Ethan Poole
Exceptional short story collection! All of them were great, but my favorites: "The Paper Menagerie", "The Man Who Ended History", "State Change", and "Mono no aware".
The “mystery” aspect really kept me engaged. Interesting themes around mental illness. The colony and their way of life was interesting. I didn't care for the ending.
Essentially a short story stretched over an entire book. It was kinda hard to read because every sentence went on forever and ever. I enjoy irreverent humor, but this was trying too hard. I almost gave up several times in the book.
A satisfying conclusion to the trilogy, although I think that it is the weakest book of the three.
Meh. The book was fast paced, but so much so that it felt like a cheesy thriller movie. The plot was essentially Terminator with some “hacker” stuff sprinkled in at the beginning. Typhon is identical to SkyNet—I mean, come on. The author tried to bring a diverse cast to the book, but it felt forced and artificial, with all the characters feeling cookie-cutter.
Very fun heist story with great characters! I have mixed feelings about the world building, but overall it's good.
I wasn't sure what was happening (in a good, mysterious way) until the end. A strange, but engrossing book.
This is one of the best books that I've ever read. It is deeply, deeply unsettling and painful to read—tragic and depressing. Yet, I found myself unable to put it down. The writing is engrossing and at times poetic. Not for the faint of heart or someone looking for escapism.
Though I liked the book overall, I felt that the second half was poorly developed. There were extensive descriptions of the new technology, but very little character and plot development. I mean, the plot for the second half can be summarized in one or two sentences—that's how little actually happened.
This was a fun, light read. The story and the characters are simple—in some respects, too simple—but it comes together well for an enjoyable read. The book felt very much like a series of TV episodes, very Firefly-esque.
While I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and found the plot engrossing, I was bothered by two things: (i) the romance felt artificial and completely unnecessary to the plot and (ii) magic seemed to solve any problem without consequence or tradeoff. These distracted from an otherwise amazing story. But I really enjoyed the world building and the more horror elements of the book, some of which were downright nightmare-ish scenes. I look forward to reading more by Novik.
Thought-provoking and engaging plot. This book—perhaps predictably, as it's her first—is not as well-developed as other books I've read by Butler. If reading this series, I recommend starting with Wild Seed.
Like the first book, the plot centered around a heist of sorts. There were some points where the plot felt a little disjoint, but it was a fun read overall, especially for the LA references.
Overall, I really enjoyed reading this, even though the story was a little simplistic and the characters somewhat cookie-cutter. For me, it's between three and four stars. It's very plot-driven, and so it makes for a quick read. I was hooked in the beginning, but it did lose a little steam by the end.
Beautiful, sorrowful, and shame-inducing. And, as I've seen it described elsewhere, including on the back cover, “subtle” and “graceful”. A very powerful and moving novel that everyone should read. (I also liked this more than Beloved, but now I want to go back and reread Beloved.)
I really liked this trilogy for its world building and plot. The author doesn't do a great job with the female characters, but I think each book got better on this point (for example, Nila in this book). I would have liked more about Ka-poel's backstory.