Juraj

I was postponing reading this book for years. Thought it was going to suck because it allegedly marks the end of an era where King was writing masterpieces. But to my surprise it was great. It didn't even feel overly long which is rare for me when it comes to King. Cujo was certainly much much worse and that one is much more popular with King hardcore fans for some reason. I guess the next book I read should be Cell in that case? :D

- “Think well on all the things we have not told you, and remember what you have not been shown.”- “I will.”

Is there anything that can describe this series better? I don't think there was ever an author who toyed with the reader more than Wolfe in this series. Steven Erikson is an amateur, dilettante, abecedarian, slacker, fraud in comparison. This series is really growing on me...

Boli by to tri hviezdičky, no na konci sa mi asi prvý krát u kotletovky objavila slza na tvári.
Dej bol moc naťahovaný, keby to spojil s Poločasom rozpadu do jedného 450 stranového románu, tak by to bolo oveľa lepšie. Poločas som hltal viac, než toto.
Jo a malo to asi najhoršie erotické scény aké som kedy čítal. Akože chápem, že je to brakovka, ale ešte aj Tomáš Kosek ich mal lepšie napísané, a to je už čo povedať.

Prvých 50 strán so sa bál či to nebude hovadina ako väčšina Koskovej série, ale potom nastal zvrat a odvtedy sa to len zlepšovalo až na unáhlený koniec - no ak mám byť úprimný, keby sa to ešte natiahne tak by ma to len štvalo.

Alica je v podstate na 95% plukovník a tých zvyšných 5% si praje byť ním alebo aby bol pri nej v danej situácii. No inak to byť ani nemohlo. A vďaka svojmu pohlaviu sa dostala do situácií, kam by sa plukovník nikdy nedostal.

Výborný záver série a navyše aj najlepší diel. Síce len o chlp v porovnaní s prvým Spádom, ale predsa.

Možno je to tým, že som predchádzajúci diel čítal hneď ako vyšiel, a teda som mal dlhšiu pauzu, no mám pocit, že autor si písanie tejto knihy priam vychutnával. Určite jeden z naj, ak nie rovno najlepší, román v sérii. Nielen čo sa týka príbehu, ale aj atmosféry. Hlavne pri vyvrcholení.
Mám však, ako asi mnohí, veľmi zmiešané pocity z Jaroša. Uvidíme ako sa to vyvinie, ale nemám dobrú predtuchu.

I'm a cat person and though I like dogs only a bit less than cats I think this book emphasized the stuff I value in cats and annoys me in dogs a lot. So I am probably a bit biased.

I was hyped for this. Genetically engineered bioforms made to listen to their masters. Without ethics, without conscience. But when the master is tried as a war criminal what happens to them? They're not animals but they aren't as smart as humans either. Or are they? Do they have rights? Are they weapons? Animals? People? Something else? This is what the description promises, this is what I heard on the Internet. And the execution of these existential questions sucks. Only one act out of five is really talking about it in depth. The real story is about Rex, a good dog turned bad. Or is it the other way around?

He's a bioform designed to infiltrate enemy territory and kill everyone his master deems as enemy. No second thoughts allowed, biochip in his head makes sure of it. Other bioforms help him - Honey (a bear), Dragon (a lizard) and Bees (...bees). Something goes wrong and they are freed from master's leash. These bioforms are half human, half animals with slightly different body structure (like human hands), except Bees who really is just bees. And now they have to decide what to do, how to survive.

This part of the book was the most engaging for me, however most chapters are from Rex's POV and by page 82 I was done reading about how he wants to be a good dog. The thing is, these bioforms were overdesigned. Some more than the others. The human creators had no idea what they've created. How smart they made Honey and Bees. Even Dragon is smarter than Rex but he's too lazy to care about anything. So imagine a scenario where three Einsteins are commanded by Forest Gump in war conflict. By page 82 I was hoping things change.

And they did. This was the end of first act and soon Rex miraculously jumped from 70 IQ points to 110 without any character development. It made the rest of his chapters much better but at the same time it wasn't earned. Tchaikovsky simply needed to make him smarter for the rest of the plot to work and so he did. But it's a smooth sailing almost to the end.

I say almost because, again, Tchaikovsky simply felt the need to tie the bow and loop all that happened to the beginning. And so there is a completely pointless few pages where a bad guy not unlike Rex's master shows up only to reveal he's not the real bad guy and there's something above him controlling the strings. And that something is so eyerollingly stupid I couldn't believe it.

This book has different structure than typical novel, it's telling Rex's life story, it didn't need to be cyclical tale like that and I actually can't imagine a more bland ending than this. I won't spoil it but I was ready to cry throughout most of the book because I thought this can end only one way. And then the reveals happen and I'm staring at the pages in disbelief. I think it was an attempt to make it more emotional. But it completely failed for me.

BUT! Now to my favorite parts: everything that has to do with Honey who's the real hero of the story in my opinion. You can sense since the beginning that she's much more than she pretends to be and that she tries to guide Rex to do correct decisions. [Redacted]'s chapters were also enjoyable, trying to figure out who [Redacted] is early on and then simply following [Redacted]'s plan. [Redacted]'s as much a puppeteer as Honey is. These two characters made the book for me and if it wasn't for the ending I would have given it 5*.

I know I bashed this book a lot but that's me. If a great book disappoints me I tear it apart more than a shitty book because of all the lost potential. The story was alright. It was a fast read and mostly enjoyable too. The premise is amazing but the ethical part of the story is underutilized and ending disappointed me. I guess I can't expect the same depth out of Tchaikovsky than out of authors like Erikson or P.K. Dick. Still great book I would recommend to everyone who is interested in this kind of sci-fi. Hopefully sequel will utilize this premise, this world Tchaikovsky created, better.

Best sci-fi book I've ever read. The only thing that's better is Malazan Book of the Fallen but that one's a fantasy. Erikson and Herbert have a lot in common and while Herbert's writing isn't perfect and is very dry, it's full of philosophy and life lessons. Just hold on for the first chapters, then the writing truly improves.

A masterpiece every sci-fi fan should read.

One of King's best stories.

Essays from the most grumpy and witty sci-fi writer (please excuse the moniker) of all time. The fun is guaranteed. Especially in the first essays and the last ones. It also depends how well you know people like Bob Silverberg or Steve McQueen and if you're as starstruck by them as Harlan is.

I might write a whole essay about this book of essays because there's so much content in it and it all deserves to be thoroughly reviewed but, alas, I don't have time nor will. They touch everything from racial tensions through how dumb movie studios are to video dating service.

Harlan says that his essay (eulogy) about his mother would make us weep but it's not so. What made me tear up, through laughing out loud, was the sweetest “love” letter to a friend I've ever read titled “Voe doe dee oh doe”. Harlan can, through all his bitterness and grumpiness, be just as big flatterer. His ex-wives would know... When I remember the part where Robert threw the first draft of Deathbird into the pool because it was “crap” I laugh even now. This essay along with the last one are my favorites from this collection.

True Love: Groping for the Holy Grail is essay about video dating service and Harlan's experience with it. I think it's the longest essay in the book and also the last. But, dammit, it's so well written! There's some sort of joke, wordplay, witty or sarcastic reference literally on every page and I snickered at almost every one of them while reading it on a bus. If you're familiar with his type of writing you understand what I mean. If you're not, well, you better start reading. I was also surprised by Harlan's positive attitude for such thing (even though it took some time for people to push him to try it and write this essay for L.A. Times).

I also want to mention one important thing. A sad one, really. Nothing has changed. The world has moved on but Hollywood stayed the same. One third of these essays is in one way or another connected to movie and television industry and it is obvious that the same type of dumb incompetent suits make decisions nowadays as did in the 70's and 80's. Nothing's changed, and maybe even got worse since we're now getting a flood of shitty remakes made only for brainless masses to consume. I have to applaud Harlan for having such patience with these guys (I mean it half sarcastically, half literally).

Definitely recommended read for fans of his work but also for people who want to see what the life was like 30-40 years ago in L.A.

Absolute classic and probably the most famous modern horror story collection.

Many stories are known on their own by this point but here are the ones I consider the best:
Jerusalem's Lot
Graveyard Shift
The Mangler
The Ledge
Quitters Inc.

A short novel about Hadrian's misunderstood(?) brother. It is well written, I actually enjoyed first 100 pages more than I enjoyed Empire of Silence because the book was showing how things have changed on Delos and third person narration was refreshing. But second half gets too predictable. Nevertheless, it was fascinating to see adult Crispin. He is perhaps... too likeable compared to what he was in EoS but maybe Hadrian had more influence on him than we thought.

He needs a therapy, though. This book takes place about 30 or even 40 years after Hadrian left Delos but Crispin still keeps thinking about him every chance he gets. I knew of father and mother issues, apparently Crispin has brother issues. If Hadrian wasn't mentioned so often I think it would only improve Crispin's story because it would have made him more independent.

I understand that the novel was written after EoS was sold but before it was published and so there was probably desire to connect it tighter to the main story but I really think it wasn't necessary to invoke his name in almost every chapter.

This book left me wondering what happened to Tchaikovsky in years after he wrote it.

I've read Children of Time trilogy and Dogs of War. None of these books had as rich and developed characters as Empire in Black and Gold. It's not even close. It's also a shame that he got famous only after CoT was released when this book is better than Time (not Ruin though which I loved).

I saw many people mention that this series is underrated - it is. There are flaws to which I will get but all in all this is excellent action packed novel set in a rich weird and original world with dozens of different races. Yet it's never a headache to keep track of stuff. Tchaikovsky does masterful work in exploring it and pumping the information in small bursts so that it's not overwhelming.

First few pages were slow and I was wondering if it is even for me (I'm not a fan of insect, kill it all except bees and maybe ants I say) but after first few chapters the story moves forward in rapid pace and what seems dull turns into Indiana Jones spy action flick with crazy runaways and colorful characters. I was also surprised to find out that this is not medieval fantasy but a steampunk one. They have airships, planes and walking(!) automobiles.

Long time ago people of this world made a pact with insects and other beasts and gained their features. Wasp, fly, moth, butterfly-kinden can fly, spider-kinden are born for politics and spying, beetle-kinden are heavier but more sturdy, mantis and ant-kinden make great soldiers, etc. Essentially they gained the stereotypical abilities you would easily think of. Some of these races (kinden) are apt, some are inapt. Apt people like ants or beetles are good with technology, inapt are not good with it at all. I'm talking your 90yo grandma trying to operate computer level. It's actually ridiculous that spider is not able to shoot a crossbow when shown how to. I think this is borderline immersion breaking because of how far Tchaikovsky took it but at the same time he manages to stay clear of these issues for most of the book. Inapt people like magic, though for the apt ones it's just superstition.

While I praised the characters at the beginning, the villain didn't work. He's suppose to be conflicted about the stuff he does “for the empire” but comes off like a joke towards the end because you already know that he won't do anything drastic like killing a character. He didn't even torture one of the main characters when he had several chances to do so and gain information. I already feel like he's going to turn against the imperial regime and take it down, again “for the empire”, or something like that.

This is Tchaikovsky's first novel so it's understandable that there was inconsistent stuff like that but I hope it improves as the series goes on because I really like what I'm seeing so far. I also think at least 150 pages could've been cut down because the rescue subplot in the middle of the book took too long, it was half of this book. While pacing was still fast I was just wishing it to be over, especially after the villain turned out to be so weak. This is the reason it's 4 and not 5 stars. The other half of the book was great.

I went into this deluxe omnibus edition almost blind. I read only the excerpt in Arcanum Unbounded. Based on the ratings I didn't have large expectations but I was looking forward to finally read it. After a year of waiting full of printing issues that this book had to go through I finally had it in my hands. Props to Dynamite for being so open about it and delivering top quality product in the end.

But once I started reading my disappointment started growing. The dialogues were bad. There was no characterization. Conversations continued “seemlessly” through time skips of days at least twice in the first volume. Didn't notice this later. I'm not talking about transitions but direct dialogues between characters.

Khriss was insufferable though her character improved towards the end. Instead Ais replaced her as one of the worst characters I've ever seen. I hated her inner dialogue. It was so cringe. It reminded me of Warbreaker which I used to consider by far the worst Cosmere novel. Well, now it has a companion.

I don't know if it was poor translation of a written novel into comics media or if the novel itself is this bad. But it simply didn't work. Whole story should've been reworked and properly adapted. I have a feeling they just took dialogues from the book and pasted them into text bubbles with little care for storytelling. Which suggests the book is bad too. There are deus ex machinas, it's simplistic, full of clichés and pseudo twists which you can easily guess.

When I first heard there will be omnibus of this series I couldn't wait and held off on purchasing the separate volumes. This book allegedly contains many improvements. Kriss's notes were cool and added explanations of how magic in this world works. I know that the prologue is also exclusive to this edition. But if anything else was improved I can't imagine the original. They should've spent the resources on redrawing the last chapter of volume 2 which is atrocious. Don't know the reason why it was done by different artist but the other two artists managed to capture the atmosphere quite well. This chapter was full of clinically clean low budget looking drawings which are also sadly present in many other comic books nowadays. No wonder everyone (including me) prefers manga.

There's a sequel teased at the end which I will certainly not touch if it ever comes out. I'm satisfied in getting through this book as I want to read everything in Cosmere but boy... Haven't been disappointed like this in a while. I recommend it only to the hardcore fans.

1922 - 5/5 - One of the best novellas he's written, also a great movie.

Big Driver - 3.5/5 - At first I was afraid where this one would go but the last third was interesting.

Fair Extension - 4.5/5 - I haven't read Needful Things yet but this feels like a little spin on the same subject.

A Good Marriage - 4/5 - I didn't buy husband's behavior when wife found out. Nevertheless it was thrilling.

Overall this book has a very accurate title. It's been a while since I read King but I think these all are among his darkest stories reminding me of his early work where he nailed the darkness in people and the gradual loss of sanity. It's all here too.
11/22/63 was released after this book and it's considered his return to form. I think Full Dark already showed that his talent hasn't gone anywhere, this book just went under the radar because it's not a novel.

Under the Weather - 1/5 - The twist is absolute garbage, it's 18 pages long and 17 are fluff about nothing. Not really counting it into the overall rating, though, as this is a short story exclusively added to paperback version I read.

This one's a bit odd. There is some great epic story woven in it but it's buried under poor story telling and decent characterization.

I liked Corwin but the whole amnesia thing was ridiculous. Not knowing who he is, he bluffed his way half way through this book with some insanely high stakes - his own life. It was done to explain how the world works as it's usual for characters with amnesia. But couldn't it be the other way around somehow? Like he would pretend he has amnesia but he really remembers everything? Or something like that.

Then there are the vague shadows and magic system which make little sense. Basically stuff is possible or impossible based on plot requirements. There are deus ex machinas as well.

I'm reading SF Masterworks edition and there were quite a few typos in the book which is odd since the book is more than 50 years old. You'd think they would've fixed it by now. There were letters missing or words contained typos. Once there were two sentences that repeated themselves with unique third sentence following. As if the draft wasn't edited and author forgot to cross one out. I don't know. So weird to see them in a modern printing of such old story.

But despite that I was intrigued enough to continue in hopes that this series will improve. This book is short enough that I'm willing to invest more of my reading time to this series.

Characters were interesting, this family drama upon which fate of the universe potentially lies. All of the characters are flawed in some way though I don't fully understand why everyone is suppose to dislike Random. Corwin makes for a good flawed, charming and selfish protagonist and given what he's against and his found love of humanity it's easy to sympathize with him.

If this book was aimed at 13yo kids in the 70's then it had fulfilled its purpose well but for today's standards it's out of date. Especially for adults. Which leaves me wondering if it's the 60 and 70 year olds of today that still sing praises for this series because they grew up with it. I can't fathom anyone giving this more than 3* unless it's out of nostalgia.

This is my first Wolfe novel outside of Book of the New Sun (which I loved). I was warned that rest of his works are mostly “crazier”.

I'm not sure what I've just read, though to be honest after the second part of the “novel” I expected even something more experimental.

The “novel” (Is it really a novel? I don't think so.) is split into three stories that are vaguely tied together. The Fifth Head of Cerberus is a story about a boy who discovers he's a clone of his father. ‘A Story' by John V. Marsch (this is the whole title) is about an alien? A human among aliens? Alien adopting human identity? In a desert. Talking to human spirit. Or the spirit thinks it used to be a human. It's full of dreams. I don't know... Don't make me read it again.

The third story is called V.R.T. and it's the longest and probably the most standard one of them all, written mostly in diary entries of a political prisoner, and frankly what saved the book from getting worse rating. I actually enjoyed this one. With the other two I got lost sometimes, in ‘A Story' I was lost basically all the time.

I think there was some criticism of colonialism, exploration of identity and I guess satire of big government though with this one I'm not so sure because it wasn't as much satirization as accurate depiction of socialist government in Eastern Europe. Plumber one day, horseshoe maker another, high government security official the next. Prisoner rotting in a cell because both execution and release would be politically inconvenient. Seems about right.

I'm sure Alzabo Soup Podcast will explain “everything”. My favorite quote from The Sword of the Lictor comes to mind: “Think well on all the things we have not told you, and remember what you have not been shown.”

I will.

Looks like the first book was the odd one out. The Sailor on the Seas of Fate is as good as The Fortress of the Pearl although it's three short stories tied together by sea faring theme and immediately following each other, rather than one longer story.

I really wish I got into this series as teenager because I would've loved it as much as any passionate Elric fan. Almost in my 30's, it's still a solid read that aged quite well thanks to it's high fantasy theme. If it wasn't for the accusation that Sapkowski plagiarized Moorcock in The Witcher saga I wouldn't even have touched this series.

The whole story except for the ending is exactly the same as in movie adaptation - which I didn't like much. It's a solid story, although maybe a little predictable. The thing that pissed me off most is that some of the characters flat out refused to believe their own eyes. King explains it by their realities being shattered but I still couldn't get my head around it. It's just ridiculous.
The characters are bland and there's nothing that surprised me.
If you're thinking about reading it, just watch the movie. It'll save you time. I'm usually not the guy who's satisfied with movie adaptations of books but this is an exception.
I had struggled with this novella several times before and just now made myself finally finish it, since it's part of Skeleton Crew and I finally wanted to read these short stories.

It's a masterpiece and everything about it has been said at least a thousand times. Maybe except one thing - you want to tell me that humankind still uses imperial units 25 000 years in the future instead of metric system?! We deserve the dark era, then!

When I went to put this book to my reading list I saw all the one and two star reviews and started to wonder if this book is actually as good as advertised. Well... it's not. I would even like to give it one star but I stopped myself and thought about it. Because if I gave this one star, what would 50 Shades deserve then? This isn't as bad. So two stars it is even though Goodreads' description of two stars doesn't fit it. It wasn't “ok”.

The story about a man and his son. No names, no details. They wander through a grey post-apocalyptic wasteland trying to survive and get to the shore where they hope to find some community. It's a long road though. 300 pages long. Luckily, the font is really big and in terms of normal books it would be 150 pages. But even that felt too long.

The book is weird in that it's not a typical story with opening, middle and end. It's the same thing over and over again. No character development, just some minor events of little consequence that help them survive and fill the pages. It's a mirror to the world where nothing lives and sky is always grey. It's written in a way where it could be 1000 pages long and it wouldn't change a damn thing about the characters. Thank god it's not because I wouldn't have finished it then.

One of my major issues is the boy. Even though he was completely raised in the post-apocalyptic world by his father he still acts like a spoiled brat who was thrown into this scenario after years of comfortable family life. That's atrocious writing. That's not how someone who only experienced dark world like would behave. A kid like that wouldn't question morality. “Are we the good guys? Are we the good guys?” Oh, shut up! Look at the instances where kids in real world were rid of their childhoods. That's not how they act! I guess his behaviour should've brought up compassion in the reader and we should pitty him in such situation. But I felt the exact opposite. This is about survival and that dumb kid only annoyed me by his pleads.

Other thing that I found annoying is the way the dialogues are written. No quotation marks which can be annoying as hell. But that is topped by the actual dialogues of which one third comprises of repeating what the previous person had said. Sometimes in different order of words or with added “yes” or “no�� at the beginning. A kindergartener can write better.

Is it on purpose? No doubt. But it's incredibly stupid. Just as the whole book. There is something beneath the surface but the surface itself is so poorly crafted I barely bothered to think about the deeper stuff. That's not a sign of a great book or a great author. It's exact opposite and it's beyond me why McCarthy gets the praise he does.

If you want to know more just save time and watch the movie. I watched it 5+ years ago and barely remember it but the impression it left was definitely better than this book. I think it's very faithful to it so you won't miss much anyway.

3.5 stars. Saw the twist the moment she sniffed garlic. Did not like the ending, though I have to admit it fits well with the story. The dog... did not expect that, especially since he had him since the beginning in 00's movie adaptation if I remember correctly.

Overall I missed some more introspection. It was well written but it was missing soul. That may be on purpose as main character thinks he's the last man on Earth and so loses his humanity in drunken horny stupor but I do think that contemporary authors would enhance the story with some psychological stuff and make the characters deeper, their decisions more impactful.

Sanderson creates amazing worlds. His inner dialogues and the humanity of the characters is almost unmatched. You can really believe they're real. The uncertainties, decisions, failures, feelings, successes... All of it is believable and compelling.

However, here's the catch with this series. It's a young adult fantasy. I wasn't aware of this when I bought the trilogy. All I knew was that it's an awesome series set in a huge universe of so called Cosmere with a unique magical system. I was intrigued. I believed Sanderson to be one of the greatest fantasy authors of this era. I still believe it, I'm just a bit disappointed.

Luckily, it's not like Hunger Games. The YA aspects are very carefully laid through the book and they more than less don't stand in the way of the real story. But that's probably part of the problem. They don't even feel necessary here!

The Final Empire had only Elend and the love plot was... alright. But here we have annoying love triangle that actually isn't even a triangle. It is stretched throughout half of the book, not all of it, which is good, but I still feel like the story would have been better without it.

The main plot is about a siege of Luthadel. Some may not like it because it's kind of dragging but I enjoyed it. It's not as compelling as the plot of Final Empire but it has its moments. However, some aspects don't feel thought through and seem a bit naive. Maybe I'm being too harsh with it. I don't know. Maybe it was really aimed for younger audience and I, as a more experienced reader, am giving it a hard time.
Nevertheless, I think Sanderson polished his craft and wrote the characters even better than in its prequel and that's why this book gets 4 stars instead of three. The YA aspect could've been way worse than it was.

Rendezvous with Rama but with actual characters and on an object of unimaginable scale? Sign me up!

The claim is not false, it is similar in certain ways to Rama. But in other ways it very much reminded me of Hitchhiker's Guide with its humor and characters. Perhaps Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle too (it's been a while though) because the humor was also smart and subtle. The book never went into absurd in a way where it would break the immersion like Douglas or Vonnegut did, though. However, what nonsense there was, was to its detriment.

Unlike Clarke, Niven is also good character writer and I will remember most of this crew very fondly. Especially Speaker was funny and terrifying at the same time. I liked every character except for Teela and, sadly, the whole book revolves around her.

Speaker and Nessus were amazing aliens and Louis great main character. Chemistry between them was amazing and dialogues witty but when you introduce Mary Sue everything starts falling apart like those hovering skyscrapers. And in this case she was Mary Sue on purpose. It's actually hinted at right at the beginning, even before their journey begins. It has to do with purpose of their journey in a way. Characters figure it out towards the end so I won't spoil it. What I will say is that the story did not need this plot and without it I would love this book even more.

While I find the idea of a story like this incredibly attractive, it did not work for me because I was here for the Ringworld. To see how Louis and Speaker get along with each other. To awe at the scale of the world. Not to see absurd albeit entertaining events happen one after another with lazy explanations. Simply put, I wanted it to be more grounded in reality.

The scale... let's talk about it for a minute. Rama was vast and wonderous, it's what I love about that book the most. Ringworld on the other hand is so huge I fail to imagine it. Just like Louis I struggle with the scale because humans have simply never seen anything like it. One ocean on Ringworld could swallow entire planet Earth and probably Mercury on top of it. It's insane. It's amazing. But the scale works to the book's detriment for me. It's simply too vast to be awestruck too much and so I wasn't. It will not burn its place in my brain like Rama did although I still find it incredible. Perhaps someone will bring it justice on the big screen one day, though I don't see that happening any time soon.

It is one of the best sci-fi novels I've ever read and it's a big shame it does not reach the highest highs. I was tempted to give it four stars, it would most likely end up as 4.5 if I could give it that. Four stars are unfair to this book, though. I'm thinking of continuing Ringworld series but from what I heard it only goes downhill from here and the ending was sort of sufficient.

First two issues didn't awe me at all but after the things got moving, got tense, it was awesome. Artwork is amazing and the story is heartbreaking. At first I had no idea how they were gonna justify Logan not using his claws even against the worst of the worst but once he explained it it made sense. One of the best comic books out there, though I hoped they would explain Hulk's history a bit more.
Some people say it's impossible to make this to movie without Hulk. I disagree. I don't even think we need Logan's family in the movie. From the trailer it's obvious his family's gonna be Professor X and X-23.

By far the worst book in the trilogy, playing at some intricate story about nature of consciousness and what differentiates sentient being from non-sentient - but we get that only at the end.

I didn't have any expectations for this book. I knew it was different from first two and not as popular but I didn't expect this.

I guessed what's going on the moment Liff met the “Witch”. It's a simulation. :/ Admittedly, it was humorous that Tchaikovsky turned “that” character into a role like this but he also made her even more annoying than ever before. Allegedly she's not suppose to have feelings but disdain, anger and frustration were present in every single dialogue she had. So which is it? Because it's outright stated in the book that she no longer dabbles with emotions. And if she wasn't so full of herself this story could've been shorter.

It was so annoying to go through hundreds of pages of deliberately keeping the twist secret. Not knowing properly what's going on and why, jumping through realities/time periods. Don't get me wrong, I love a puzzle. Malazan is my favorite book series ever. But it needs to be done well. There need to be crumbs left on the ground (pun intended) for it to work. For me to return to previous chapters after twist is finally shown and have the “aha” moment, seeing the puzzle pieces spread throughout the book. The First Law did this brilliantly with Bayaz and Jezal. Here it's simultaneously completely obfuscated and banging your head on the wall with the solution. Which you probably already have guessed 100 pages in.

Setting is boring compared to previous books. It takes place on another world that humans with small h tried to colonize as last resort after Earth fell. There are no interesting aliens as focus of the story, although we are introduced to Corvids which are sentient ravens and our new allies. Although they would argue they are not sentient. And that nor are we. I enjoyed those few philosophizing pages.

It's a wild west mixed with fairy tale. Did not work for the book. At all. Main character from the planet Liff is 12 yo kid through whose eyes we see the world. And world makes no sense. It's explained why. It doesn't mean I liked it. It's a jumbled mix of various scenarios that lead nowhere.

I would really want to know how this story came to be. If Children was sold as trilogy and Tchaikovsky planned this story from the get go, if he had no idea what to write the third book about and this is how it ended, if it was originally a novella and he inflated it (as 120 pages long novella this would've worked so much better!), or if he just had an idea about witch tales and Groundhog Day and decided to put it into this world.

The series ends on huge disappointment. There were so many directions this series could've gone instead and the very last page of Ruin hinted at it. It's post-scarcity hard sci-fi about alliance between several sentient species and we got a fraking medieval village story with witches!

And two more things. What was the point of simulation always ending with Miranda at the gallows? If simulation wasn't hostile to her why did she always end up dead in the most gruesome spectacular way imaginable? It's not explained at all. "Simulation just doesn't work with hostile presence." That is until it does... by miraculously figuring out completely alien millions of years old simulation engine and giving characters "admin" privileges. All off screen, of course...