Brutal and subtle and incredibly real and sad and vivid and visceral and disquieting in the best way possible. This book will STAY with me for the resBrutal and subtle and incredibly real and sad and vivid and visceral and disquieting in the best way possible. This book will STAY with me for the rest of my life....more
Terrific science fiction and arguably one of Reynolds' best. I loved the clever ways it was in conversation with pulp fiction genres: maritime fictionTerrific science fiction and arguably one of Reynolds' best. I loved the clever ways it was in conversation with pulp fiction genres: maritime fiction of the 1800s, adventure fiction of the early 1900s, and the golden era of 1930s science fiction. It did all of this while dealing in existential issues and the body horror elements that Reynolds does so well. I'd put it right up there with Chasm City....more
If you’ve listened to the podcast, you’ve already read this book. If you haven’t listened to the podcast, go do that instead. It’s much, much better iIf you’ve listened to the podcast, you’ve already read this book. If you haven’t listened to the podcast, go do that instead. It’s much, much better in that form....more
Stephen King is super hit or miss for me. Mrs. Todd's Shortcut, The Jaunt, Morning Deliveries, and The Reach were all standouts. Mrs. Todd's Shortcut Stephen King is super hit or miss for me. Mrs. Todd's Shortcut, The Jaunt, Morning Deliveries, and The Reach were all standouts. Mrs. Todd's Shortcut is the best story in the bunch by a large margin. Everything else ranged from particularly bad to just okay.
The stories that were supposed to be scary came across as overcompensating for only having a veneer of horror. Give me something psychologically effecting, not just like...a monkey that claps its cymbals and *gasp* people die. Other times the concept in a story would be solid, but he would overwrite it and stretch it out way too long, diminishing any sense of urgency.
Also, King talks A LOT about rats, fat women, and old people for some reason. Dude has some hangups. I don't get it.
These are pretty good. Much better than The Expanse: Origins or the other The Expanse comic from a couple years ago. These four issues feel about likeThese are pretty good. Much better than The Expanse: Origins or the other The Expanse comic from a couple years ago. These four issues feel about like one episode of story. ...more
**spoiler alert** I'm going to start with what I liked:
The large scale story is pretty cool, and what is hinted at may actually be awesome. The idea o**spoiler alert** I'm going to start with what I liked:
The large scale story is pretty cool, and what is hinted at may actually be awesome. The idea of this all taking place after humanity has died, and this solar system essentially existing in a sort of entropy/enthalpy swap state is pretty fascinating. But that's not really talked about in the book, just mentioned in a kind of appendix at the end.
Harrowhark, the only decently developed character in the entire book, has so much complexity going on. She has a crazy past, a mysterious goal, and she's really complicated. I loved her through the whole book.
I really appreciated the approach to some of these characters being lesbian, and there's not really attention drawn to it, they just...are. That's really refreshing. It's handled quite well, and never felt pandering at all.
On to the bad:
Every other character (and there are about 10 too many) are one dimensional, and very nearly interchangeable (especially Gideon, her attributes are: 1. Horny 2. Likes using one sword instead of two smaller ones), all of the characters feel about 14 years old, and I thought they actually were for the entire book. It wasn't until the appendix section where I learned that a lot of them are supposed to be in their twenties and thirties. Yikes, turns out in the far, far future everybody is a whiny, snarky teen well into their thirties. I should've realized, because there are other characters that are described as "teens" over and over and over again, but they behave kind of like that awful kid character in every anime that is always smiling really big and blushing in a cutesy way. You know exactly what I'm talking about. To make it extra confusing sometimes the "teen" character dialogue is in parentheses and in a much smaller font than the rest. What the hell was that all about? Never figured that one out.
The pacing is awful, with an incredibly boring middle 200 or so pages where the 10 ish identical redshirt characters wait to die and are snarky and annoying. The worldbuilding is extremely vague, just non descriptions of everything: The "gothic castle" mentioned in all the blurbs is basically just some sort of interior in a nondescript structure. What's outside of that structure? Water, or something. It's mentioned once. What's it look like? Who knows, it's never really described. It's like that house you used to draw as a kid that was just a square with a triangle on it. The absolute bare minimum effort to evoke the thought "house".
This whole book could've been a 40 page prologue for the sequel and nothing would've been lost. In fact, I truly think you could read up until they arrive at the "castle" and then skip to the last 100 pages and it would be a better book. Just imagine a [...] where a bunch of pointless characters show up, poorly try to differentiate themselves from each other, and then all die and you're up to speed.
Gideon the Ninth serves no purpose but to get you to buy the next book in what I am assuming would be a vain attempt to get some sort of satisfaction that this didn't deliver. Reading the synopsis for the sequel, it even sounds like what this one was SUPPOSED to be. "Lesbian necromancers explore a haunted gothic palace in space." Spoilers, but there is one scene in this thing that happens in space, and it's just setting up the sequel. Beyond frustrating. I'm not interested in continuing this series. Fool me once, etc....more
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