Daniel

Immaculate world building

Reviewed: 10-21-24

“What if the AIs don’t kill us? Maybe it will be the germs?”
How much will we sell freedom for safety? With hackers, corporations and oligarchs, and many tough choices

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Fun but just too much

Reviewed: 03-25-23

This book is jam-packed with a lot. A lot of back-stories, a lot of mythology. Much more than the book needs for the plot/plots. I do love a rich world-building, but the endless cavalcade of new arbitrary powers became exhausting.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Good mystery, main character is hard to like

Reviewed: 03-09-23

I nearly enjoyed this book; it had good twists and turns and really nice world-building, and some great supporting cast (The lawyer was a fabulous running gag), good red herrings and a nearly-supportable twist. The one thing I could not get over was that the main character was cruel. Because we can see her POV we know that there are reasons behind why she is mean to the people around her — sometimes she is mean because she really IS right and other people don't trust her, sometimes she is mean because she is acting out past trauma. The thing is, MOST of the characters in the book might have similar reasons for the way they behave; they might have trauma. They might have challenges. Tesla expects endless forbearance from strangers, but does not grant forbearance to anyone else — and she even admits that her money will shield her from consequences, while for everyone else their lives or careers are on the line, so she needs grace least of all. I'm not saying that all stories have to be "moral" in this way, but this is a friendly little mystery story. In those tales we do expect the just to prosper and the unjust to get their comeuppance. In this one, the worst miscreants are punished, but the next-worst miscreants thrive and the working schmucks are utterly crushed by the whims of aristocrats. Which harshed my mellow.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Tidily done brain stretcher

Reviewed: 02-12-23

I held off from buying this one for a while because some of the reviews suggested this was an unusually bad Tchaikovsky title particularly loaded with some kind of malevolent agenda. I'm happy that I pushed through despite it. It's a good title, and the reviews complaining about the preachiness are... confusing. The book depicts a bunch of civilisations and bunch of viewpoint characters. Some to better and worse than each other at navigating a hostile universe. All have flaws and strengths, and a depicted reasonably sympathetically, even the antagonists. If you want to read a "moral" into the story, it is that people, and civilizations, who can learn to work together despite their differences do better than those that backstab each other for selfish gain. I don't think this is a controversial message? If you want an antidote to that message you can certainly find books out there where there are goodies and there are baddies and it is the righteous duty of the goodies to crush and kill the irredeemable baddies. This book is not that.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

Surreal cosmic horror pastiche comedy of manners

Reviewed: 02-13-22

If Holmes’ secret antics were more criminal and slatternly, and projected onto a screaming dome of dead stars to be narrated by a buttoned down Victorian gentleman, that would be this book. The imagery is evocative, the characters entertaining and the plot secondary

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

1 person found this helpful

No but actually nothing happens

Reviewed: 07-29-21

I don't need every book to be full of explosions and dragons and lols and such; it could be a character-led story. This book has no characters, no comedy, no dragons, no explosions. A cozy mystery without a mystery? Jeeves without Wooster? I found it weirdly relaxing to hear the obsessively detailed recounting of e.g. a rich guy purchasing a car he does not care about especially, but I can't argue there was a plot. There were occasional intimations that possibly something awkward might happen, but they were all headed off by the actions of reasonable people behaving with bland competence. Bed-time reading for the frazzled, I think is the real target here.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

3 people found this helpful

Rich weird world building, slightly cheesy characters

Reviewed: 02-06-20

This is a visually rich fantasy world, if sometimes a little arbitrary. The characters though, and their canned one-liners grate after a while

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

I'm kinda hate listening to this

Reviewed: 11-18-19

This book is hard work because of the dull prose and jarring metaphors and thousands of minor factual errors (the book asserts that no one has 3 nipples, for example). It's written in the style of a clever sardonic parody, but lacks the critical content. Also it has not the flow or polish to pull it off even if it did.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

6 people found this helpful

Not my bag

Reviewed: 02-03-19

This is a tell-don't-show book with a lot of fiat and ex-machina plot devices moving some Flatpack characters about the universe and doing aggravatingly arbitrary things. Not my thing for active listening, but I did find it was soothing way of getting myself to sleep, so not all bad.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

Great first attempt but I ultimately didn't care.

Reviewed: 10-04-18

The author's first book! Amazing work for a first book, but didn't quite hit it home. Ultimately the protagonist's journey through arbitrary magical jiggery-pokery that seems to function by whatever rules made him have his next awkward introspective character development moment or the next pitched-battle set piece composed for the movie adaptation, and I stopped caring. I did listen to the end of the book while falling asleep a few nights and got through it, but I don't feel I missed much.
I will keep an eye on the author's next thing though, because there were some great ideas in here and some of the one-liners slouched toward hipness.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

2 people found this helpful