Generally, I read all kinds of books. That said, some time ago I decided to revisit my old love science fiction. So I am mostly reading that currently, and baseball books.
This is the lightest SF that I have read over the last few years. The whole series is for when you want to switch off your brain and just read about nice people doing not very exciting things in space. Recommended when life becomes too much. This part is very, very slow moving. Quite some annoying fan service. The earlier parts are more fun.
Beginning in 2030, a grieving archeologist arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue the work …
Death, death, and death
5 stars
On the first few pages, an ancient virus is released to the world. Then people start dying.
This is not so much a novel as a collection of short stories that are connected by the world, and sometimes share some of the characters. All stories deal with different aspects of how a pandemic plays out if it is really bad. There is no cure, no real treatment, people suffer, die, lose friends, family and hope, grieve. For 300 pages.
This might sound bleak, because it really is. Some of the stories messed me up a lot. But at the same time, the stories, how they relate, most of the characters, are fascinating and beautiful. So I do recommend this, but be warned that it can be tough.
On a warm March night in 2083, Judy Wallach-Stevens wakes to a warning of unknown …
Could have been nice
3 stars
I like the whole idea and the world. But I feel that this book would have needed a good editor. In large parts not much happens, only endless talking. Also, the characters needed more work: most of them have a single defining characteristic, and we learn nothing else about them. This is true even for relatively central characters, like the wife of the main character, the co-parents, essentially all the aliens. Maybe there are simply too many characters to flesh them out? For example, the main character has three parents (to signal diversity?), but we learn nothing about the two mothers - they appear, but don't really do anything. Instead, additionally, an aunt is introduced that has a single defining character trait (something about technology). Why not simply merge her into one of the parents? A similar approach for other characters could have kept the number of characters at a …
I like the whole idea and the world. But I feel that this book would have needed a good editor. In large parts not much happens, only endless talking. Also, the characters needed more work: most of them have a single defining characteristic, and we learn nothing else about them. This is true even for relatively central characters, like the wife of the main character, the co-parents, essentially all the aliens. Maybe there are simply too many characters to flesh them out? For example, the main character has three parents (to signal diversity?), but we learn nothing about the two mothers - they appear, but don't really do anything. Instead, additionally, an aunt is introduced that has a single defining character trait (something about technology). Why not simply merge her into one of the parents? A similar approach for other characters could have kept the number of characters at a more manageable level and made them less one-dimensional.
As it is, there is very little going on and at the same time the characters are not well done. Either of these problems would have been OK for me, but having both is a little much.
The Singularity. It is the era of the posthuman. Artificial intelligences have surpassed the limits …
Terrible
1 star
It's very rare that I consciously decide to not finish a book. This was the only such case this year.
The book tries to extrapolate current (or rather yesterday's trends) into the near future. However, almost all predictions are stupid and just plain wrong, e.g.no, google glasses are not a success. Normally, I have no problem with that in science fiction. Sometimes things just do not turn out the way the author thought. But here there is nothing else to the book: there are no characters - neither likable nor unlikable, just none at all, no story, really nothing that could have motived me to continue reading.
The language is extremely heavy on invented jargon, and this is clearly not working either. It just makes the whole thing completely indigestible. There is actually an index at the end of the book that is supposed to explain certain words and concepts …
It's very rare that I consciously decide to not finish a book. This was the only such case this year.
The book tries to extrapolate current (or rather yesterday's trends) into the near future. However, almost all predictions are stupid and just plain wrong, e.g.no, google glasses are not a success. Normally, I have no problem with that in science fiction. Sometimes things just do not turn out the way the author thought. But here there is nothing else to the book: there are no characters - neither likable nor unlikable, just none at all, no story, really nothing that could have motived me to continue reading.
The language is extremely heavy on invented jargon, and this is clearly not working either. It just makes the whole thing completely indigestible. There is actually an index at the end of the book that is supposed to explain certain words and concepts (that might only be part of the German edition I was reading). However, for the concepts that I understand, the explanations are hilariously wrong, which makes me not trust any of the others.
Overall, I made it roughly halfway through before deciding not to waste any more time on this book. Maybe there is a big payoff in the end, but I will never know. So my recommendation: stay away from this!
