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pomegranateicecream's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
I loved this trilogy!
angengea's review
2.0
I read this book from an ARC. I had not read the previous two books in the series. If I had, I might have enjoyed this more. The book is slow-moving and tedious, the exposition is dry, and I am not given any reason to care about the characters. Maybe if I had two previous books' worth of worldbuilding and backstory, but reading this out of sequence means I just don't care.
librarian_of_trantor's review
3.0
In my review of the second book in this trilogy [b:Noumenon Infinity|35887265|Noumenon Infinity (Noumenon #2)|Marina J. Lostetter|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1517768510l/35887265._SY75_.jpg|57403777] I referenced a blog I wrote for the Barnes &Noble SFF Blog. about how authors might deal with character over the long time spans of some space operas. (Excuse the shameless self promotion while I add the link again. https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/sci-fi-fantasy/space-opera-making-us-immortal-one-neat-trick/, The B&N SFF blog is beyond promotion, having been killed by corporate maneuvers.) In this third book Lostetter threw in addition ways to maintain some character continuity of long time/space spans. The clones and AI are still going strong. But she now has five different ways to give characters long lives. She refers to five different "immortals" with five different ways to get there. (spoilers alert). 1) The AI, ICC, had shut down for extended period but woke up when some aliens showed up on the planet Noumenon. 2) another character has a normal life span but her time in the story is extended because she keeps jumping out of the normal space/time flow for extended periods. 3) another human character has a very slow physical maturation; her mental development, initially non existent, eventually leaves her an adult in a toddler's body. 4) one human clone has added genes from jelly fish that is able to live forever by regressing to earlier development stage then maturing to adulthood; so he swings between old age and youth over thousand of years, 5) native life form on the planet Noumenon are able to periodically go into a cocoon like state and emerged transformed. And at some point in the story, the consciousness of a billion year old race, sent forward in time is merged with some of the Noumenonian when they go through that transformation.
If the above description of the immortal is hard to follow, that's the problem with this book. If this had been a stand along book I would have quit about a third through. I stuck it out because I like the other two books and wanted to see how the author wrapped up the story. But the end was not that satisfying. And the using multiple POV characters and jumping back and forth in time... I understand what the author was trying to do. But it didn't quite work, at least for me.
If the above description of the immortal is hard to follow, that's the problem with this book. If this had been a stand along book I would have quit about a third through. I stuck it out because I like the other two books and wanted to see how the author wrapped up the story. But the end was not that satisfying. And the using multiple POV characters and jumping back and forth in time... I understand what the author was trying to do. But it didn't quite work, at least for me.
lauralauralaura's review against another edition
3.5
Still quite enjoyable, but found myself getting a little bored with the intergalactic woo-wooness of the overall civilizational goals and story arc.
greyreads's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
sillypunk's review
5.0
There were so many interesting ideas in this series and even in just this novel: https://blogendorff.com/2020/10/08/book-review-noumenon-ultra/
skylar2's review
2.0
When Noumenon Ultra came out, I was very excited to read it given how much I enjoyed the previous two books (especially the first one). Unfortunately, Noumenon Ultra has the feeling of a short story blown up to novel-sized proportions without anything done to justify the extra length. The first 350 pages or so are pure exposition, and by the time anything interesting started to happen, my sense of wonder for the sprawling world Lostetter had built (spread over millions of years and thousands of light-years) had been replaced with sheer boredom.
essinink's review
1.0
I don't like giving 1-star reviews. Usually, when I 1-star a book, it means I felt such intense dislike that I can't find a redeeming factor. But in this case, it's worse. In this case, Lostetter's grand ambitions for her universe grew so cosmically wide-reaching that she sacrificed the plot. And then on top of that, she took a hacksaw to language and grammar and called it art.
To the first point: I'm not a reader who requires a strong external plot if the journey can stand as its own plot. There are authors who do very well writing internal people-plots and concept-plots. The first book, [b:Noumenon|32600718|Noumenon (Noumenon #1)|Marina J. Lostetter|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1490802159l/32600718._SY75_.jpg|53181429], was good. Lostetter hit exactly the right balance between external and internal plot factors, and made me care about her characters despite time skips. By contrast, [b:Noumenon Infinity|35887265|Noumenon Infinity (Noumenon #2)|Marina J. Lostetter|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1517768510l/35887265._SY75_.jpg|57403777] had much weaker writing, and Ultra continued the downward spiral.
Here, at the close of the trilogy, the external pressure is too big, and too existential to impact the day-to-day lives of these characters. Worse, the timescale is so far forward and skipping so rapidly that I could not connect to those characters. I can summarize what happened in each chapter or interlude, but how that relates to the MacGuffin? Nope. The stories aren't bad, but in the context we're given, they're just... there. And there's no longer enough continuity to read it as "society fic."
And then there's the smaller writing issues, like the pronouns picked by Icelandic-Plus, and the way Icelandic-Plus' translations inconsistently drop the verb "to be." Or, heck, the entire definition given for the word "im," which is then thrown nonsensically at the text. There's an entire sub-plot thread concerned with how an alien species thinks and speaks... but the author doesn't seem to understand how language works. I can respect a nuanced analysis of gender and language, but this had all the elegance and subtlety of a sledgehammer wielded against fine china.
There's more, but at the end of it all I got the impression that Lostetter was aiming for a harder-SF Becky Chambers. Unfortunately, she didn't pull it off. Disappointing.
To the first point: I'm not a reader who requires a strong external plot if the journey can stand as its own plot. There are authors who do very well writing internal people-plots and concept-plots. The first book, [b:Noumenon|32600718|Noumenon (Noumenon #1)|Marina J. Lostetter|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1490802159l/32600718._SY75_.jpg|53181429], was good. Lostetter hit exactly the right balance between external and internal plot factors, and made me care about her characters despite time skips. By contrast, [b:Noumenon Infinity|35887265|Noumenon Infinity (Noumenon #2)|Marina J. Lostetter|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1517768510l/35887265._SY75_.jpg|57403777] had much weaker writing, and Ultra continued the downward spiral.
Here, at the close of the trilogy, the external pressure is too big, and too existential to impact the day-to-day lives of these characters. Worse, the timescale is so far forward and skipping so rapidly that I could not connect to those characters. I can summarize what happened in each chapter or interlude, but how that relates to the MacGuffin? Nope. The stories aren't bad, but in the context we're given, they're just... there. And there's no longer enough continuity to read it as "society fic."
And then there's the smaller writing issues, like the pronouns picked by Icelandic-Plus, and the way Icelandic-Plus' translations inconsistently drop the verb "to be." Or, heck, the entire definition given for the word "im," which is then thrown nonsensically at the text. There's an entire sub-plot thread concerned with how an alien species thinks and speaks... but the author doesn't seem to understand how language works. I can respect a nuanced analysis of gender and language, but this had all the elegance and subtlety of a sledgehammer wielded against fine china.
There's more, but at the end of it all I got the impression that Lostetter was aiming for a harder-SF Becky Chambers. Unfortunately, she didn't pull it off. Disappointing.
kaine_'s review
adventurous
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
let_the_wookie_read's review
adventurous
hopeful
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75