things we care about.

I read the last couple of chapters pretty quickly -- they got a bit repetitive and the "letter to the author" format started feeling like an advertisement for the approach (which, I already agreed with? I mean I just read the book..)

Anyway, would recommend to parents of small children looking for examples on how to gently but effectively navigate their stubborn little minds.

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.

I didn't finish Gnomon, so I wasn't sure what to expect from Titanium Noir. The premise seemed kind of random too -- detective story with giant people. Luckily it ended up quite enjoyable!

It's definitely rough around the edges (the content, not the writing), living up to the "noir", I guess. But woven around the violence and debauchery is a decent detective story. There are enough loose threads to keep me guessing without being too confused, and a fairly satisfying ending. I guess I'll have to give Harkaway another chance!

Not a huge fan of tournament arcs -- it always feels implausible that there would be a simple magical way to prevent permanent injury while otherwise allowing pretty much arbitrary fighting. Especially since such a big deal was made in the past about the exceptional opportunity that is Baelin's ability to protect the participants of his course (and its limitations).

That said, I'm a fan of the rivals to allies pipeline that this genre can have, and it feels like a few of the tournament opponents might end up in that camp in the next book. Would have been nice to develop those rivalries a little more though, it felt a little rushed.

I enjoyed The Will of the Many, so I went into this one expecting similar. Unfortunately it didn't click with me in the same way.

I think there's some good stuff in here, and there were a couple of neat systems and reveals.

For me, it surpassed a critical mass of "fantasy names", making it a lot harder to keep track of who and what in reading about at any given point. Unfortunately that killed most of the enjoyment.

Looking forward to tackling Strength of the Few soon!

For about the first 2/3 I was thinking of putting the series down. By the last third, I thought maybe I could give the next book a try after a while. Then for some reason I started reading book 3 immediately after finishing.

It's not that anything particularly bothered me, the characters aren't too annoying. It just kinda dragged for a while before some more interesting stuff started happening. I also wouldn't mind a little less content about about cooking.

Definitely worth the read, not sure it quite matched the previous book.

Some super creative scenarios and boss fights, unique mechanics that manage not to recycle content from the previous books. I love how the different advancement mechanics interact with each other, making it more interesting than a single number going up. Specifically the tiers of gear "resetting" the bar for what is good whenever they advance.

I had been looking forward to going through some RPG character building style content at an accelerated rate with Frank, but it ended up feeling a bit too rushed to be satisfying. One of the strongest elements of the previous books was the really meaningful upgrade choices, and that was skimmed over a bit in some cases.

I think this is a good wakeup call in a similar way to Abundance, but focuses in more closely on fewer topics and does a more convincing job going into the details.

The universal basic income section was more compelling than the 15-hour work week for me -- and in some places they almost seemed to step on each others' toes. There was a big point made that UBI wouldn't decrease working hours, which then kind of got in the way of the logic behind the 15-hour work week. Maybe the loose differentiation between "profitable work" and "important but not profitable work" is muddling it a little.

I was surprised at how convincing the section on open borders was. It addressed all the common sources of pushback, while making a pretty good argument for the moral and economic importance of addressing the problem. It felt pretty realistic too, pointing out that even if we added tons of pretty stringent requirements for immigration to make it feel less risky, we could still come out ahead as long as we're increasing the number of people.

There were some bits that didn't really land for me, and the title didn't feel totally relevant, but overall I think it was a great book.