Why were they killing the kid though? Why not just stealing them? Was it just for the gory internet clickbait videos?
Anyway, this is a response to UrWhy were they killing the kid though? Why not just stealing them? Was it just for the gory internet clickbait videos?
Anyway, this is a response to Ursula K. LeGuin's The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas that reads like it was written by Tamsyn Muir. I'm not sure what it's arguing. That we're all just as bad as each other and enjoy making ourselves feel better by tearing each other down? That the magic of the scapegoat child is, in fact, a façade and many of the things we consider load-bearing necessary evils are in fact just placebos to give ourselves the illusion of control?...more
Very interesting. An indictment of utilitarianism? A version of the scapegoat/substitutionary atonement? The inspiration for Naomi Novik's ScholomanceVery interesting. An indictment of utilitarianism? A version of the scapegoat/substitutionary atonement? The inspiration for Naomi Novik's Scholomance series? I don't know, but I'm intrigued....more
I'm not sure what to say about this. Book one is the GOAT. This one is also good, full of heightened stakes and iconic moments and throughout it all tI'm not sure what to say about this. Book one is the GOAT. This one is also good, full of heightened stakes and iconic moments and throughout it all the rising, single note of tension in the background.
The first half of the book is somewhat slow. All Katniss wants to do is live her life and heal from the Games as best she can. Somehow, no matter what she does, she cannot seem to NOT start a revolution. She's trying to twist her way out of the trap, but every move only tightens it around her.
The announcement of the Quarter Quell speeds things up. The prior victors are introduced, but in this book I don't really get to know them very well. Peeta continues to be a brilliant, selfless legend. (If it weren't for the baby!!!!!!!!) I continue to really like Haymitch. The action in the arena is typically interesting, but there's less of a climax than a sudden amputation of the narrative. It ends, and Katniss wakes up in an entirely different battle than the one she thought she was in.
The standout throughout this reread has been Katniss. I appreciate her so much as a character - her cynicism, her narrow ideals, her being great at ONE THING and pretty bad at everything else, her unlikableness, her unconscious search for something better despite mostly believing "something better" doesn't exist. I have massive respect for her construction as a character, and especially as a POV character. ...more
This book is a prequel, jumping back from where we landed at the end of Wool to the very beginnings of the silo system. It's broken up into three distThis book is a prequel, jumping back from where we landed at the end of Wool to the very beginnings of the silo system. It's broken up into three distinct "books," each one shifting perspective to tell a slightly different part of the story.
At first, we meet a well-meaning yet mealymouthed congressman named Donald. Years later, we meet Troy, the bewildered manager of Silo 1. These two perspectives bounce back and forth, each one revealing a little more of the whole picture until it all comes together with a horrifying clarity. From there, we dive deeper into the silos. Silo 1. Silo 18. Silo 17. Each one has its main character and goes through ups and downs, always with the characteristic grimness I expect from this series.
Finally, at the end of the book, we converge on the present moment and learn a little bit about what happened to Juliette after she left Silo 18. It's a tense setup for what kind of reckoning to anticipate in the next book. And shockingly, even with this whole book of backstory, some worldbuilding mysteries still remain to be revealed.
Overall, this book was interesting and I'll definitely read the next one. ...more
The main character is Cara, a traverser whose job is to travel to parallel worlds for the company thatI vacillated wildly back and forth on this book.
The main character is Cara, a traverser whose job is to travel to parallel worlds for the company that employs her. I love a "Crosstime Traffic" concept. Normalized time/multiverse travel with corporate trappings? I LOVE it, so I was already excited.
The themes of the story are social and political injustice, belonging, and power.
Cara is from a dystopian, disadvantaged community outside the city where people survive however they can. She's valuable to her company because she's died in so many versions of reality, making her able to travel to so many different worlds.
Then stuff starts to happen. (Kind of.) Roughly a third of the way into the book, Cara jumps to another world as usual, but this time things don't go as planned.
It's kind of interesting that the people she seems to meet in every world are the same community of roughly 12 individuals. Is there no one else in the universe? Are there no other places on Earth other than Ashtown (Mad Max: Fury Road) and Wiley City (perfect technocratic utopia except for all the usual technocratic utopian crimes)? I understand the point here is Cara has to confront herself and her demons in the other world in order to be able to confront them in the world she lives in... but it just makes the whole concept of the book feel artificially small.
Roughly two thirds of the way into the book, Cara makes it back home. She brought the revolution with her. (Kind of.)
The way the story wraps up would be enjoyable and satisfying, if I believed it. But I don't. Given the circumstances, I don't think it's remotely realistic for Cara to survive the fallout of her actions and go on to have the future that she does.
The romance is vaguely nonexistent until nearly the end. Cara has a crush on her company handler, who treats her with frosty aloofness the entire time. They discover they like each other, but I never even felt the heartbeat of their friendship before they go off for one extremely vague sex scene.
Overall, I liked the story. I liked Cara. I was invested in her discovery of herself and of all the other versions of her 12 acquaintances that she runs into across worlds. The Adam Bosch reveal was good. The ending was... not rationally believable, but emotionally good.
I did enjoy reading this, but it left me with a nagging feeling of something missing. I wanted more....more
Like with The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday, so many different adjectives can apply here. Weird. Unique. Irreverent.
Kundo is a former painter livingLike with The Gurkha and the Lord of Tuesday, so many different adjectives can apply here. Weird. Unique. Irreverent.
Kundo is a former painter living in a micro-society, a city controlled by an AI in a world destroyed by climate disaster. His life is depressed and empty, meaningless after his wife left him.
And then... shenanigans.
I'm really not even sure how to explain it, but he gets roped in with a poverty-stricken single mom, a drug addict hacker, and a former crime boss to uncover a mystery behind a secret computer game. The game unlocks a djinn secret, if you win. A secret that might explain Kundo's wife's disappearance.
More than anything, this story is one of atmosphere and human feeling. It encapsulates isolation, emptiness, and the spirit and hope of the lost and marginalized. ...more
A djinn wakes up to find himself in a post-climate apocalypse world, in which people live in strictly-controlled micro-societies heWeird, weird story.
A djinn wakes up to find himself in a post-climate apocalypse world, in which people live in strictly-controlled micro-societies headed by benevolent AIs. He sets out to make the new world acknowledge his power, and joins forces with a strange Gurkha man, a member of no society.
Quickly, things spiral rapidly out of control. The strange Gurkha has an agenda, but what is it? Are the AIs so benevolent after all? The djinn just wants to party, but these annoying people and their problems won't let him alone to have fun.
This is a chaotic, original, profane, bizarre and irreverent melding of cyberpunk and fantasy. I was intrigued, but honestly wasn't sure what to think....more
I picked this up for Fire Watch, the short story that kicked off Willis's time-traveling historian series. I didn't bargain for a whole collection of I picked this up for Fire Watch, the short story that kicked off Willis's time-traveling historian series. I didn't bargain for a whole collection of random short stories in the bargain, but I am not complaining.
Fire Watch is an alright story, but nothing wildly interesting.
Some of the other stories are WILD though. I'm relatively a novice in the old timey sci-fi game, but some of these fully kicked me in the head.
All My Darling Daughters? I am traumatized and I cannot possibly overstate this.
A Letter From the Clearys? Haha... yikes.
Samaritan? What the snick snack paddy wack.
The Sidon in the Mirror? I don't know what I'm feeling but it's somewhere on the scale of deeply uncomfortable.
I'm not a short story person, but those eighties sci-fi writers were on something different....more
This is the weirdest book I have read in a long time. It made me briefly feel not just benevolent, but even ADMIRING of the Catholic church, so with tThis is the weirdest book I have read in a long time. It made me briefly feel not just benevolent, but even ADMIRING of the Catholic church, so with that you already know some chicanery is afoot.
Essentially, I am back yet again with another meaningless, three-star review of a book I'm not qualified to evaluate. Yee haw.
A Canticle For Leibowitz is a science fiction meditation on the post-nuclear-war fall of civilization. It is an artefact of the 1950s and 60s, and the understandable melancholia of someone who had experienced a total world war and then afterward stared down the barrel of what looked increasingly like the willful careening self-destruction of the dawning nuclear age... really jumps out.
Realistically, I would be writing stories about the irredeemably selfish spirit of humanity as well.
The premise is that the world as we know it has ended after a nuclear war, leaving only few survivors and a horrendously irradiated planet. Technology, history, and understanding of anything that came before is forgotten, except what can be scrounged up from archaeological digs in the rubble left behind. Somehow, the monks of Leibowitz become the guardians of these scraps of pre-apocalypse knowledge, in a savage and primitive world.
There are three novellas, essentially, that combine to make this book. Each one focuses on an important point along fallen civilization's slow journey to rebuild. With the time jumps in between each section, the story spans hundreds of years.
It is:
• Very not only religious, but Catholic. It was a little suffocating at first, but as the book went on I got used to it. Honestly, it was an interesting exercise in perspective and kind of a nice change from the worldview filtering I do with the usual aggressively secular books.
• Brutal. Don't get attached to any of the characters, because lol. THEY understand what kind of world they live in, but do you?
• Extremely creepy in a strange, philosophical and moral way. There is violence, gore, body horror, birth defects and deformities, etc. but it was really something disturbing about the despairing-yet-impotently-yearning emotion in the story that had me staring vacantly into space after finishing it.
Overall, this was an Experienceᵀᴹ. And I still don't know WHO the old hermit is....more
If you, like me, have never been a horse girl and are a bit skeptical that pegasuses (pegasi?) have anything to offer youThis was an interesting one.
If you, like me, have never been a horse girl and are a bit skeptical that pegasuses (pegasi?) have anything to offer you, let me assure you that there is much more here than flying horses.
Aluma lives in a world where the king's elite cavalry fight with sword and bow from winged horseback. She also lives in a world where solar-powered cars, relics of the bygone era before technology was lost, transport the wealthy and powerful across the kingdom. It's an extremely intriguing mixture of genres, and unraveling the rules of the world was my favorite part of reading this.
Other highlights include:
1. Aluma's relationship with her father. Though he's offscreen for much of the book, he was a powerful presence at the beginning and the strength of his and Aluma's relationship was a compelling impetus throughout the story.
2. The names. There are some doozies here. Wolkenna? Gattacan? I feel like these are pretty bold moves already, but there's also a kid named Cloveman, so honestly I have to respect the sheer gall. This author saw a world crowded with Feyres and Cardans and Hawkes and decided to take a STAND.
3. I like how the plot moves right along. We don't spend forever preparing for the tournament, we don't spend forever at the training academy, etc. We spend enough time everywhere to make it feel natural and not rushed, but the impetus of the plot never drags down.
Some things that possibly could have been better:
• The love triangle OH my gosh. I don't know if it's just what I've been reading, but I was under the impression that the genre was getting a little better about this lately. Not as many blatant teen love triangles as we were plagued with in the 2008-2015ish heyday.
This, however, is a true throwback classic.
Aluma is torn between her childhood friend and the dashing foreign prince and spends far too much time dwelling on her feelings for both of them. To the extent where they're undercover on a mission that may seal the fate of the whole world not to mention Aluma's father, and half of the wordcount is about how jealous they make each other. Not gonna lie, this was a real struggle.
• The world was the most interesting part, as I said before, so it was kind of disappointing to be left a little confused about what exactly was going on. In some ways it seems like the conflict between the two (three?) kingdoms is some ancient, long-ago thing. The technology seems like it's been lost for decades if not centuries, and the war seems like it's been going on for generations. But at the same time, it seems like Gattacan's father lays direct blame for the state of things at the current king's feet?
I'm not sure exactly what happened and when and why, but I would like to be.
• The ending. Essentially, (view spoiler)[our squad of feisty kids loses two battles in a row and then sort of stalemates one, and then just retreats to parts unknown? (hide spoiler)] The hasty, immature nature of their mission plans and the way they just seem to be flinging desperate, half-baked ideas at the wall and hoping something sticks doesn't exactly give this denouement the gravitas that it ideally should have.
• This is really minor but like, the pegasuses can hover. There are MULTIPLE instances of entire cavalry troops just sort of... parking in thin air to hover over a target/take stock of a situation. Now. Assuming these horses have bird wings like on the cover, there are only a FEW bird species that can hover at all even with wind assist.
Do some scholarly YouTubing of buzzards or kites hovering, and imagine flocks of massive horses with twelve-foot wings doing the frantic, neurotic flapping that those birds have to do in order to hover. Absolutely terrifying. You would kill each other just trying to hover in an orderly formation. The polar opposite of stealthy.
Even worse, imagine if they have hummingbird wings and can do the HUMMINGBIRD HOVER. Scores of warriors sitting on floating horses while their huge wings do the figure 8 nyoom so fast you can't even see them. Imagine how deafeningly LOUD that would be. I know I would certainly surrender to such a horrifyingly uncanny force.
(I know there's a second trilogy.... Shhh. We're done.)
I first read Red Rising only eight months ago, but it seFinally! Finally!! Finally! We're DONE!
(I know there's a second trilogy.... Shhh. We're done.)
I first read Red Rising only eight months ago, but it seems like it's been eight years that this series has hung over me. SO happy to stick it on my virtual shelf and never look at it again.
As has been the running theme so far, this book isn't BAD. It's just annoying.
The problem seems to be twofold. First, that I pretty much don't like any of the characters. Second, the overwhelming just utter grossness of the whole series.
Darrow, shockingly, fought his way closer to the side of "characters I almost like" as the series progressed. Still don't really like him. The DRAMA, honestly. The deep, weighty ruminations on grief and love and suffering and how he's the only one around who ever seems to truly feel things. The tension between him being Almost Too Idealistic and Soft, yet constantly deciding to do things that knowingly kill thousands of innocents -- and somehow he comes out on the correct side of both paradigms.
I just... don't care. And that's as close as I come to caring.
I don't like Sevro. The unhinged, lunatic wildman aesthetic and zany banter the Howlers work so hard to cultivate does nothing for me. I don't like Victra. I don't really like Cassius or Mustang or anyone else. I didn't care about any of the heart-wrenching deaths. Roque, especially, seemed to get a ridiculous amount of empathy from Darrow; it came off as almost insane compared to the thousands of Reds and Sons of Ares he willfully sacrificed MINUTES LATER with pretty much nothing but a token drop of self-pity.
Poor me, it's so sad that I have to bear the guilt of killing all these innocent people. Dude if those were people YOU knew, you would have cut your own head off before doing the offhanded math that ended their lives.
And then there's just... the swearing. The bodily functions. The gore and violence. The cannibalism. The torture. The cutting of limbs and sexual abuse and burning of skin and crunching of bones and perforating of intestines. The grossness just seeps into everything and stains every page.
I'm not even sure what it is, because usually I don't mind violence. Usually I'm even in favor of well-applied gore. I'm not a fan of when books tell me that evil is sooo evil and war is soo bad and then don't actually make you see any of it, except the stirring and exciting parts.
But I do reach a point of saturation. I reached it with the Night Angel series, and I am reaching it here.
There's a point at which the edgy jokes become grating, and the newer, bigger horrors just feel like they're there for empty shock value. When I'm reaching a place of disgust with the entire world that makes me want to wash my hands of every character.
When Darrow and Cassius had their little movie night of Red Rising nostalgia reels, I just wanted to get rid of them both. When stirring, dramatic moments of a character about to do something awesome to a rising background of trumpet music happened (like... every fourth chapter. the DRAMA) I wanted to roll my eyes.
There were a few things I did like, and those were:
1) Darrow and Sevro made up quickly. Dragging out something like that absolutely NEVER makes for a better story. Wise decision.
2) The Oceans Eleven thing, which happened at least three times, where the narrative sets you up to sort of think that Darrow's made a fatal mistake and is about to die, but ACTUALLY it's part of his plan the whole time, which you did kind of suspect because it was hinted at, but couldn't help but be sort of worried anyway. This is a great storytelling gambit that I never tire of.
Outside of that, though... I think I'm just tired of this series. It's just not the series for me, unfortunately, and if I ever think about trying the next one (because I WILL) please gently remind me that it's an entirely bad idea....more
I picked this out for a fun sci-fi read about sentient AIs. Instead, it IMMEDIATELY began serving Philip K. Dick noir dystopian cyberpunk vibes.
The CI picked this out for a fun sci-fi read about sentient AIs. Instead, it IMMEDIATELY began serving Philip K. Dick noir dystopian cyberpunk vibes.
The Caspian Republic is a tiny, authoritarian state, a bastion of pure humanity in a world where almost everyone has become at least partially AI. People starve and scrape by, isolated from the rest of the global community, while various shadowy security bureaus watch citizens' every move and squabble for dominance.
Nikolai South is an agent of one of these security bureaus; he's easily depressed, flawed, and gritty enough to qualify as the communist cyberpunk version of a noir detective. South is assigned to bodyguard an AI woman on a state visit, and the resulting clash of interest and ideology kicks off the plot.
This book was not what I was looking for. I was worried, at first, that it would be too slow and thoughtful to be interesting, but I was wrong. It does take a while to warm up, but as soon as Lily enters the picture I couldn't help but be interested. The post-human world is fascinating as well, though it isn't nearly as explored as I would have liked to see. I was also surprised so little came of Lily's resemblance to South's dead wife.
The lead-up to the end, with its Wikipedia account of the civil war, was a little anticlimactic, but I liked and was surprised by the actual ending. Overall, this was a good read and much better than expected....more
This is a "girl meets boy, finally realizes she's living in a dystopia, escapes" story. We've all read that story aOkay, there is a LOT going on here.
This is a "girl meets boy, finally realizes she's living in a dystopia, escapes" story. We've all read that story a million times, right? WRONG.
If you, like me, look at the cover art on this book and come away with no earthly idea what it involves, let me help. I would describe the plot of this book as "innocent debutante Ellie gets introduced to the horrors of zombie slavery."
The worldbuilding here just really jumps out from page one. The mixture of 1) old-timey dresses, balls, upper-class Southern-style snobbery and social rules with 2) the fact that everyone lives in dome cities tightly controlled by megacorporations whose economy runs off the labor of hordes of the domesticated undead has an exquisitely creepy, jarring effect.
Ellie's wide-eyed, soft-hearted character also presents an interesting contrast with the extent to which traffic in dead people permeates her life. The book starts off a little slow, but the "WHAT IS GOING ON" emotions provoked by experiencing the world itself held me over until the Zombie Rights Movement eventually kicked off the action.
The story is creepy and disturbing. It's very original. I essentially knew what was going to happen the whole time because, like I said, it's a well-trodden plot, but I didn't care. I was interested in peeling back each layer of Ellie's buried family secrets and the truth about her family's zombie-making empire.
The underground railroad allusions and themes are inescapable, twisting several different types of well-known stories into a shape I've never seen before. There were a lot of intriguing characters as well, with Ellie herself possibly near the bottom of the list. (Her ex-boyfriend is the least intriguing.) What an absolutely unhinged ride.
Overall, I was 100% blindsided by this book. It's better than its blurb and SO much better than its cover art. There is still so much here to explore, and I am absolutely going to read the next one in the series....more
This was a short, off-the-wall comedy satire. Kind of like if you took Wag the Dog and cranked it up to level 10 insane incoherency.
The main characteThis was a short, off-the-wall comedy satire. Kind of like if you took Wag the Dog and cranked it up to level 10 insane incoherency.
The main character, Blake, is the emergency PR fix-it man for an incompetent, authoritarian presidency. The whole book vacillates wildly between Blake's wholesome desire to build his relationship with his wife, and the steadily escalating crimes that surround him at work. The distraction speech was a high point, and the story also ends happier than it has any right to.
Okay, this did not go the way I was expecting it to.
I read the first book like two years ago, MOSTLY because of the very cool cover, and walked away wOkay, this did not go the way I was expecting it to.
I read the first book like two years ago, MOSTLY because of the very cool cover, and walked away without being wowed. From what I remember, I did not enjoy Rowan's POV chapters last time and enduring all that Goddard without ever moving the plot forward meaningfully.
With that ringing endorsement, I decided to move forward because this book is titled for the benevolent computer deity, and he is the character I am most interested in anyway.
I did enjoy this more than Scythe. I liked the Thunderhead's chapter prefaces, Greyson, and the momentum the book kept the whole time. However, again we are suffering from too much Goddard and not enough Rowan. FREE ROWAN. Let him live!!! I just want to see what he would do if he were for once not imprisoned! Honestly, Scythe Lucifer is the coolest thing we've seen since the benevolent computer deity, and we are NOT using him enough.
However. Boy did the ending of this take me by surprise.
I kind of hope the next book jumps decades into the future. The combination of Goddard, the Thunderhead's disillusionment with humanity, and its constant musing on the future, makes me think that we might be headed from a pseudo-utopia to a true dystopia. I'm intrigued....more
I was promised Mad Max: Fury Road and this book certainly delivered. Honestly, it delivered almost too exactly. If you've seen the movie, you know theI was promised Mad Max: Fury Road and this book certainly delivered. Honestly, it delivered almost too exactly. If you've seen the movie, you know the general outline of the story already.
Delta lives with her family scrounging a living out of a dead and dying earth. Other vibes are present as well as MM:FR, such as Sand by Hugh Howey, and a tiny little bit of Dune. There's an evil man who presides over a too-powerful outpost. There's the mystery of the dystopian truth behind the origin myths and theology of Delta's people. There are strong themes of family and trust.
I would give this book a 3.5. It was enjoyable; I read it in one sitting and it certainly didn't lose my interest. I would have liked it more if the plot were a BIT less on the nose. I would have loved it if I had loved the characters, which I wanted to. I liked them, Delta especially, but I needed more in order to really invest....more
Seven strangers wake up in different places to find that the world is now deserted of people and overgrown with wildlife. There's not muThis was good.
Seven strangers wake up in different places to find that the world is now deserted of people and overgrown with wildlife. There's not much after that I can tell you, because the plot is a) survival and b) figuring out what happened to the world. I did NOT predict the outcome at all.
I think the most notable artistry the author shows in this book is a masterful navigation of tone. Waking up to find your former life - family, goals, identity - all completely gone, is a horrible trauma. Surviving in an urban wasteland overrun by predators and threatened by the more prosaic problems of starvation, sickness, injury, and the elements, is also horrible. However, this is NOT a story of death and dismemberment.
The tone of the story is irreverent, pragmatic, and hilarious. The author's narrative voice is unique and entertaining; I laughed out loud at least four times, and I am not usually an easy touch for humor. The characters all have their own quirks and skills, and overall remain reasonable and cooperative and funny. There wasn't a single character I disliked. But this book isn't a total wacky genre parody, either. Instead, it's a work of finesse that keeps an upbeat, ironic tone but doesn't lose sight of the fear and real emotion of the situation, either.
Overall, I enjoyed the whole experience. This book is interesting, fun, and an all-around good ride. I hope it's a hit when it comes out....more
This book was better than the first one, which is good because if it was worse I would have been mOh, the drama. Oh, the trauma.
That about sums it up.
This book was better than the first one, which is good because if it was worse I would have been mad. Instead of the Color Coded Hunger Games we have the Color Coded Civil War. This is superior because there is a point to it and it proceeds mostly logically from action to reaction, unlike the first book's long stretches of total inaction broken up by wild flailing.
There are also quite a few good moments. Highlights include Darrow's taking of the ship through popular uprising, his honesty with Ragnar and Ragnar's overall development, his visit home, Sevro's being in on things, the Ares Reveal which I completely did not expect, the lie detector competition, and did I mention Sevro's being in on things?
Lots of people are dead now, and lots more people are introduced. Sevro is mine and everyone else's favorite character, which is simultaneously inevitable and cheap. He's simply a caricature of bloodthirstiness and absolute loyalty, so what's not to like? The Jackal is still around, which turns out about like how you would expect.
The Bellonas continue to make zero sense. They sent Julian to the Color Coded Hunger Games FULLY KNOWING that he was intended as hapless murder practice for a more ruthless student, and then proclaimed a nihilistic blood vendetta on that student? What did they expect? Would they have required the head of whichever random student happened to get Julian in the lottery?
But anyway, that has little to do with the story, honestly. It's just my pet peeve. Overall, the story is charged with violence, twists and turns, and drives you straight from the beginning to the end in a frenzy of intensity. The themes of vulnerability and loyalty are good. We get some actual work done in the plot to overthrow Color Coded Society. It's fun to watch Darrow shoot higher and higher, and really this book is much better than the first one. So, why am I rating them the same?
Mostly it's because I want to stab Darrow in the eye.
This guy. Honestly. It's so dramatic. He's so dramatic. His inner monologue, his speeches -- like PLEASE, I know we are dealing with these classical influences, but you are not some Greek hero. This is a dystopia. Please chill. And then there's the fact that he's so mopey and indecisive as well. Yes, we know your poor, poor teenage wife is dead. Yes, we know you're Forever Alone surrounded by a society of people with whom you Can Never Truly Belong.
One moment he's blinded by murderous rage, the next he's like but wait, we are all one race... the human race. He vacillates between acting like he is truly the only man alive who deserves rights and bouts of miserable self-reflection so often that sometimes it's hard to figure out where we're going. Please decide if you want to kill Golds or if you like them! Please decide if you want to overthrow them violently or not!
It just makes me want to pull my hair out. Honestly, this entire story would be so much less annoying if we weren't inside Darrow's head the entire time. Without Sevro's irreverent and humorous counterbalance, Darrow would be truly intolerable.
I don't know whether I have hope for this series or not. Not gonna lie, it makes me a little uncomfortable how so many people adore these books and I'm finding them such a mixed experience. It's probably just not the series for me, but also I kind of want to know whether the revolution succeeds or not....more
Love reading this while I'm completely alone in a cabin in the PNW. Strategic mistakes were made.
This is a much smaller story than World War Z and alsLove reading this while I'm completely alone in a cabin in the PNW. Strategic mistakes were made.
This is a much smaller story than World War Z and also less of a feat. At the same time, it's able to tell a story of a Bigfoot massacre and make it truly scary and haunting. It gave me that sort of vaguely unsettled, I-need-to-watch-a-soothing-movie-now feeling, so I would call that successful.
EDIT: AND ANOTHER THING-- I was honestly conflicted whether to rate this 3 or 4 stars. If I could, I would settle on a solid 3.5. Since I can't, I decided to err on the side of lower rating because of one detail. This book takes place 1.5 hr south of Seattle in fall-winter and guess how many times it rained in the story.
First, it seemed like it was going to be a generic case of the Color-Coded Masses rising against their CoThis book tried. Possibly, it tried too hard.
First, it seemed like it was going to be a generic case of the Color-Coded Masses rising against their Color-Coded Overlords. Meh. Then it switched gears, and seemed like it was about going deep undercover at Color-Coded Overlord School. I was excited for that one. And THEN, finally, it turned into The Hunger Games, but both stupider and with adult fiction levels of brutality and gore.
This might be a little harsh. I did have fun in the last twenty percent, when Darrow finally seemed to get a single mission clear in his head. Before that, though... Chaos. It was just pointless chaos, and it seemed like there was no goal, and none of it made any sense. The Hunger Games make sense because it's the point for kids to die in increasingly horrible and entertaining ways.
The point of this game was, somehow, for kids NOT to die. But also for them to be at war with each other. A war in which their only weapons are things like spears and swords and knives. But also, they're not supposed to die. Whoever designed this whole thing was an idiot.
"Of course, since we're all about natural selection, it makes total sense for us to artificially gather the top 1% of youths and make them maim, injure, and 'not' kill each other as much as possible. Especially since most of them are the sons and daughters of the most powerful people in the empire, who already are destabilizing and corrupting the system to fight their countless blood feuds. Also, it makes sense for us to pit kids against each other in one-on-one death matches and then be super mad when the wrong kids get killed." Idiot.
Anyway, the background setup might have been only a little annoying, except that for most of the book I just wasn't having much fun.
The only exceptions to that would be the last twenty percent, as I said, and also the time they spent in the city while Darrow was getting his makeover. Otherwise, the overarching feel was of flailing blindly in the darkness, and it was hard to get behind. I'll probably go on to finish the series, once enough time has passed for me to forget about how vaguely irritated I am right now....more
D. B. Guin
>
Books:
dystopia
(52)
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