Grant
Oh what to say about mordew. There were a ton of cool and unique ideas in this book. Unfortunately about 80% of them are in the 200 page glossary at the back of the book. The “world building” in this book is virtually nonexistant and the pacing is all over the place. I havent read such a passive main character in a LONG time and boy does nathan do nothing but be influenced by whoever is nearest him at the current moment in time. Its unclear what if anything he stands for and you spend the entirety of the book watching him be manipulated by countless different figures for no seeming purposes at all. The first 3/4 of the book drag along painfully slow and then all of the sudden the whole world crashes down in their revolt and nathan ends up trapped. I had high hopes for this book but it was unfortunately so bad I cant even stomach the idea of continuing the series and Im amazed i didnt DNF this book
4.5, I loved the new cast of characters introduced in book number 2. Senkovi in particular was hilarious and an excellent portrayal of the genius scientist who never stopped to ask if he should but only if he could and the effects are incredible. Once again the portrayal of the manner in which a different species might think/perceive the world if they developed sentience was fascinating. It was even more well done in this case since the octopi manner of thinking is much more alien than the portids. Fascinating to experience. Also the alien life/parasite on nod was truly horrifying at first which was not a feeling i was expecting going into this book. Only reason its not 5 stars is i think the ending wrap up of everything with the alien parasite was a little too clean cut and simple. I find it hard to believe that this alien parasite can simply be talked out of taking over the universe but it does make some sense within the context of their storyline. Still too simple and clean for me but im not mad enough about it to ding it more than half a star.
Very fun read! Wonderful exploration into theoretical evolution and I thought the differences in perspective of spiders vs humans was fascinating. Wish it had been explored more but overall very good book.
Not worth the read. Makes some interesting expansion upon the original trilogy but the writing is nowhere near as good and honestly the overall story is better off without it in this case
Not the worst mystery thriller out there but certainly nowhere near the best. Very naive and dumb characters with a lot of irritating decisions from them. A ton of needless “plot” filler just to confused and eat up book pages. There was no need for delilah fake out except for to delay the “big” reveal that it was bee all along. I'd say more but honestly this book isn't worth the time to write a serious review. Mid at best, don't waste your time
Book 4 of the stormlight series. It was definitely solid, but my least favorite of the bunch so far. Part 1/2 of this book felt like just a do-over of the first book with shallan collapsing again mentally and then going on another healing journey which i found to be rather repetitive especially given how much progress she had made in the previous books. I get thats kinda the point that healing isnt always a linear journey but still fell a little flat for me. That might be due to the pace of the first third of the book which was rather slow and a lot of nothing happened. Once they set out for the shadesmar journey though things got interesting. I thoroughly enjoyed Adolin and Mayas revelations throughout the trial by the honorspren and we continue to learn more and more fascinating things about this world and its history. Venli also had a very compelling journey of her own as did Rlain. I LOVE the fact that Rlain turns down an offered honorspren since that only serves to reiterate the way he is viewed by the world (pitied/outcasted/etc) and he fully deserves what he ends up getting in the end. Speaking of which my boy Brandon sticks to his guns and man does he know how to write an ending!! Kaladin doing kaladin things but finally learning how to accept the grief of friends who have died was so amazing. Taravangian stealing odiums power and then taking Wits memories so he doesnt realize what happened to rayse sets up an incredible mystery that i cant wait to see picked apart in the bext book. Im also glad they didnt force kaladin into the champion role as i think that would have been a bit of a cop out. Very curious to see the resukts of this contract and how a much smarter taravangian will wriggle his way out of it. My guess is that the nightwatcher will end up spilling the beans on what happened to him as he goes out of control with the power he suddenly now holds but we shall see. cannot wait to start the fifth and final one of this part!!
Phenomenal book. I loved the exploration of Dalinar's backstory/lore as well as the unraveling of the mysteries of the voidbringers and unmade. Very fun read and it was nice change of pace to not have kaladin save the day by sleaking tbe words once again
This book is a fantastic exploration of the idea of conciousness and what it means to be human. While the many plot lines are confusing and seemingly disjointed at first the way they end up tieing together really emphasizes a lot of my main takeaways from this narrative. The connection of humans, what it truly means to connect and the importance of trying to do so. There are many fascinating conversations with evrim and the supporting cast about the nature of humanity and the way we would handle discovering a new form of consciousness. Definitely will be returning for a reread to try and unpack even more of the rich ideas that these characters bring forth. Can not recommend this book highly enough!
Wow wow wow, what an incredible book. The magic system of language is so clever and creative, easily one of my favorites I've ever read. Admittedly I did get a little bored in the middle section of their first years at babel but once the trip to China happened this book took off and never looked back. I loved the cast of characters, the problems they faced, the solutions they came to and the parallels this book has to so much going on in current day society. The incredibly powerful themes of colonialism, capitalism, racism, sexism and any other -ism you can think of are done so well that no review I can write will do this book justice. The pain and yet completely obvious betrayal from letty, so so many deaths of the overlooked and underappreciated students/translators, the strength to stick with a relaistic end to this protest instead of simply finding a conflict-free resolution makes the ending such a powerfully poingant and inspiring ending that few other books have accomplished
You simply must just read it for yourself.
I will come back to say more but wow. Just wow. The journeys and growth that these characters go on is so damn inspiring. Incredible read. Best book in the series imo
This was an interesting one. On the one hand I always love exploring cool new magic worlds/systems. On the other hand I felt that we didn't actually get to see them doing much magic. There was a lot of explaining stuff that had already happened. In a similar vein, I enjoyed a lot of the characters but bouncing around between 6 different perspectives on such a short book meant you never got the chance to spend any meaningful time with them. In the end it meant not feeling particularly strong connections to any one or what was happening. Which is another complaint of mine, this book spends a LOT of time doing seemingly nothing of note outside of “exploring” the society which turns up a whole lot of nothing. The book does finally get going once Libby is abducted and we finally learn things through ezras chapter. Its enough of an effort to get me excited about the next books in this series but comes at a detriment for this books rating
Qualifying note: I did listen to this instead of reading it. Not that I think that makes any real difference in this case but alas.
This book is AWFUL. There are a gazillion mentions of masks and covid and two seconds spent on plot. There are somehow no meaningful storylines going on and too many storylines going on. It is an absolute mess and holly is a terrible detective. She is consistently infuriating and hypocritical. I never read the previous books so I didn't have any real background on her before but my god she was insufferable. She would never shut up about covid yet was seemingly perfectly fine staying in motel after motel without any stress. The ending of this book really encapsulates all of her problems with the fact that she repeatedly claims to know better and to not “hide behind the chainsaws” yet she does so the moment the opportunity presents itself. Even if you were concerned about not telling anybody before hand in case you were wrong and looked stupid set up a god damn scheduled send email in case something goes wrong and even you are wrong you can still stop the send before it goes out. She is just incredibly stupid and incredibly lucky and the book tries to paint her as some kind of genius detective. I wont even get into the whole shit with barbara and her stupid poetry side plot. Literally only in the book so she can somehow piece the story together and go save holly when holly is dumb enough to get herself caught. If holly had any brain cells she would not have been caught and barbaras story would not be needed which takes up an insane amount of the ending of the book. Now for actual plot the story starts off exciting and mysterious but reveals WAY too early what the harrises were up to with their whole cannibal shit. Which just made the rest of the book dragggggg not to mention the whole notion of eating the young to regain youth is not particularly original or clever. I could not recommend this book less. Never read it. Ever.
The continuation of themes and character growth from book one of this series is incredible. Shallan really shines in this book and the growth kaladin experienced as well was remarkable, realistic and riveting to witness. You truly develop such strong bonds with all these characters since they are so deep and complex. Incredible work
Brutal ending to a great series. I found raul to be incredibly annoying and boring. Very unconvincing love story for a book who tries to argue that love is a universal energy force was quite disappointing. Tons of unnecessary info/characters that just muddled up the plot and took time away from good characters like de soya. I always hate the fake-out death and although this technically doesnt count as a real fake out in practice it 100% is and ruins a lot of the ending scene. The shrike is reduced from the cool mythical being of the first books to an ex machina anytime the plot needs it. My list of frustrations could go on for a while. I'll give it a 2.5 since there were some interesting themes/characters/scenes sprinkled amongst the mix but my god are they few and far between in this book. Also they did my boy A. Bettik a disservice in this book.
This book was absolutely fantastic. A masterclass in world building and creating complex characters. The themes they grapple with and discussions they have are very intriguing and thought provoking. I particularly enjoyed kaladin and dalinars journeys/thoughts/reflections on the nature of war, battle, “otherness” and a number of other topics. Could not recommend this book highly enough
The dune series has quickly become my favorite series of all time and I am devastated that it had to end without the final planned entry into this second trilogy. That said it is still absolutely worth the read. The expansion upon the original cast of characters and universe continually astounds me and makes reading each book a delight
Incredible world building and exploration of really complex and interesting science. Thoroughly enjoyed all of that across the whole series. I think his character development/depth could certainly be improved, especially in regards to his female characters.
Delightful read! Very quick but lots of fun. The idea of an “expendable” is very clever and a lot of fun. I wish they had spent more time musing on the philosophical implications of Mickeys life but I dont think thats really the point of this book. Its a fun little space adventure with a jovial (at times) main character that is a lot of fun to watch go through all the countless struggles of space/colony life. The science was very accurate too which is always a nice plus!
A disappointing end to an otherwise great series. I always dislike it when you read a whole story and then it hits you with the “and it was a dream” type trope and the simulation machine of this came way too close to that for my taste. It was just an extremely confusing read for the first 400 pages and then suddenly revealed it was a simulation machine and had some level of discussion on the idea of sentience/conciousness for the final 50 pages which was interesting but not nearly enough to get any sense of satisfaction from. Very frustrating when there was a LOT of potential for these topics with the whole kern turned robot perspective, the communal parasite perspective and the eventual simulation turned real liff perspective there were so many different and unique characters that could have had a lot to say about those main themes but they were almost completely wasted in the mess of the setup of the “colony”.