Reviews and Comments

This is more about the entire trilogy, rather than this one book.

I wanted to read this series because I wanted a story about how the thinking machine rose up and took over, and how the human race dealt with that and the subsequent aftermath. Instead the series begins centuries after the thinking machines have conquered everything, and little exposition is given to explain how it all occured. What this series actually is is nothing more than a fan service crawl through the origin of everything and anything that the authors could think of from the original book. The real icing on the cake though is how dull and, honestly, rubbish most of the origin stories are, and they get worse the further through the series you get. (seriously, by the end it would have been just as convincing to say "a wizard did it")

If you want a story about the rise and fall of the thinking machines: don't read this series. If you want a story about the origins of everything you can think of from the original book: also don't read this series, just use your imagination, it'll probably be better.

Thank goodness that's over and done with...

I appreciate the irony of stating that a sub-200-page book is long, but what I mean by that is that it felt a bit like there was a page number that was required to be reached; there is a lot of unnecessary repetition, or drawing out of a point that could have been achieved with half as many paragraphs.

That being said, I did enjoy reading the book. I remember listening about the original challenge in the author's podcast, and thinking it was interesting then. What was good about the book, however, is the interviews she made with academics and researchers about what technology is doing to us on a social and (more interestingly) neurological level. It was far more interesting to me to read about the quantifiable evidence gathered from research and experimentation, rather than the anecdotal stories.

Ultimately, the book gets you to think about your relationship with technology, not in a negative or positive way, but in a critical way. What relationship do you want to have with technology, and how does that compare with the relationship you actually have? I've been thinking about this a lot lately, due to the fact I have young kids right now, and the book really gives pause for thought about how and when phones should be used, not just within the home, but more broadly as well.

It's incredible, and not, how little has changed in 175 years...

Excellent! I've been reading this to my son for quite a while now. It's a great bed time story!

I've been meaning to read this since it was published (and the library is going to demand this copy back soon), so now's a good time to start it, I guess?

The best way I can describe this book is "aggressively 50%". It seems to me that its only purpose was to connect the first 700 page book to the third 700 page book, through its own 750 pages.

I'm annoyed that I've committed myself to this trilogy. I'm being told I should abandon it and read something else, but I don't think I can now (does anyone else feel that way mid-series?)

I'm going to read the third one, but unless it really pulls something out of the bag (which the last 1450 pages haven't convinced me it will) I don't think I'll be recommending any of the expanded Dune universe.

Just got recommended this by a colleague. One critic (Shelley Parker-Chan) describes it as "Think The Handmaid's Tale meets Pacific Rim and buckle up." and, honestly, that sounds great to me.