The egg hunting middle portion of this book lags hard. Maybe I've fallen out of favor with the hyper references that made ready player one a fun read for the first time. But this time it just feels like too much.
The actual details of the plot and technology are what really shines here. Not the references and meta references.
It was kind of dated and it was a bit difficult to keep people straight. It suffers from being very dated in how they suspect clothing and religion to become superfluous. And at some point they mention how hundreds of gigabytes is alot. That said it was a cool story. I wish they would have expanded on some aspects.
I enjoyed the premise and universe implied in this sapphic story. The Garden reminds me of Hank Green's second book A Beautifully Foolish Endeavor where its explained that there is an organic computer that spans the worlds lifeforms, the Garden's space at the end reminded me of fluidic space from species 8472 from star trek voyager. The agency reminded me of the Diaspora by Greg Egan, where some humans put their consciousnesses into floating computer ships to travel the universe.
The whole plot concept reminded me of The Coincidence Makers by Yoav Blum where people subtly influence time and events.
All that to say, it 100% helps to have the framework to think about things before reading this book. Its very flowery and poem-esque. Details are light and far between. A lot of reviews talk about being confused about whats going on but enjoying the letter they write eachother. I think it helps to have experience in the concepts behind the letters in this book.
I would say 3.5 stars if good reads let me.
The red rising series is incredible. Half the time they are spouting relationships and family names I've since forgotten but I'm so interested I look them up again to refresh my memory. And im still pulled through a 600 page book in the blink of an eye. What a premise for a series, what a way with words. I could read about this universe for a long time and not get bored.
Much better than some previous books. But not better than the immediately previous book. There are some chapters in this that are from some randos perspective and then there are others from familiar characters that have no actual bearing on the plot. All in all its a good story.
I would actually say it's more of a sequel to the one before.
These books are deceptively insightful and well written. You wouldn't think Hank would be that good at first and second bat until you realize a lot of the metaphors subtle and overt are directly related to things I'm sure Hank has gone through. Things we as a society are currently going through. It's crazy to realize Hank could distill the themes down to a cool sci-fi-esque story that is fun to read. Good job Hank.
I'm not sure if these are getting less fun to read or if I'm expecting more fast passed and energetic stories. I find it hard to read through the detailed parts of the story. My mind has already constructed the scene and I just skim through the plot beats and get to the dialog. So far to me they have been getting steadily worse. I'll take a break and come back to the rest later.