Shan
9
Grounded and insanely creative science-fiction that charms you with how palatable and fun it is to read, turns into an emotional, intimate buddy cop-like story that will genuinely have you sobbing.
Writing is great, and can make the dumbest person out there slightly understand various types of science. Dialogue writing is great (the main character doesnt like to swear which makes him a little cringe but thats okay)
9
While golden son might be the more “exciting” book i think thats mostly because its such a drastic change from the pretty-good-but-not-breathtaking first book, and you just get so shocked at all the twists and turns. id go so far as to say this book has a much more complex plot with peaks/moments that give golden son a run for its money.
Without a doubt pierce browns best writing. I didnt know i could like darrow more than i already did!
This book is much more focused on darrow then the last two, and is in turn very introspective as it seems to start wrapping up darrows character arc.
What a journy!
that pixie piece of ass-lard lysander can eat dirt though.
7.5
The aliens we often see in scifi are, to some degree, not really alien. they are comprehendable. they have characteristics we can understand. behaviours we can see.
What about when humanity faces something truly alien? a life without one form? a sentient, unpredictable, uncomprehendable, confusing ocean covering an entire planet?
The book delves into how the crew of the solaris, as well as a technologically advanced humanity tackle coming face to face with this ocean, trying to establish contact. The unbreached barrier of contact with this ocean has been a major obstacle in humanitys pride and space-conquest, and the main objective of the solaris. The book explores this in an extremely creative and interesting way. Trying to piece together the puzzles of the strange happenings on the solaris together with the main character is extremely fun and sometimes quite scary.
Was not particularly a fan of many of the writing aspects. an over-abundant use of unnecessarily confusing words that are literally just “scientific” synonyms of words we use everyday had me whipping up google every page (at least). There are also some chapters of pure scientific jargon and infodumping which is extremely heavy and confusing.
Overall a worthwhile experience!
6.5
Its predecessor was the most bland piece of ass-wipe ive had the displeasure of witnessing, but this one was quite decent actually. this is, alas, mistborn, and there is something about this story that will never truly get into the eety-beetsy little crevices of my heart and resonate with anything at all. So far atleast.
10
Extremely eloquent, perfectly simple and effective prose combined with imaginative and realistic dialogue creates one of the most fulfilling reading experience ive had.
Theres no grand-purpose, huge-stakes plot here. No characters relying on archetypes and cliches and tropes so that readers can recognize the charactertype and know how to feel about them. Its just people. Normal people. Insignificant people. People who, like in real life - you dont know anything about until you talk to them. Steinbecks razor-sharp writing shows us that even the most insignicant and average people can live the most fantastical lives, and carry the the most mythical and beautiful wisdom in them. All you have to do is listen to them talk.
MUST READ!!
Some quotes i like:
“It is easy out of laziness, out of weakness, to throw oneself into the lap of a deity, saying “i couldn't help it; the way was set.” But think of the glory of the choice! That makes a man a man.
“In human affairs of danger and delicacy, successful conclusion is sharply limited by hurry. So often men trip by being in a rush. If one were properly to perform a difficult and subtle act, he should first inspect the end to be achieved and then, once he had accepted the end as desirable, he should forget it completely and concentrate solely on the means. By this method he would not be moved to false action by anxiety or hurry or fear. Very few people learn this.”
“You're going to pass something down no matter what you do or if you do nothing. Even if you let yourself go fallow, the weeds will grow and the brambles. Something will grow.”
7.0
Admitedly my first “more-poetry-than-prose” book, so there were definitely parts where i didn't bother to understand the poetry and just felt the vibe instead.
Good book though! Sci-fi elements are there but i don't really think it's a sci-fi book. It's like if Romeo and Juliet was fucking sick and not wack and dumb
8.5
A 700 page long consequence to the previous 4 books reveals itself in a brutal fuckfest. Its called dark age, so its really damn dark. mouth agape “why the hell would a human do that to someone else” dark. It has by far the best emotional highs, action-highs and writing-highs. Seeing side-characters be as badass -if not more - as our beloved little darrow is so fulfilling. When its not constant, brutal and genius warring and fighting, the political and worldbuilding moments feel equally as gripping.
8
A very interesting and solid change of pace from the format of the previous 3 books. As the beginning of the second half of Red rising its main goal is to set the stage for the rest of the second half which it does pretty well. However it sometimes feels like it's so busy with setting things up that it forgets that it needs to have a gripping plot in and of itself, which might underwhelm readers who expect the dramatic loudness of the last three books.
alternating perspectives is fire tho, love the new setting and characters. So so so so much. Can't wait to keep reading.
7.5
A solid, slightly underwhelming, sometimes impressive, mostly meandering ending to the first trilogy.
Slightly uneven pacing that had me bored for some parts of the book. As usual the highs are pretty high. the lows arent neceserrily low but theyre noticeable. Second half of the book is DRAMATICALLY better than the first half, its actually quite remarkable.
5
The definition of mediocre. A cold mcdonalds cheeseburger from the fridge. the rio olympics. deep house music. the avatar movies. "Sucker" by the jonas brothers. The JoJos bizzare adventure x Vans collab. the shopping centre. london. dior sauvage. any biceps exercise. mistborn, the final empire. not bad, not at all. not good, not at all. just okay.
Some pretty impressive and immersive world-building and a dope magic system is told through the vessel of the most mundane, dogshit ass plot and cast which - and i dont exaggerate- has the charm and depth of half my nutsack.
In my 21 years of life i have never experienced something so truly mid. its quite fascinatingly the middest thing ive ever consumed in my entire life. its the benchmark for not tipping the scale in either direction. the benchmark for being safe. the benchmark for being lacking of any meaningful anything for any of my anythings. i will forget this book. i will forget it in 30 minutes after writing this review to never think of it again. o, mistborn - fade into the deep dark vaults of obscurity in my mind to never return.
Atleast bad books are memorable in how bad they are.
7
The writing takes some getting used to as its quite a difficult read, but once you get used to it, it hooks you right the fuck in and its so incredibly good at drawing you in to the atmosphere of the book. Dialogue is hilarious, realistic and terrifyingly well written. Even though I might never fully understand all the intricacies of the book, I'm okay with that because I've shared the experience with the characters - if you know you know.
The world is unrelenting. The people are horrible. The violence is brutal. The kind are unrewarded. An incredibly important book. Must read.
7.5
An interesting introduction to this franchise that promises a lot, but goes in directions that might have left me feeling slightly unsatisfied.
I was initially worried about the direction the book goes about 30% in, and was worried i was going to get a teenage fiction story, but i put my faith in the writing and wasnt left dissapointed. Though it, in moments feels quite like a teenage fiction story it consistently redeems its lows with absurdly high highs. Intense action moments and dramatic intimite character-driven moments are what the books does best. The writing in this book is genuinely fantastic, and if many other writers were given the same main plot points to play with, im sure this books could end up being another sloppy YA hunger-games type book, but this book evidently proves to us that its not that.
Our main character has quite a lot of conveniences happen to him, but it doesnt take too much from the story.
Overall the book proves itself quite well despite some worries i had when reading, and i still think about the highs of this book. An ambitious and confident, yet sometimes slipping, beginning to a saga.