Shiveen Pandita

Really good book with the right amount of culture undertones. I liked that unlike the previous one with Iridans they spent some time fleshing out the new society.

Some bits of it seemed a bit unnecessary, especially early on but the actual plot points later on and flow of the story imo was flawless. Highly recommend.

Old book with some outdated advice, but it still holds mostly true. I found much of the second half useless, but that's just my opinion. I think the first few chapters had the most juice, and I was already using many of those ideas in my own life for a while now (probably because I knew of GTD as a technique before I knew of it as a philosophy).

I was torn between giving 3 or 4 stars. It's a good book with solid world-building (with enough left for the reader to figure out between the lines) and a decent plot. However, I felt the characters were a bit weak, with really weak motivations behind their actions. For presumably galactic civilisations, you would assume there would be a bit more nuance behind their actions, but that wasn't the case.

That said, I gave 4 stars not because of that but rather because the ending happened way too quickly, and it wasn't clear to me what the crescendo in the last 1/3rd of the book was building towards. Overall, a great book and my opinion might change once I finish the whole series.

I think it's the most okay book I have read this year. Sapiens was nice and tolerable but maybe I was more naive (less judgemental) then. This book is great until you start realizing that everything Hariri is portraying, is through their own lopsided, sometimes needlessly negative view of the world so they can show you a slightly pretty picture in the outro of the chapter. The book was a slog once I started reading it through this lens.

Still, rated 3 since there are some interesting and novel ideas but all in all I kinda regrest wasting my time on it.

DNF, The book is too slow. I came in after reading the whole Xelee omnibus, and this felt like some of the stories there that, in hindsight, I should have stopped midway too. Life is too short to read stories with no action or a meandering plot or an insufferable protagonist.

It started well but then devolved into the same murder in the family and intrigue that plagues most books of this genre. Not worth the time I spent on it.

It's a great set of stories and intro to the Xelee universe. One of the best pieces of science fiction I have read this year but some of the stories felt like I just kept wasting my time in them.

DNF. There were some good bits of info, but the majority of the text reads like an anime filler episode. Not worth IMO, could have been a medium-sized blogpost instead of a self-masturbatory semi-rambly treatise.

It's a good book albeit a bit unoriginal. Hard to describe as the premise is the same old trope but there are sections of the book that pique and keep your interest going. IMO this is not the in the same league as Sanderson or Wheel of Time as some reviews mention but the reading pays off and I'm looking forward to starting the second book. Giving 4/5 as I really wish the magic system was a little more fleshed out and the motivations of antagonists were a little less boring.

yeah, that's a no from me dawg!

This book devolved from some cool concepts to the same old trope eldritch type entities terrorizing the galazy and some random person can suddenly save it. Don't get me wrong, I knew what I was signing up, however, I had to turn the disbelief factor a couple of notches to even get to the ending. This is unfortunate since I love the world building and characters from Sanderson and really was looking forward to reading the third book but I'm not so sure anymore.

This has been on my to read list for a while but I never bothered since I'm not usually a fan of anthology style short story books. However, Ted's writing style is intriguing even disregarding an overuse of “I make tangential scientific connections to add meat to my story” style. Some of the stories that went longer imo should have been cut short, especially the last one. However some of the ones I think had a good freedom of motion to evolve into something bigger were randomly cut short, perhaps not to up the disbelief factor too much. Overall an okay read since I'm not a big fan of the genre, however the writing was captivating and some elements were truly well thought out.

Good book. Starts off a bit weird and tired but picks up pace and character in the latter half. I really wish the main character had a bit more of non linear development arc and bit less of “i'm a traumatised pariah” archetypal character.

Great book even though I did not read a prequel. Some elements are unnecessarily convoluted imo even though not due to lack of story but due to cramming too much especially in the latter parts of the story.

Great book and if you can handle some bits where the author spends too long on christian allegory and some hard sci-fi, the payoff in the end is worth it.

After reading these books multiple times over the last couple of years, the second book remains undisputedly
My favourite.

Wonderful book with an amazing detail of world building. Some of the sub ply towards the end can get a bit tedious but overall it's a great read.

Waste of time

Good book on value investing but I personally found it numbers heavy and I guess nothing I didn't know before.

Yeah nah! Too much navel gazing and the plot moves too slow for my own personal taste.

I gave up quarter of the way through. I don't mind the interview format but the buildup of the story was too slow and the characters try too hard imo.

Some aspects get belaboured more than they need to but it's a good book exploring the concept of far future humanity in a sane, almost mundane way (not that the things that happen aren't fantastical). For me personally, it didn't breach the 3 mark.

Unsure of what I just read – suffice to say the plot is engaging if meandering and the ending personally for me left a lot to be desired. However, I felt a great degree of compassion for the main character, and it helped me get through the book.

Great book and build spectacularly on the first one. The pacing, in the end, could be slightly better though but that's a minor problem.

I read this 4 years ago so I guess this review is delayed. I reread it again now and had the same feeling of wonder that I did last time. Also, probably one of the best foreign language translations in any of the books I have read.

One of the most enjoyable reads I have had this year.