3.5 stars, weird one. Greg continues to play with the rules of perception and what perceiving a thing implies, only this time we go on a trippy trip to parallel universe central, launching of parallel universes as we go, dropping through thousands of years and more, and "failing" (in one universe, and what's one universe) in the end because the aliens we created have a more solid and cohesive perception of reality than we do. I just felt the whole time that Greg made all the rules fairly arbitrarily and could change them whatever way he wanted at any time. Which may have been due to me not understanding the premise deeply enough (and is a feeling shared by Maria, one of the two protagonists, at least).
A good end to the series. The different roles and characters were great, and the explanations of humans vs dragons explained previous plots.
I'm sure the movie is much better than this, but the book just feels like a cheap version of Ender's Game.
This whole series continues its spree of positive surprises. This time we get a new Lucifer, and we get various conversations with God. Well well well.
This book gives a good overview over the way online culture gravitates towards outrage and shaming. We get to meet some of the people impacted by this, and industries surrounding it, as well as contextualisation, both historical and with the justice system. While there is little actionable advice here – I appreciated it. It read like a very long, thorough reportage and I enjoyed reading it.
It's a nice premise, but the execution was somewhat lacking. Too dramatic, too predictable, and not going far enough.
I appreciate the absurdity of the book, I really do. The plot was part funny, part horrible, always absurd and tragic. I see how the repetetiveness of the theme can be read as great. It just didn't fit my taste. It felt like it nearly could have been a Vonnegut, but wasn't thinking quite the same way. I'm glad I have read it though, it was time well spent.
Nice story, giving us a hint of what being Lucifer will do to Stark. Short and … well, not sweet at all, as Stark discovers, then forgets, that he's not the second but the third Lucifer.
I liked Binti a lot more than Akata Witch, which I enjoyed very much. Binti was impressive and creative scifi, and the tha fast pace (du to the <100 pages) was refreshing and very well executed. Binti is a wonderful protagonist, and the culture and belief system sketched out in the book made me hungry for more. (Also: living ships?! Living ships!)
At the same time, no matter how enjoyable this book was, I feel that it fails to address consequences to actions properly – like the plot was laid out and will be followed regardless of second thoughts, or petty things like consequences for mass murder. This might have been alleviated by writing a bit more, so that more context is given, idk.
Story can be found here: https://thedreaming.moteofdust.com/1999/10/10/snow-glass-apples/
Well, what do you expect from Neil Gaiman tackling Snowhite from the perspective of the evil queen? It's great. The princess's heart was a nice touch.
An astounding fairytale about a monk and a fox.
4.5 stars for me, but let's round it up.
We see Lauren starting a new religion about God being Change in not-quite-post apocalyptic America. I think that's it.
I'm not really sure where I stand on the mysticism, but the characters and characterizations and descriptions were so good, it doesn't even matter to my opinion that much.
I definitely liked this one more than World of Rocannon. It shows us two alien cultures as seen by the other culture, and their interactions. It's short and simple, and its narrative arch is not very impressive, but it's okay or even good scifi, hands down.