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yuripiano's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-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
5.0
God, where do I even begin....
This is easily, easily one of my favorite books of all time, no questions asked.
The way that different points of view are written is so deeply interesting regardless of who the chapter is about, and the juxtaposition of evolving spiders with devolving humans and the question of what it means to be human is just... so. incredibly. good. You really feel and pull for the spiders, and there's a sense of "humanity" tied to their un-humanness that's lacking in the actual humans that's super fascinating to read. i feel like i could talk forever about the crew of the Gilgamesh contrasted with their predecessors and how that relates to the spiders and Kern - it's deeply fascinating and exciting and really thought provoking.
i don't think i can sing enough praises - i'm trying to come up with things to criticize, because every time i write a review here, i'm like "this book was okay!" and then i just bash the book to pieces, but...
the pacing is snappy, the characters are incredible, and the constant tension of feeling the three main points swirling like they're in a whirlpool and you're just waiting for them to converge is such a page turner!
i suppose, if i had to point something out, some metaphors and such were very spelled out... but, coming from the internal thoughts/point of view from the classicist a lot of the time, i felt that it was fine, and honestly, i didn't particularly feel like it was talking down to the reader either.
At the end of the day, it's an incredible read, and easily the first book i would recommend to someone. If this book were 2000 pages longer, it would be too short.
This is easily, easily one of my favorite books of all time, no questions asked.
i don't think i can sing enough praises - i'm trying to come up with things to criticize, because every time i write a review here, i'm like "this book was okay!" and then i just bash the book to pieces, but...
the pacing is snappy, the characters are incredible, and the constant tension of feeling the three main points swirling like they're in a whirlpool and you're just waiting for them to converge is such a page turner!
i suppose, if i had to point something out, some metaphors and such were very spelled out... but, coming from the internal thoughts/point of view from the classicist a lot of the time, i felt that it was fine, and honestly, i didn't particularly feel like it was talking down to the reader either.
At the end of the day, it's an incredible read, and easily the first book i would recommend to someone. If this book were 2000 pages longer, it would be too short.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Animal death, Xenophobia, and Violence
Moderate: Sexism
Minor: Sexual content
maddie_can_read's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
I had a super difficult time getting into this book but I'm glad I powered through because I ended up really enjoying it towards the end. I did find it a bit slow and a bit plodding throughout.
I had a difficult time vibing with the writing style at first. I think it was a combination of it being written in third person but then also being kind omniscient narrator (like they knew everything about past humanity - like comparing the spider pandemic to the black plague .
And I just could not connect with any of the characters until almost the half way point. I don't think the author is great at characterization.
I kept going because I liked the premise and I read all these reviews talking about how weird (in a good way) the book was and just thought I'd keep going and give it some more time.
And wow, I loved it when things got weird! Having the structure of the book set up the way it isspanning multiple generations made it so some really interesting things could occur. Really liked how the two story-lines came to a head.
Lots of wtf moments really was not expecting Arvana to turn away the last of humanity, the mutiny, the spiders holding a human captivity for decades, spider sexism, the captain wanting to become the ship and being kept alive by machines, the captain letting people out of some pods and them having generations of children that followed him like a cult leader, really loved the love story between the humans (how it was impacted by one of them staying out of their cold sleep for longer) and then the one between two of the spiders towards the end where the male sacrifices himself, and loved the twist/ fake-out at the end!
I had a difficult time vibing with the writing style at first. I think it was a combination of it being written in third person but then also being kind omniscient narrator (like they knew everything about past humanity -
And I just could not connect with any of the characters until almost the half way point. I don't think the author is great at characterization.
I kept going because I liked the premise and I read all these reviews talking about how weird (in a good way) the book was and just thought I'd keep going and give it some more time.
And wow, I loved it when things got weird! Having the structure of the book set up the way it is
Lots of wtf moments
Content Warnings
Graphic: War, Cursing, Religious bigotry, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Violence, Death, and Sexism
Moderate: Confinement, Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic, and Blood
Minor: Suicide, Sexual content, Excrement, and Slavery
SPIDERS, insectseelin's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
3.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide, War, and Xenophobia
Moderate: Sexism
talonsontypewriters's review against another edition
adventurous
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
maybe just the mood I'm in but it never quite clicked for me :( the spiders were cool though
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide, Colonisation, War, Injury/Injury detail, and Body horror
Moderate: Gun violence, Violence, Xenophobia, Death, Murder, Gore, Fire/Fire injury, Confinement, Sexism, Animal death, Cannibalism, and Terminal illness
Minor: Ableism
Spiders, insects. Passing use of cr*pple/d, single use of the R slur.nightstitch96's review
adventurous
challenging
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Genocide, War, and Sexism
Minor: Confinement
valjeanval's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
This book was a real surprise. The word “epic” gets thrown around a lot, but this is the actual definition of epic. It’s a sweeping, perspective-bending epic that anyone could enjoy except perhaps arachnophobes.
Content Warnings
Minor: Animal death, War, Injury/Injury detail, Genocide, Classism, Violence, Sexism, Death, Cursing, and Blood
marsh_mall0w's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Slavery, Confinement, Injury/Injury detail, Religious bigotry, Colonisation, Sexism, and War
Moderate: Genocide, Mental illness, Animal death, Xenophobia, Violence, and Abortion
Minor: Suicidal thoughts and Torture
foxwish's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-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
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexism
Moderate: War and Animal death
iono's review against another edition
adventurous
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexism and Cannibalism
Moderate: Murder, Confinement, Death, Xenophobia, Abandonment, Slavery, Violence, and Colonisation
Minor: Genocide, Cursing, and War
micheala's review against another edition
This book has a really cool premise, in terms of post apocalyptic SciFi. The set up is that humans had started terraforming the galaxy before a nuclear war destroyed all humans living off planet, and threw Earth into an ice age.
We then get a ship with a few thousand of the remaining humans centuries later, travelling through space (in stais) in the hopes of finding a new home.
The planet they do eventually arrive at was supposed to be an experiment to "speed run" evolution and create new humans from monkeys + an engineered virus. However, those monkeys died being sent to the planet, and giant senteant insects evolve instead.
Cool right? I had a few quibbles with the spider sections (they don't know what humans/earth is, and they don't know about the virus let alone how it functions, so stop talking about it in the narrative portions of their sections; and I was kinda disappointed that their society also was fundamentally sexist and pretty much a 1:1 of humans in the medial ages in terms of society)
The humans finally get onto the planet, and we get drop kicked into full on horror, specifically graphic body horror. So I noped out of a story I was otherwise enjoying at 37%
If you're cool with horror, I'm guessing this book is going to continue to play with some really interesting ideas, however as someone who cannot deal with horror, it's a DNF for me.
We then get a ship with a few thousand of the remaining humans centuries later, travelling through space (in stais) in the hopes of finding a new home.
The planet they do eventually arrive at was supposed to be an experiment to "speed run" evolution and create new humans from monkeys + an engineered virus. However, those monkeys died being sent to the planet, and giant senteant insects evolve instead.
Cool right? I had a few quibbles with the spider sections (they don't know what humans/earth is, and they don't know about the virus let alone how it functions, so stop talking about it in the narrative portions of their sections; and I was kinda disappointed that their society also was fundamentally sexist and pretty much a 1:1 of humans in the medial ages in terms of society)
The humans finally get onto the planet, and we get drop kicked into full on horror, specifically graphic body horror. So I noped out of a story I was otherwise enjoying at 37%
If you're cool with horror, I'm guessing this book is going to continue to play with some really interesting ideas, however as someone who cannot deal with horror, it's a DNF for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny, Death, Genocide, Gore, Injury/Injury detail, Slavery, Violence, War, Xenophobia, Colonisation, Gun violence, Blood, Body horror, Murder, and Sexism