** Some books that wander are lost ** After returning from the dead, our hero, Fitz, goes wandering. … and wandering. … and wandering. He checks voicemail to find that the boss wants meet up in the mountains. So Fitz continues wandering; … and wandering. … and wandering. Then they find an air-wing of F-16s and kill all the bad people. The end.
** Aliens should be weird. ** Interesting concepts of how a superior biotech race could manipulate and control humans, even while trying to maintain a respectful distance. With the right levers, a light touch can be powerfully convincing. More interesting is the way in which Butler focuses on human desires, as distinct from human emotion. The debilitating effects of social isolation, innate nausea, or deep desire to to believe in fictions all play important roles in the plot. ...
Mechanical writing, heavily foreshadowed plot, and multiple povs made this book highly soporific. Only one character had the right motive, making the twist less shocking. After falling asleep for the 8th time while reading, and abut 75% in, just skipped to the wiki summary.
4.5 stars. A fitting ending that perhaps drug the plot a little bit further than the apex, but overall the series was extremely satisfying.
3.5 stars, great setting, solid writing. Somewhat disappointing characters and a predictable plot.
surprisingly good, game of thrones + mulan + traitor baru thrown into one. Good setting.
Took a bit to get started, but a worthwhile long walk of a book in the end.
**Offending the Culture Gods in Reassimilation ** A stressed lesbian medium fights gods, ghosts, gangsters, and grandmas in 21st century Penang. * In a book about feeling alienated, I feel seen. First is the difficulty when trying to re-assimilate into a foreign culture, especially when that culture is your own. The look Aku gave her was familiar. Jess had seen it at different points points from, Mom, Dad, Coco, and their friends. It was a look of realization that here was an alien to whom even the most basic things, even the things everyone understood, would have to be explained. * Then the basic desire to find people that have shared context. * It was just nice to hang out with somebody that was her age, somebody that was more like her than her parents. Jess could guess what kind of restaurant Shang went to, what he did for fun, what he watched on Netflix. * Sure I didn’t grow up with Asian parents (* Mom would kill her if she got murdered here, she thought. * ) but some feelings are universal. I appreciated the focus on filial relationships, and the visceral setting. Plot twists weren’t entirely predictable, and to the detriment of my sleep schedule, I finished the book in one sitting. Recommended.
End of the World was Boring The fall of man was multidimensional. Ancestral primates fell out of the trees, then they fell from plant eating to meat eating then they fell from instinct into reason and thus into technology… Then they fell from a joyous life in the moment to an anxious contemplation of the vanished past and the distant future. Dystopia is the easiest form of societal criticism for mediocre writing. Take the flaws of a society, dial them up and add societal repercussions, and voila! You’ve created a dystopian world. Unfortunately this is like trying to build an airplane by scaling up a dragonfly 100x, without a nuanced understanding or at least thesis on the underlying causes of current societal ills it’s easy for a dystopia to feel cardboard. ...
politics by a non politician who becomes a politician fed up with politics. good read