Reviews and Comments

This is in the same universe as The Space Between Worlds, but the main characters from that book purportedly only make limited appearances, which is disappointing to me. I was drawn to the characters in that book far more than the world. #SFFBookClub

I'm a little under halfway and have encountered a couple things I wasn't expecting. First, it is radically different from its sibling series, The Quantum Evolution. Second, there is a gender identity story here and it is being told extremely well up to this point. Any time I think I understand Derek Künsken he shows me how wrong I am.

This will probably be the unpopular minority opinion, but here goes...

This book was still enjoyable, but the first half was extremely slow. It picked up once we got into the action, but it was somewhat more subtle this time around. There is nothing wrong with the book, but it feels like Wells thinks she needs to do more to evolve this character, but doesn't really know what, so we just get tiny bits.

I love the world Malka Older created and the two main characters are wonderful. But I would have liked the story to be longer. The resolution felt very rushed.

Mostly a rom-com, but slides into science fiction a little, with just a pinch of social activism. The less you know going into it, the better.

This is one of my favorite books from 2022. It investigates how difficult communications will be when the two parties have almost no common reference. It takes a swipe (perhaps not intentionally) at the books and movies where alien communication moves rapidly from no commonality to complete sentences conveying complex abstract topics. Along with language, the book also explores consciousness and what makes a person a person.

The environmental message never feels heavy handed, and while it often paints a disturbing picture, it also offers a hopeful outlook.

As I neared the end I worried that it would take a sloppy shortcut to wrap up so much, but the ending was quite satisfying, although perhaps not in the ways I was expecting.

This is incredibly imaginative, but sometime maybe too smart for its own good. There are parts that don't make a lot of sense and are occasionally a slog to get through, but they all weave together by the end. There is a lot of insightful commentary on the current state of social media, and this was published before Musk took over Twitter. This is likely to be one of the 6 novels I nominate for the 2023 Hugo (assuming nominations ever open).

As always, Annalee Newitz is astoundingly smart. She fills this book with many interesting ideas. Unfortunately, the story she writes around the ideas in this book is a little weak. The most notable example is in the first section where two factions have little reason to trust each other, yet they do so in only a couple pages.

Terraformers is still worth reading for the concepts, but Newitz's previous two works of fiction are easily superior.

There's no real way to state why I didn't like this book as much as its predecessors without spoiling nearly the entire thing. Suffice to say, the tone of this book is inconsistent with the rest of the series.

There is nothing wrong with this book, but there is nothing especially interesting or memorable about it either. It feels like it was written as a side project, which it was. It does get extra consideration since, like all Sanderson fantasy, it has a well thought out magic system instead of one that evolves to fit whatever corner the author writes themself into.

This one took a little longer to get going than the previous volume, but all the pieces were lined up to fall neatly into place at the end.

This book is far less about helpful tips for actually doing the cleaning, and more about giving yourself permission not to be perfect. I cleared that hurdle long ago. I am sure there are many people who will gain a lot from this book, but I wasn't one of them.