Sci-Fi

I was tempted by a tagline calling this book a combination of Hunger Games, Ender’s Game, and Game of Thrones. This book is not like Game of Thrones, and making such a comparison isn’t good for Red Rising. The worldbuilding was shallow and the politics dubious. Yet, like Ender’s Game or Hunger Games, once the games began, it was easy to keep the pages turning. As far as pure entertainment goes, this is probably the best book I’ve read this year. I appreciated the tone of anger and guilt that ran through the whole novel, and have already started in on the second book.

Did you ever wonder, after seeing the episode 7 trailer, how a star destroyer could crash into a planet without disintegrating mid flight? Turns out the story behind that star destroyer wreckage better than any of the movies. This book is a young adult mass market novel based on a rewriting the story spinoff of Pop-scifi movies yet still manages to be unique and relevant. This book combined the classic young adult stories around elite academies, except that the academy was on the wrong side of the history of the new republic. Then it tackled patriotism, morality, loyalty, honor, and love for the next few hundred pages. It tied nicely into episodes 4-6, and made the new Star Wars universe feel a little more like an actual universe. ...

As good as everyone says it is. Don’t let the weird looking cover put you off. Go read it now. If you don’t believe me, go watch the trailer for the movie, then read the book.

Meh. The commentary on the state of capitalism was much better captured in Capital in the 21st Century, and there were very few ideas not already introduced in the first book. I found the antagonists annoyingly single-dimensional, and nothing in the book was really interesting in the way that the first book was.

Book 1: ‘Gravity’ with the ISS and an astroid. 4 Stars. Book 2: BSG in LEO. 2 stars. Book 3: Red vs. Blue, Earth Gulch Chronicles. 2 stars. My advice? Put the book down as soon as the X-37 shows up. You’ll thank me later.

Competent, but not nearly as interesting as [b:All You Need Is Kill|6255949|All You Need Is Kill|Hiroshi Sakurazaka|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348712730s/6255949.jpg|6439033] or as biting as [b:The Forever War|21611|The Forever War (The Forever War, #1)|Joe Haldeman|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1386852511s/21611.jpg|423]. And as this review points out beautifully, there’s a lot of fridge logic going on.

this book = his dark materials + origin of the species + the sum of all fears. although it is less enjoyable than any of those books. I’m not sure why the characters went on their journey, where the nuke came from, or what the point of the whole book really was.

Wow. Some great twists, an appealing narrative structure, and a realistic antagonist. Great scifi.

The robotic obsession with references to 80’s pop culture was tiresome, and the world itself seemed devoid of forward looking creativity. I didn’t find the antagonists believable, thought the egghunt was dumb, and disliked every protagonist except Shoto and Daito. The VR facets of the plot were engaging, and I’m always down for a book about video games. But really, am I the only one that thinks watching Monty Python and the Holy grail 153 times is not something to admire?

The ideas were great, and the pseudophilosophy was fun. Actually I found myself bored in the action sequences that seemed to jar with the more contemplative nature of the rest of the book.