The madman, the prophet, Karl Glogauer, the time-traveller, the neurotic psychiatrist manqué, the searcher for meaning, the masochist, the man with a death-wish and the messiah-complex, the anachronism, made his way through the market place gasping for breath.He had seen the man he had sought. He had seen Jesus, the son of Mary and Joseph.He had seen a man he recognized without any doubt as a congenital imbecile.
I wasn't expecting much from this novella at all. I wasn't in the mood to continue reading other stuff so I picked this off the shelf as it's quite short. Boy, was I not expecting it to be this good. Best comparison I can come up with is that one of the characters out of Milan Kundera's books travelled through time to meet Jesus.
Karl is extremely flawed narcissist drowning in toxic relationships and with nothing left to lose. So he decides to be guinea pig and gets stuck in the past one year before Jesus' crucifixion. But things aren't as they are suppose to be. Book description hints at it, it's obvious almost since the beginning. He needs to arrange historical events as they are remembered (more or less) because the real Jesus is not there to do it.
Karl's life is brutal but at the same time it's a dark comedy. Parts from Jesus' era are alternating with Karl's past in the 20th century. His childhood, adolescence and adulthood. His parents, his relationships with women. All mixed together with a few Bible quotes from apostles.
Some parts reminded me of Kundera's Immortality in their rawness and brutality that only life can bring and only a talented author can describe this well. The book definitely isn't for everyone. Hell, I dislike organized religion, think the notion of God as western religions see him makes no sense. And yet I absolutely loved this book because it's not about God. Not at all. It's about Man. A selfish flawed neurotic Man with messiah-complex. This is what surprised me the most. It's not shallow, it goes deep into Man's soul.
I've only read two of Elric's books so I did not expect Moorcock to be this great of a writer. I need to check more of his works. The guy wrote like crazy. He released 7 (S E V E N !) novels in 1976 on top of two edited collections. Even if all of them were as short as this book the number is insane. And it's not like he stopped before or after. Some authors should get inspired...
Tolkienesque sword & sorcery fantasy that wants to be original, spin some of the tropes around and utterly fails at it. What happened to the villain at the end even makes me want to lower the score but overall part three of the story was good so let's agree on “healthy” “middle” - 2/5*
What a wasted potential compared to Gyo and Uzumaki. It was his first series so I get that it's not as terrifying but it's the same scenario of Tomie seducing men who'll love her so much they'll kill her. There is some variety to the formula but nothing witty like her trying to seduce a gay man or maybe meeting another demonic being and clashing with it. It's just her being killed over and over again. There are two really gruesome episodes but the rest is almost like a regular manga series with a bit of blood and body horror.
Promising but with poor characterization, deus ex machinas and dialogues continuing seamlessly after time skips. Khriss is annoying and I learned that she is a worldhopper... why?
A little bit of Narnia here, a bit of Carl Jung there but most of all a big chunk of real life myths...
One of the most original fantasy novels I've read when it comes to world building. A secret realm is one of the common tropes but I've never seen it done in this way. It's basically our world but some of the forests are sort of magical. So old that time itself warps. So old that ice age has never ended there. So old that these forests have their own will. Mythago Wood is one of them and we explore it in this tale of two brothers - Steven and Christian.
The novel is split into three acts and act two was the best in my opinion. The beginning intrigued me but I wanted to kind of move on to “the good stuff”. We just scratch the surface there, don't even enter the forest proper. Then there's a lovely romance of act two that is fated to not end well - not a spoiler they say it outright. This was my favorite part of the book. Very lovely. I'm not into romances but this worked well for me.
I was looking forward to the third and longest act as we finally go explore the forest but unfortunately it dragged too long. There was a moment where main character does a dumb thing which leads to low key action scene just for the sake of something actually happening. It took me three days to read the last 50 pages. The ending also isn't done that well. The conclusion with the villain was very disappointing. I don't know what the author was aiming for. There are some Christian themes (pun intended) but then Holdstock subverts readers' expectations in one of the worst ways possible. I think I'm too dumb to understand what he aimed for maybe? Not read well enough in classic literature or myths? I don't know...
I do feel that if there were multiple POVs or if it was written in third person instead of first, the novel would benefit. The prose felt a bit sterile. Maybe it's to do with Czech translation. The entire series is not available in physical form in English language at the moment so I broke my rule and read it translated as Czech publisher is releasing the whole series in pretty nice illustrated hardcover edition.
Nevertheless, the book as a whole is definitely worth a read and Holdstock deserves a bit more fame for what he had created here. I hope he expands the world in later novels as it was a bit underutilized here. A brief walk through the expanse that is out there. From what I read the best is yet to come in Lavondyss. I'm also pretty sure that without Mythago Wood there would be no American Gods. Gaiman even wrote the introduction for this novel as Holdstock's friend and fan.
Hope's End - 4/5 - View into Tamas's earlier days and into how he treated his soldiers.
The Girl of Hrusch Avenue - 5/5 - How Vlora met Taniel and got adopted by Tamas, best story in the collection without doubt.
Green-Eyed Vipers - 2/5 - Worst story in the collection without doubt. Thankfully, also the shortest. Tamas's revenge on the woman who betrayed his wife and told Kez her whereabouts to get her killed and get Tamas for herself. Utterly ridiculous.
The Face in the Window - 4/5 - How Taniel met Ka-Poel, the beginning of his Fatrastan story. No two shot stuff yet, though. I was surprised to find out he hasn't killed anyone nor was in a real battle before this. Thought he had something behind him before he joined the resistence.
Return to Honor - 3/5 - Vlora hunts down Charlemund's guardsman who has intel on Adran army positions and supplies which might be handy for Kez. A filler that explains a little better that “romance” in Crimson Campaign between Vlora and Olem.
I found it too preachy but nevertheless fun spoof that boldly goes where no...
Anyway, society full of hippies would turn into a suicidal sex cult. That's all I wanted to say here. It is known. ;)
Truth and courage!
Great conclusion to this series but I was drained by the end. The pacing is so fast and action almost never stops to a point where it was detrimental to my enjoyment.
The ending is great, I enjoyed the last 50 or so pages but there are multiple chapters for, I think, every single POV where you think the pay off will come but it doesn't. Almost every revenge happens in the last 100 pages with exception of one certain subplot conclusion that takes place right at the beginning and was very very enjoyable. :)
You think the hero will get his revenge and then the villain escapes and escapes again until the very end when there's nowhere left to run and finally we get one pay-off after another. Which I also think dulls them all since they're all so close together. But there wasn't any real fuck up, no dumb plot twist, other then these revenge subplots. The story was actually the most predictable except for Malice.
It's a great wrap up to now one of my all time favorite series and if you don't cry at a certain moment at the end your heart's more rotten than Kadoshim's.
My rating for the whole series:
Ruin > Valor = Wrath > Malice
Valor and Wrath are basically opposites of each other, one is all setup the other all pay-off but the enjoyment was about the same. One day I'll re-read Malice to catch all the foreshadowing and see the characters grow into the heroes they become later.
And one more thing:
Why didn't Calidus turn everyone into Kadoshim like at the end of Valor? I think I remember correctly that all he needed was the caldron and two other treasures. Why not reinforce his army when most Kadoshim died or were with the kings to protect them. Meanwhile he had thousands of soldiers he could've turned into new ones and become unstoppable. Did I just answer my question? Is it really such a jarring plot hole?
It was a damn good thrill ride but I guessed the entire plot half-way through the first chapter. On top of that it gets weaker in the middle when they are getting into ridiculous situations - although it's well explained why later on.
Re-read value is low but I definitely recommend this book. I'm really tempted to give it five stars despite all of that but the plot was extremely predictable and situations were getting ridiculous for the sake of drama and thrill all the time. While it adds to the pacing it takes from immersion.
I say:
“I also consider.
Writing like this...
Cheating.
To extend...
The page count.”
This book is a mess. On one hand it is full of amazing ideas. On the other hand the execution (writing and explanation) is lacking sense of reality. I was hooked the entire second half of this book but to experience the cosmic horror I had to force myself through the boring first half.
Book is split into three parts and it also felt like the first part was translated by someone else or at least long before the other two. Prose was dry and boring. It may be that it was actually Liu Cixin who wrote it that way but even then a great translator could make it better.
And then there's the weird stuff. Like half an hour long detour about how author's made up characters can get lives of their own in author's mind. It was a slow 90° turn from the story coming out of nothing and ridiculous. Would be a great short story, though. I had a feeling that it was crucial for the later part in the book and I was right. But nevertheless it was weird and the romance could have been written differently, better, less silly.
Da Shi had to be abducted and replaced by a clone because he's nothing like Da Shi in the first book. While I never liked him his cynicism seems to have gone away and that was the only interesting thing about him.
Some of the ideas here are truly astonishing. But I find it hard to believe that politicians are this... naive? Selfless? Uncorrupted?
All of the above. I guess a Chinese author needs to have certain perspective otherwise he won't get published. There was much less CCP propaganda here but it was still present in unnecessary details like asking to create a Wallfacer base in the same spot CCP used to push back Nationalists. That's like a hero of German novel taking place in 2200 would ask to use Hitler's bunker because it was Hitler's and somehow that was a cool nostalgic thing to do.
My biggest pet peeve is that people here aren't people, they're tools to tell the pseudo-scientific ideas that make up the foundation of this series. Boy does the Dark Forest as solution to Fermi's paradox scare me. But the behavior of people, especially the escapists, often doesn't make sense. They are two dimensional embodiments of their ideas instead of fully developed three dimensional characters. This also made it difficult to get through the part one of the book.
But from then on it only got better and better despite the characters because the ideas finally started to develop and author handled them exceptionally well towards the end (except the ending). To get into them is to spoil stuff. But I was promised cosmic horror and I got it in one of the best forms I've come across.
Shame the ending was weird and hasty. Suddenly everything changes just like that? When I think about it it sure is possible. But it would require more than five pages for me to be okay with this conclusion. It's too simplistic. And that's the case with everything that doesn't work in this book. Either it's waved by a hand simple and therefore takes me out of immersion or it's incredibly thought through and makes me happy I did not give up on this series.
I'd love to give this book 5 stars but I can't because of the first slow half and the ending. But second half is solid 5/5.
Two stars out of respect for worse things I've read. Admittedly it's not one star bad but it's so annoyingly written with those dumb names my finger itches hovering on the worst rating.
I was told this was an extraordinary collection of short stories. The reviews here and the appraisal on the cover and inside the book all say so. But this book was instead a huge dissapointment.
This isn't a collection of horror stories. Mostly... There are some at the beginning but it's more of a collection of weird stories. Period.
Most of them aren't even that much interesting. I'd compare this book to King's Skeleton Crew - mostly a collection of writing exercises that somehow got at least 20 pages long.
Of course, there are some good stories here but if I don't count the first one “Best New Horror” I had to wait for them till the end of the book.
“The Widow's Breakfast” “The Last Breath” and “Bobby Conroy Comes Back From The Dead” are probably the best ones. But not because of their story but because of their characters. Joe Hill once again proves that if he wants to, he can create very relatable characters in both extraordinary and, as Bobby proves, also ordinary situations.
Most of the short stories weren't interesting and bored me, though.
P.S: If you're bigger insectophobic than me, feel free to skip “You Will Hear The Locusts Sing”. It's a horror version of Kafka's Metamorphosis and the toughest read I've ever experienced:)
Lovecraftian Eldritch horror that serves as prequel to ‘Salem's Lot. Very atmospheric and written in old style of prose in form of letters/diary entries. As a standalone excellent short story, as prequel to the novel not so much. Ruins the mystery. I'm not sure about publication order, if novel was first or not, but I kind of wish the origin story was either never told or it was something more akin to Midnight Mass TV show. Not this family knot tied to Jerusalem's Lot. Oh well... definitely worth a read and better than the novel. And look at that gorgeous illustration/cover!
Torn between 3 and 4 stars but I'm giving four. First half was weak to the point I was worried but the second picked up and it began to feel like Black Company again and it redeemed the book overall. Shed grew on me and I even learned to stomach the constant changes between first and third person narrator. (Still hope it was done first and last time here.)
I liked the ending though I wasn't expecting such a “happy end” (it's still grim dark so don't take it literally). I was also expecting some new Taken based on the story's development but luckily(?) it never happened.
Loved the communication between Croaker and his girlfriend but I have no idea why she's toying with him like this. It's kinda getting ridiculous given who she is. We shall see.
Blindsight - 1/5*
Won't even bother with Echopraxia. Immensely disappointed, the review for Blindsight is under that book.
Short story set some time before the events of the first book. It has nothing to do with the Dark Tower series except for the main character and a small mention of the tower but it's a nice side story set in town called Eluria.
It's written very much like Witcher's short stories by Andrzei Sapkowski and that's the reason why I liked it so much. Especially the romantic ending. I wish this was included in The Gunslinger. That book would've been much better.
Horror, disgust and laughter. A beautiful mix of these three gives the novella horrendously sensational atmosphere. Especially Korbal's “child”. Now I'm just waiting for it to visit me in my nightmares.
Bravo!
If you're Harlan's fan you'll enjoy this, especially if you like/don't mind his rants. Because there's a loooong one in this book. And it's well justified.
If you're a trekkie, don't even bother. You'll be butthurt - as is evident by the one and two star reviews - because Harlan exposes Roddenberry's lies and shows how the stuff was done behind the scenes.
Imagine you write a novel that wins basically every major sci-fi award in English speaking world. (Not that awards actually matter.) Partly because you write great orwellian novel from the future with original spin of AI being the main character in human skin fighting an all knowing other AI that is simultaneously at war with itself. Partly, I fear, because you inject your woke ideology into it but it's not overhanded and it's enjoyable even for someone like me so activists prop it up while normies don't mind.
Now imagine you throw that original worldbuilding out the window and write a sequel confined into one space station and tea plantation on the planet. Promise of epic space opera? Nowhere to be found. Promise of over the top woke social talking points? Everywhere.
There's more characters in here so the inability to differentiate gender, to imagine what the characters look like is almost impossible at this point. Author uses only feminine pronouns so reader has no idea who is male or female. Additionally, it was established in the first book that AI with IQ probably somewhere above 300 can't tell a difference between men and women... On top of that literally everybody, even characters on ships who are from various parts of the galaxy are all “dark skinned or darker skinned”. Tea plantation is a metaphor for cotton plantations and workers are slaves in all but name.
But even despite all of that I'd be okay with the book if it moved plot forward or if characterization of anybody, ANYBODY was better. But this is a filler, a spin-off. Maybe it should've been the first act of Justice's sequel instead of whole book. It doesn't even much feel like a setup for sequel until the last 20 pages.
There's no characterization of Breq's crew. They are all human but since previous captain liked them to act like ancillaries (ship's AI in human bodies) they act like them. They're robots without a hint of character except for Kalr Five's love of porcelain, lol. And near the end they say they like living like this. Has the author ever talked to a soldier? To another human being for that matter? Is she in love with Star Trek's Borgs?
I guess that's how author masks her biggest weakness because character's from space station and plantation are also just as flat.
I fear the conclusion in Mercy won't conclude anything if it's going to be in any way similar to this book. If I ever even bother to waste more time on this series.
It's rare for me that a book lives up to the hype but this one is such case. Gripping from the beginning to the end.
The boring slow paced worldbuilding of Malice is gone, replaced by constant action and emotion. I gave Malice benefit of the doubt because its finish was great and the story was promising. Here Gwynne builds upon what he set up in the first book to deliver one of the best paced books I've ever read. Seriously, this is masterfully paced and exactly what I was hoping this series would be before I started it based on raving reviews.
Characters go through hell. I thought it was actually a bit much because until the last 100-150 pages everything goes wrong for the good guys and everything works out for the villains. It was too obvious but it did work as I couldn't stop reading. Another thing that annoyed me but works for the book's benefit are short chapters with cliffhangers. It's annoying to read three pages only to leave me hanging for another 20 until the author decides to return to that POV or location. Not a fan of short chapters. But... they work.
Next two books are allegedly even better so I can't wait to dive back into Banished Lands but first I think I'll take a break for a bit with something shorter.
I can't continue. 60 or so pages in and it's just so dumb. They send a bunch of scientists into a zone and control them with hypnosis? The main character keeps the discoveries to herself and even if she told the others I feel like they wouldn't even care?
I'm sorry but the fact that it's fiction doesn't mean the plot can be this stupid. Reminds me of World War Z but that had at least 50/50 ratio of good and terrible short stories. This is just a terrible novel and once again proof that mainstream means mostly shit. The devil's in the details, in the behaviour of the characters. Alien Covenant is another comparison that comes to mind. Remember how they went to alien planet without scafanders and any other precautions and got infected? Yeah, that's Annihilation all the time.
This essay has become a bit outdated in the past two months for obvious reasons. Now everybody in the west says the same as Applebaum did in 2013. But for many this wasn't as obvious before.
The conclusion seems a bit outdated since Putin is in Russia seemingly (emphasis on seemingly) more powerful now than ever but in my very humble non-expert opinion he invaded Ukraine because he was losing the power and indeed was terrified that “western ideas” will take his allies and then topple his regime.
However the sanctions helped him to solidify his power and in combination with the insane amount of propaganda from Russian media made most of the Russian people come to his side. It's madness of crowds not dissimilar to 1930's Europe.
This book has a recommendation from Conn Iggulden on its cover that says: “Excellent - on par with George R. R. Martin.”
NO, IT'S NOT!!! It has to be taken out of context or Iggulden is an idiot who never read any other fantasy. (Don't know the guy) This is relatively small story with one main character and while there are politics and violence, their presence is about the only thing the books have in common!
It's more like 3.5 but considering the improvement from the terrible Prince of Thorns it deserves 4 stars.
However, there were still things that irritated me. It feels like this whole trilogy should be just one 1000 pages long book and author or publisher decided that trilogy will make more money. For the vast majority of this book I wondered where will all of this lead.
There are two stories here. One on a wedding day 4 years after the events of Prince and one happening via flashbacks from those 4 years that fills the vast majority of the book. While reading the flashbacks I understood what was going on, but I didn't understand why should I care. It all comes together at the end but the ending is anticlimactic and I still don't see why I had to read 450 pages of almost pointless flashbacks when it could've been told on 100 pages.
I've got to say, though, that the writting really REAlly REALLY improved! Prince felt like a first draft of a young unskilled author but this time around everything was coherent and decently described.