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jwillis81's review
2.0
I picked it up as an impulse purchase after reading the blurb, and I was really looking forward to reading it. Unfortunately, I feel like the promises of a grand-scale, thought-provoking, cross-genre epic got in the way of telling a compelling story and hooking the reader.
Right off the bat, it was very difficult to get into this story because every chapter jumps to another character with another storyline. Just when you feel like you're getting familiar with a character and what their deal is, you get pulled away to a completely different character and his or her storyline. This repeats every single chapter, and it wasn't until I was a quarter of the way through the book that I had any sense of the characters at all, and over halfway through the book before there was any semblance of their stories intertwining.
I do respect the size and scope of the narrative the author is putting together. It's clear that he has spent a considerable amount of time in this universe thinking about all the various nuances and carefully detailing any number of things. The actual execution of the book, though, didn't really hit the mark, precisely because it did feel like it was focused more on the "bigger picture" than on telling a good story with compelling characters.
It's entirely possible that this might be one of those series where, if you stick with it to the end it really pays off and the reader appreciates the extensive worldbuilding that the author put in, but without caring too much about any of the characters and without having a defined narrative arc that I could enjoy and follow along with, this was a miss for me.
Right off the bat, it was very difficult to get into this story because every chapter jumps to another character with another storyline. Just when you feel like you're getting familiar with a character and what their deal is, you get pulled away to a completely different character and his or her storyline. This repeats every single chapter, and it wasn't until I was a quarter of the way through the book that I had any sense of the characters at all, and over halfway through the book before there was any semblance of their stories intertwining.
I do respect the size and scope of the narrative the author is putting together. It's clear that he has spent a considerable amount of time in this universe thinking about all the various nuances and carefully detailing any number of things. The actual execution of the book, though, didn't really hit the mark, precisely because it did feel like it was focused more on the "bigger picture" than on telling a good story with compelling characters.
It's entirely possible that this might be one of those series where, if you stick with it to the end it really pays off and the reader appreciates the extensive worldbuilding that the author put in, but without caring too much about any of the characters and without having a defined narrative arc that I could enjoy and follow along with, this was a miss for me.
socorrobaptista's review
4.0
Uma narrativa que nos mostra a ganância colonizadora do ser humano, e a ainda persistente ideia de que há seres inteligentes superiores a outros. Uma boa leitura, que traz vários questionamentos.
mrs_h7's review
2.0
I slogged through this book and really wanted to like it. The plot was pretty good and nicely complex, but I just couldn't get on with the way it was written.
bibliophilicjester's review
4.0
I've settled on 3.75 stars, which I've rounded up to 4 for goodreads purposes. I've had a few days to think about my review and still don't know how to go about it or where to start, so...let's just get to the rambling, yeah? haha.
One random day off, I drained my phone battery sifting through tons of free ebooks via book bub, and this was one of them. A lot of books seem to be offered for free because they're poorly written and it's obvious why there were no takers among any major publishers. But sometimes, free books, self-published books, and books from smaller publishers are hidden gems. I think there must be a lot of bullshit going on behind the corporate scenes of what people think will sell and then just buying up a whole bunch of the same books by tons of different authors. So a lot of times (probably most of the time), the stories I want to read aren't the ones getting all kinds of hype on social media and being sold for like $26 just because they know people will pay. Here's what i really want: an engaging and thoughtful plot, twists I don't always see coming, characters that feel real and who don't make dumb fucking decisions all the time (yeah, I'm looking at you, YA fantasy protagonists), interesting world-building, something worth fighting for, and PLEASE minimal or no romance omg can we not. I'm probably forgetting some things, but I end up reading a lot of middle grade fantasy because sometimes I just need to go on a fucking adventure and not worry about some dude's muscles or how beautiful some girl is. Also, everything is better in space. It's a fact, not an opinion. Okay, it's an opinion. But it's a good one. *awkward smile*
This book started out with a shit ton of perspectives, and I've seen a few reviews that list this as a negative. I personally love books with multiple POVs - when done well. Which it was here. Each character had a distinct voice, and I often found myself skipping over the chapter headers that signified the POV. Even when characters start coming together, all the perspectives still feel necessary. Every character has different information, different life experiences, and they all feel important. I think it was especially important to have Cazz-ak's POV, as a lot of(/most) humans have no idea wtf the Entho-la-ah-mines are up to. Also, please excuse any spelling errors bc I don't feel like looking up all the hyphenated stuff right now. The names are hard to remember but easy to recognize when they come up in text, which is all that matters to me. This is also a really bleak future for humanity, forced away from earth and being conquerors and destroyers of planets and civilizations...but I don't think it's seriously all that far-fetched. There are a lot of awful humans, and they're usually the ones who get to make big decisions like whether to cooperate with or annihilate aliens we might encounter in the future. I'm just saying.
I think there were a lot of clever things done throughout the book, and lots of breadcrumbs left for the reader to pick up. One of the things I hate most while reading is figuring out something early on and waiting until like 95% into the book for characters to catch on/for it to be revealed. This is one of those lovely books that plants seeds, gives a few hints, and just when you're like HANG ON...I know what's going on...the characters figure it out too. It's shockingly rare, which I think is careless. Authors shouldn't insult their readers by making things SUPER obvious but assuming we haven't figured it out. If you read a lot, or observe people regularly in real life, or even if you just have common sense, you'll probably be able to see where lots of things are going.
Speaking of which, what the actual fuck is going on in the Crasor chapters?! Oh my goodness. It's an absolute clusterfuck, and it's brilliantly disturbing and creepy. Sometimes I get things into my head and kind of don't care what the narrative tells me - like how Trillion in the hitchhiker series is 100% Freema Agyeman (as Martha in Who) and I don't care how many times the books say she's blonde or white. That's what she looks like in my head. I'm not a gamer in any way, but my boyfriend is, and the day I met him he was wearing a killing floor shirt with one of those fleshpound(?) dudes on it...and that's what the creepy black-taloned killing machine creatures look like in my head. Likely inaccurate, but there it is all the same. Felar is also the blonde lady in the Mars episodes of doctor who in my head, even though I think the book says she has dark hair? Wake is also Seneca Crane from the Hunger Games movies NO IDEA WHY. My brain is weird, okay??
MOVING ON. This review is an absolute mess. LOL "review"
I particularly enjoyed Wake and Maxar, and Cazz-ak and the Great Thought (I think that's what it was called?) were fascinating. Unfortunately, I didn't really like Tremmily, and it felt like she had the longest and most chapters. Or maybe it just felt like that to me. It's to the author's credit, however, that I was still really interested in what she was up to despite not much liking her.
A thing that impacted me way more than I thought it would was the developing relationship between Felar and Lothis. I am a human who has never wanted children; I will not change my mind. The reaction upon hearing this is usually "why not?!" like there's something wrong with me as a woman because I don't want children. It's a personal choice and a huge decision. I love how Felar said she'd never thought about having children, but she's immediately drawn to Lothis and is fiercely protective of him. I'm also that person who talks to infants like they're adults, without changing my tone or speech to condescend to the child. So I liked when Felar's like.... hey kid, can you run? Good. Get ready. Haha it's just so normal to me. Yeah, she coddles him a little at first and calls him pet names or whatever, but she's just seen and fought and killed some serious monsters, so I think she's allowed to be a little horrified that a kid has been hiding among them seemingly by himself. In any case, I like how she's gentl with him but will defend and protect him no matter what. And I liked how Lothis observed her and decided he liked and trusted her despite having no interactions with humans before. But Jess, reasons. Yes yes, I know. The kid's special in lots of tricky ways I look forward to watching unfold. But I digress.
What are the negatives, you ask?! Well well. This fairly short book took me quite a while to read. I don't think i read more than 30 pages at a time until the end. I was invested and immersed when I was reading, but once I had to put my kindle down, I wasn't in a hurry to pick it back up. I'm still not entirely sure if taht's because the book was a bit "put-down-able", or if it was just me being fucking weird because I was really enjoying it and very worried it would suddenly start to disappoint me. I wasn't crazy about the somewhat rushed and abrupt ending. After the thing with the Divisionists, Crasor's chapters took a weird turn and a lot of it was really confusing. I know it was sort of supposed to be vague and mysterious, but there were times I didn't understand what was happening in that I couldn't picture it in my head. There were a few little moments where he wold start walking when I thought he'd just been lying down, and that kind of disconnect, but i'm not sure if it was my confusion or a slip-up in the writing, or something else entirely. I'm also curious about previous Founders because the current one seems to be a little mad, or at least has two very distinct and separate personalities, and I'm not sure if something is going on with him/the evolution of founders or if he's just not handling things well lately? Also wik, Maxar noticing that Tremmily is pretty about 656468451658 times toward the end really needs to stop. The fate of several races is at stake and we all need to stay focused.
This is basically a stream of consciousness type of review, but I"m trying to say despite my small issues, I really enjoyed this book. I will DEFINITELY continue the series because I really need to know what happens next! Although this book was free and I'm planning to get the next as an ebook as well, I think I'd like to invest in physical copies if I end up liking the next one even more. Wahrer seems to be one of those weird and wonderful authors who writes whatever stories he dreams up, without thought of what will sell well or look nice on instagram. Although, to be fair, I really like the covers, haha. Did I just convince myself to buy the physical books? That didn't go at all how I thought it would. Hmm.
It is entirely possible I will return to this review to edit some sense into it. If you're new to my reviews...I'm sorry what makes sense in my head doesn't always translate into writing, lol. I do hope my rambling makes people want to read this book, though. FOR FREE! Come onnnn who doesn't like free stuff... = )
One random day off, I drained my phone battery sifting through tons of free ebooks via book bub, and this was one of them. A lot of books seem to be offered for free because they're poorly written and it's obvious why there were no takers among any major publishers. But sometimes, free books, self-published books, and books from smaller publishers are hidden gems. I think there must be a lot of bullshit going on behind the corporate scenes of what people think will sell and then just buying up a whole bunch of the same books by tons of different authors. So a lot of times (probably most of the time), the stories I want to read aren't the ones getting all kinds of hype on social media and being sold for like $26 just because they know people will pay. Here's what i really want: an engaging and thoughtful plot, twists I don't always see coming, characters that feel real and who don't make dumb fucking decisions all the time (yeah, I'm looking at you, YA fantasy protagonists), interesting world-building, something worth fighting for, and PLEASE minimal or no romance omg can we not. I'm probably forgetting some things, but I end up reading a lot of middle grade fantasy because sometimes I just need to go on a fucking adventure and not worry about some dude's muscles or how beautiful some girl is. Also, everything is better in space. It's a fact, not an opinion. Okay, it's an opinion. But it's a good one. *awkward smile*
This book started out with a shit ton of perspectives, and I've seen a few reviews that list this as a negative. I personally love books with multiple POVs - when done well. Which it was here. Each character had a distinct voice, and I often found myself skipping over the chapter headers that signified the POV. Even when characters start coming together, all the perspectives still feel necessary. Every character has different information, different life experiences, and they all feel important. I think it was especially important to have Cazz-ak's POV, as a lot of(/most) humans have no idea wtf the Entho-la-ah-mines are up to. Also, please excuse any spelling errors bc I don't feel like looking up all the hyphenated stuff right now. The names are hard to remember but easy to recognize when they come up in text, which is all that matters to me. This is also a really bleak future for humanity, forced away from earth and being conquerors and destroyers of planets and civilizations...but I don't think it's seriously all that far-fetched. There are a lot of awful humans, and they're usually the ones who get to make big decisions like whether to cooperate with or annihilate aliens we might encounter in the future. I'm just saying.
I think there were a lot of clever things done throughout the book, and lots of breadcrumbs left for the reader to pick up. One of the things I hate most while reading is figuring out something early on and waiting until like 95% into the book for characters to catch on/for it to be revealed. This is one of those lovely books that plants seeds, gives a few hints, and just when you're like HANG ON...I know what's going on...the characters figure it out too. It's shockingly rare, which I think is careless. Authors shouldn't insult their readers by making things SUPER obvious but assuming we haven't figured it out. If you read a lot, or observe people regularly in real life, or even if you just have common sense, you'll probably be able to see where lots of things are going.
Speaking of which, what the actual fuck is going on in the Crasor chapters?! Oh my goodness. It's an absolute clusterfuck, and it's brilliantly disturbing and creepy. Sometimes I get things into my head and kind of don't care what the narrative tells me - like how Trillion in the hitchhiker series is 100% Freema Agyeman (as Martha in Who) and I don't care how many times the books say she's blonde or white. That's what she looks like in my head. I'm not a gamer in any way, but my boyfriend is, and the day I met him he was wearing a killing floor shirt with one of those fleshpound(?) dudes on it...and that's what the creepy black-taloned killing machine creatures look like in my head. Likely inaccurate, but there it is all the same. Felar is also the blonde lady in the Mars episodes of doctor who in my head, even though I think the book says she has dark hair? Wake is also Seneca Crane from the Hunger Games movies NO IDEA WHY. My brain is weird, okay??
MOVING ON. This review is an absolute mess. LOL "review"
I particularly enjoyed Wake and Maxar, and Cazz-ak and the Great Thought (I think that's what it was called?) were fascinating. Unfortunately, I didn't really like Tremmily, and it felt like she had the longest and most chapters. Or maybe it just felt like that to me. It's to the author's credit, however, that I was still really interested in what she was up to despite not much liking her.
A thing that impacted me way more than I thought it would was the developing relationship between Felar and Lothis. I am a human who has never wanted children; I will not change my mind. The reaction upon hearing this is usually "why not?!" like there's something wrong with me as a woman because I don't want children. It's a personal choice and a huge decision. I love how Felar said she'd never thought about having children, but she's immediately drawn to Lothis and is fiercely protective of him. I'm also that person who talks to infants like they're adults, without changing my tone or speech to condescend to the child. So I liked when Felar's like.... hey kid, can you run? Good. Get ready. Haha it's just so normal to me. Yeah, she coddles him a little at first and calls him pet names or whatever, but she's just seen and fought and killed some serious monsters, so I think she's allowed to be a little horrified that a kid has been hiding among them seemingly by himself. In any case, I like how she's gentl with him but will defend and protect him no matter what. And I liked how Lothis observed her and decided he liked and trusted her despite having no interactions with humans before. But Jess, reasons. Yes yes, I know. The kid's special in lots of tricky ways I look forward to watching unfold. But I digress.
What are the negatives, you ask?! Well well. This fairly short book took me quite a while to read. I don't think i read more than 30 pages at a time until the end. I was invested and immersed when I was reading, but once I had to put my kindle down, I wasn't in a hurry to pick it back up. I'm still not entirely sure if taht's because the book was a bit "put-down-able", or if it was just me being fucking weird because I was really enjoying it and very worried it would suddenly start to disappoint me. I wasn't crazy about the somewhat rushed and abrupt ending. After the thing with the Divisionists, Crasor's chapters took a weird turn and a lot of it was really confusing. I know it was sort of supposed to be vague and mysterious, but there were times I didn't understand what was happening in that I couldn't picture it in my head. There were a few little moments where he wold start walking when I thought he'd just been lying down, and that kind of disconnect, but i'm not sure if it was my confusion or a slip-up in the writing, or something else entirely. I'm also curious about previous Founders because the current one seems to be a little mad, or at least has two very distinct and separate personalities, and I'm not sure if something is going on with him/the evolution of founders or if he's just not handling things well lately? Also wik, Maxar noticing that Tremmily is pretty about 656468451658 times toward the end really needs to stop. The fate of several races is at stake and we all need to stay focused.
This is basically a stream of consciousness type of review, but I"m trying to say despite my small issues, I really enjoyed this book. I will DEFINITELY continue the series because I really need to know what happens next! Although this book was free and I'm planning to get the next as an ebook as well, I think I'd like to invest in physical copies if I end up liking the next one even more. Wahrer seems to be one of those weird and wonderful authors who writes whatever stories he dreams up, without thought of what will sell well or look nice on instagram. Although, to be fair, I really like the covers, haha. Did I just convince myself to buy the physical books? That didn't go at all how I thought it would. Hmm.
It is entirely possible I will return to this review to edit some sense into it. If you're new to my reviews...I'm sorry what makes sense in my head doesn't always translate into writing, lol. I do hope my rambling makes people want to read this book, though. FOR FREE! Come onnnn who doesn't like free stuff... = )
amelianicholebooks's review
1.0
The very first chapter left a bad taste in my mouth and I stopped reading.
newhampster's review
4.0
Really good universe building with excellent character development. Sometimes a little out there with the science, but overall a good, engrossing read. I'm already on book two
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