Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.0 AVERAGE
4.0 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Interesting planet and interesting ideas. I liked how philosophies and the story was nicely tied together.
adventurous
funny
hopeful
informative
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Loveable characters:
No
Interesting, but not particularly great. The alien-ness of the planet was cool, but I didn’t care much for the characters.
adventurous
informative
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
After 5 straight underwhelming books (I rated 1-2 stars each), I tried to find a book that family/friends enjoyed to increase my odds. Of course all of the good candidates had waitlists at the library so I picked this one up on a whim and it narrowly avoided being #6.
Alien Clay has essentially one interesting concept and an otherwise quite cliché, uninteresting story and flat, uncompelling characters. It felt like a discount Andy Weir book.
Alien Clay has essentially one interesting concept and an otherwise quite cliché, uninteresting story and flat, uncompelling characters. It felt like a discount Andy Weir book.
This would have been an excellent short story. The alien biology and how it interacts with itself and humanity is a lot of fun. The stuff it’s doing with science and authoritarianism is decent. The non-linear part in the middle that builds tension was fun. The part where it starts hitting you over the head with an anvil labelled with the reductive point it’s making about consensus and collaboration and understanding and whatever got so deep in its own philosophy for so long that I was bored to tears. I genuinely think this book was a bunch of cool concepts that would have made a great short story (the end would have been fascinating if it wasn’t such a slog to get there! And it wasn’t a meaningful slog! I love a meaningful slog! This isn’t it!). Many of the concepts here deserve a higher rating, but this is the highest I’m willing to go for a book I had to slog through this much.