SK
The first book in the series was somewhat enjoyable if only because the idea of a parallel universe where Neanderthals had survived instead of us is rather interesting. But once the novelty wore off I found a very boring story. Everything feels so cliched and forced. The Neanderthal society is used to show all the ways ours went wrong. Their society evolved into a gentle, tolerant, peace loving one while ours is violent, hypocritical and prone to warfare. This has been done a million times in science fiction (just replace the Neanderthals with some alien race).
How about developing a realistic culture for the Neanderthals and intellectually explore how their history and technology might be different from ours given their genetic and physical differences? The framework for the story has a lot of potential but instead retreads the same tired territory.
Gave up very early. It seems that Card's co-author had a much bigger role than Card himself in the writing of this book. The characters are incredibly shallow and boring (which is basically never the case with a Card novel). The plot seemed to have some promise but I was just so annoyed with the characterization that I couldn't continue.
I remember really liking this book when I first read it 15 years ago. I tried again recently, and I just did not like it at all. Boring characters. Implicit sexism. Barely any plot. Blah.
[spoilers]
I really wanted to like this book. Two grandmasters of science fiction writing together. Clarke is one of my favorite author's of all time. I haven't read any of Pohl's solo works.
This book is somewhat interesting. It follows the life of Sri Lankan mathematician who ends up solving Fermat's Last Theorem. The problem is that the book doesn't seem to have any real point. The main character goes through life, some things happen. He gets kidnapped. He gets imprisoned. He solves a math problem while imprisoned. Aliens sort of show up. He has a daughter. She wins a medal at the olympics on the moon. He has a son. His son is an autistic savant. Aliens decide to leave us alone. He downloads his mind into a computer. Book ends.
Writing the list, it sounds like this book should have some really cool parts. But all of it falls flat. None of the events feel all that important or dramatic. And the book just sort of wanders around unfocused.
Blah. This book was so unbelievably slow with almost no payoff. Far longer than it needed to be. I don't know if I can bear to read book 3 if its more of this. I adored book 1 despite its flaws. In this entry the flaws far outweighed the good.
The first half of this book is incredibly interesting. Lots of common sense advice for store owners. Basically it boils down to always considering the experience of the shopper when organizing the sales floor or designing signage. But all of it very interesting and a little eye opening.
Unfortunately the second half of the book falls apart a little. The authors biggest flaw being that he seems to lack any understanding of how computer's work. He spends an entire chapter discussing how online shopping can't match up with in person shopping. Many of his critiques are reasonable but they fail to take into account that all it takes is a new piece of software or even just a minor edit of currently existing software to fix many of these problems. He also comes out of left field to bash online dating because people who use online dating lack the ‘courage' to meet people in the real world.
If the book had stuck to interesting and fun anecdotes about ‘The Science of Shopping' I think this book could have easily been a 4 or 5 star book. But it loses its way somewhere and never quite comes back to being as good as it could have been.
Super entertaining. Really wish Sanderson would write more stories about this ‘team' of detectives. Very original idea. One of the best novellas I've read in some time.
Great read. It's missing my favorite character from book 1 so the tone changes from a gritty detective noir feel to a more generic actiony feel. But still a fantastically fun read.
Felt a bit long and plodding. Some cool character developments that felt like they should have happened hundreds and hundreds of pages earlier. Overall it was enjoyable but nowhere near as good as the first book in the series. The end is great and sets up some potentially awesome story arcs for the next book or two. The duel in the middle of book was fun (but the rules seemed really contrived). Chop out 200 pages of blah and I would have given this book 5 stars
Enjoyable but very much felt like it was written only to build up momentum for the third book. (Which I haven't read yet)
It took me a while to get into this book. I've always disliked books where the heros get magically transported to another world. I do understand why authors choose to go this route. It allows the heros to be in the same place as the reader, learning about the world with us as we progress through the story. But it still always annoys me. And a bit more than normal in this book. The main characters are brand new to the world but always seem to know things. Just because they are magic and special for some vague reason.
Despite this, I started to really enjoy this novel. It's just so beautifully written. There is a particularly emotional scene that really made me say, “Wow.” But then the author just takes back the thing that happened! Ugh. It really ruined the power of the scene.
I found the book enjoyable overall. But it never lives up to its potential.
I wasn't expecting much. I always assumed Harry Potter would be too childish. I was pleasantly surprised to read a light hearted but fast paced and enjoyable fantasy.
On some days I think this book is the best of the series and on other days I think it's Ender's Game. This book explores some philosophical ideas in ways that Ender's Game never does. The speech Ender gives as Speaker for Marcao still brings me to tears every time. However, Ender is a bit too perfect. He just walks into a room and instantly analyzes every person perfectly and immediately says the exact right words to changes the hearts and minds of those around him. I still love this book, but just like its predecessor, Ender's Game, I no longer hold with quite the same level of reverence.
This book started great. Lots of intense build up. Then got kind of meh. And ended with a fizzle.
I don't have much to say other than to say its the single most influential nonfiction book I've read. A must read for any person who is intellectually curious about the question ‘Is there a God?'
This book was definitely interesting. I liked the overall concept and the it was written well. The alien race was well thought out and unique in an interesting way. Unfortunately it feels like the story never quite reaches its potential and occasionally tries too hard to feel epic and grandiose.
Entertaining but not much more.
Interesting universe. Somewhat boring and pointless story. Some things thrown in for shock value that add little to the story. I'm 50/50 to read more Culture books. Player of Games and Use of Weapons are supposed to be far better books, so maybe.
Some interesting ideas. The way the story bounced back and forth between past and present similar to the mathematician's theory of simultaneity was neat. But the philosophical angles felt a bit to ham-fisted for me.
I don't understand why this book is so loved. Maybe my expectations were too high. It's been a few months since I read this book and I cant remember a single characters name. And I can only vaguely remember most of the plot. I guess that's the problem with this book. Everything about it is forgettable except for the feeling of ‘meh' I had the entire time reading it.
Really liked this a lot. I like Heinlein's writing style. The narrator really conveyed the humor well. I think I would have missed half the jokes if I had read the physical book. The book is not a comedy, its mostly serious stuff. Just a some great one-liners in there.
Tried to finish this. Had a lot of interesting stuff going for it. The main character, named Hiro Protagonist (its so ridiculous to name his this that it actually works somehow), was rather interesting. He rides around on a motorcycle and wields a samurai sword better than anyone else in the world. OK, cool. I like this guy. He hacks computer. Cool. He teams up with a sassy teenage ‘delivery' girl named Y.T. who gets around town by using some type of magnetic grappling hook to latch onto cars as they drive down these futuristic highways. Alright, cool. Bad guy named Raven who is more badass than Hiro shows up. Alright, things are getting interesting.
Nam-shubs. What the fuck? Everything from here on out is completely gobbledygook. Language is a code just like computer code. Spells are virus made by words that take infect people and get spread by prostitutes. This caused the Tower of Babel. There is a televangelist who has a massive floating city made out of all sorts of random boats and is the richest man on the planet or something. He wants to spread some super spell/virus/code.
I gave up.