Ben Saufley
This book purports to be about first contact, but mostly deals with a hyper-capitalist future and how humankind might react to the _possibility_ of first contact. It may be a minor spoiler, but "contact" barely occurs in this book. I did think it was interesting, and for a while I thought the cynical angle of such a hyper-capitalist future added something interesting to the story, but at the end it became clear that that _was_ the story and I was left unsatisfied. If Dixon intends to write a sequel, it would make sense, but I don't see any indication of that at this point. Which leaves a big chunk of the _focus_ of the book more-or-less unresolved.
This book just won the Hugo, so I had to know what the buzz was about. The premise definitely seemed interesting, but as the book got going I wasn't convinced of its hype-worthiness. In the end, though, yes, absolutely loved this book. It builds on a whole bunch of comfortable formulas and tropes to create something new, entertaining, and really satisfying in the end. I'm not always looking for a message in the books I read, although it can be hard not to notice the harmful ones (think: copaganda, or the myriad thrillers that hinge on a woman lying about abuse or assault) – but this book has some really interesting things to say about government and power, without hammering you over the head with it (ok, there's a _small_ amount of hammering at the end). You don't have to get those themes to enjoy the book, but I definitely felt a deeper appreciation for the book as those themes (and themes of neurodivergence) revealed themselves. Highly recommend this novel and I've already picked up the next in the series.
I highly, highly recommend this book. Something about the title, presentation, subject matter made me expect it to be a bit less accessible than it was – and I think for some, its "accessibility" will be a knock. It reads like genre fiction, IMO, not literary fiction, but I think that's a point in its favor – stuff like this doesn't have to be dense or intimidating. It's really really smart and comes at the subject matter from what was, in my eyes, a unique way that is both hopeful and not, and I think its main characters represent the kind of "two wolves" inside many of us in the modern world: the impulse to fight tooth and nail and the impulse to try to make a life and carve out some joy are both valid. Loved this book.
I enjoyed most of this book but the resolution was pretty deeply unsatisfying and left a lot of loose ends—any thriller/mystery that's any good will employ red herrings, but most of the red herrings at play here seem very forced in retrospect. Beyond that, the over-explanation at the end was at a certain point kind of silly. I'm all for making it clear what happened but it was made clear a few times over and then the characters internal-monologued their justifications on top of that.
I'm trying not to just give everything a 3 simply because I still mostly enjoyed it. So, this gets 2.5.
Another book that gets the "I'm clearly too dumb to fully appreciate this" bump. It took me a long time to get through, even on audio. I set it aside a lot. The writing is very poetic and often abstract, and it jumps between times, places, and perspectives regularly. On audio, at least, some of these jumps are very disorienting and hard to follow. I think it's a very artful book, but I can't say I _enjoyed_ it.
The novel has a fascinating premise and it's very well-written but I feel like for a book dedicated to Christine Blaisey Ford, choosing to set this in the fifties really hamstrings the message. I know there are people who yearn for those days, but those people aren't reading this book. The misery of a much more overt and unashamed patriarchy (which has not gone away, but has found ways to rebrand into something more subtle and insidious) in the fifties is, it seems to me, pretty widely acknowledged. So much of the book hinges on that premise and I think it undercuts any timeliness, for me.
This is by no means a bad book. It's a good book—by some more artistic measure, it's certainly better than the rating I've given. But for me, a personal rating also accounts for impact and while I can see it hit a lot of people the right way, and I'm happy about that, it fell short for me.
Contains spoilers
I had kind of forgotten how the first one resolved so it took me a bit to catch up to events. Fun thriller. The twists and turns were fun, kept me guessing, and didn't usually feel cheap once revealed. I hope—expect?—there will be a third book that wraps up Sarah's arc. If I'm supposed to be satisfied that she just keeps getting away with it… I'm not. It's not that her adversaries are good, but she's, you know, also not good.
Pretty far outside my wheelhouse and the "spicy" scenes were prolonged and graphic, which I don't judge it's simply not what I read books for, but the relationship was absolutely charming and as a soccer fan I had a lot of fun with the setting—it's also clear the author is immersed in the woso world for a bunch of reasons, and that added to the authenticity. Very fun read.
Boy, people like to make fun of fantasy books for their emphasis on world-building but that's basically all that happened here. A simple scenario plays out with endless flashbacks explaining the life stories of everyone involved. Very literary, and certainly not _bad_ but it's funny to think about how this world-building is received in comparison to that of genre novels.
I didn't realize what I'd gotten myself into when I started this book, but honestly I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think the "spicy" parts, which I don't tend to read books for, flowed perfectly well from the non-spicy parts (unlike Iron Flame), and I found the plot engaging, the world interesting, the romance (again, not really my primary motivator to read a book) compelling-enough. The writing is fine, not excellent – a few phrases stick out and start to get annoying, but it's ok. I'll pick up the second at some point.
The first characters we're introduced to seem like the most obvious and ham-fisted "enemies to lovers" I've ever seen and I wondered what I was in for, but as the book goes on it gets stranger, less predictable, and frankly the writing gets better (and also stranger, at times). I would not have guessed, starting out, that I'd like this book any more than so much "is it YA, or isn't it?" fantasy I've read over the years. But by the end, I really liked it. Will pick up the sequel soon.
I think this reinforced a lot of my existing feelings about Facebook and Zuck and despite my disdain for hand-wringing about "echo chambers" I do have alarm bells going off off when I notice that type of thing is happening: am I receptive to this info because it's compelling and legitimate or because I want it to be true? I did not go in with any real preconception of Sandberg and her portrayal here was pretty shocking. Started out as a kind of "well I guess it makes sense that a powerful person behaves this way" but it gets worse and weirder as it goes on.
I intend to seek out some more info about some of the stuff in this book, but I will say very little in here seemed on its face to be unlikely to be true given other things I know or have heard—or if not "true" then at least an honest recollection of events.
This has been getting major marketing and though the cover had me interested right away I was a bit skeptical for that reason (that and it was presented in one store very closely connected to the now-poisoned HP franchise). But boy, I really enjoyed it. It's comfortable and built on a lot of tropes, but in a really nice way. The world felt distinct, and the characters were charming. The writing is smart and not at all cynical, and it's hard to write without cynicism and not come off as saccharine. Definitely recommend.
Lots of interesting stuff in this book. Oddly though the actual title of the book seems to be … not really the main thrust. The main thrust is all the things that need to be done; how those things are paid for seems to mostly be "it's not actually that important" and I think that's fair but it makes the book title kind of funny.
The synopsis had me really interested but I think this book has maybe made me realize I'm not as big on the "space opera" subgenre as I thought I was. The book has some of the trappings of "hard" sci-fi, but is really just a fantasy book with a coat of sci-fi paint. The technology is magic; the near-lightspeed travel – although I'm sure the author had it all worked out – definitely _felt_ squishy as far as what it meant for who was where, when. My order of interest went 1. Terrence, 2. Finn, ....10. whoever was in the palace intrigue subplot.
If I'm going to be reading a book like this, I want to care more about the individuals and I'm less excited by "fate of the universe" stuff. When the stakes get too high and the settings, tools, weapons all become too distant from the "real" world, I zone out. I can't get invested. Maybe paradoxically, this book felt to me at times too distant from anything I could relate to, and also too close to present-day humankind to be believable as 30,000 years in the future.
I didn't hate it. I liked some of the concepts that were toyed with, and at times I found myself rooting for characters. But I mostly found myself counting down until I could put it down and pick up something else.
Eh. It was fine. An attempt to examine prejudice without the baggage of existing prejudices; didn't really live up to that though. Just a kind of simple “ensemble cast”-style story of characters in this new world, none of whom particularly grabbed me. Didn't really lead up to much or have a noticeable climax. Just kind of happened. Writing style unremarkable, so it's not one of those literary “nothing happens but it happens beautifully” kind of books.
I didn't hate this. I really loved the way Collins ended the trilogy; it was so interesting and real, in a universe that wasn't very. So I was curious to see how she'd do Snow. I think the biggest issue I have is the pacing. The heel turn feels sudden and late, even if there are some smart breadcrumbs left along the whole journey. I also expected the heel turn to be in response to something but I think it was sly that it was basically always in him. He was never going to be anything else because of his basic flawed belief system. A lot of “banality of evil” stuff here. So I liked it overall but yeah I think it could've been better paced and while I thing Collin's is smarter than some of her “dystopian YA” peers about the things she writes about, I don't know that this one will stick with me too long, like the epilogue of the trilogy did.
I liked it but I'm not sure I liked it enough to read a second (or third). I think maybe just the whatever it is, Victorian? setting doesn't grab me. The magic hovered between system-based or even scientific, and mystical, and I kind of wish it would just pick a lane. And Marbur and Marlowe are so easy for my head to mix up, and then you add in that Jacob Marbur is nearly the classic Dickens name Jacob Marley...
Yeah. I liked it but didn't love it. Maybe I'll come back to the series in a while when this book has settled into my brain a bit.
I really enjoyed a lot of this book. The style is fun and smart; the way it kind of meandered into the main plot was interesting rather than insufferable, and somehow the very unavoidable presence of the author's voice (which often takes me out of a book) engaged me and kept me reading. But the actual plot of the book was actually kind of weak/straightforward and strangely concluded (what even was the “sleeper cell” the book is so bluntly named after?). Interesting and enjoyable read that was ... I don't know, a little bit of a mess in the end.