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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, insectschelsea_nailpolishlover's review against another edition
challenging
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
1.0
Dnf’d at page 350.
Listen I tried.. I really did. What sucks for me the most is I didn’t listen to my gut when I read the sample of this book before outright buying it and wasting my money of this trivial piece of work.
The actions against humans and animals and the way they are thought about in this book is quite frankly racists, ablest and annoyingly ageist. Ageist is the least of its problems though.
At first when the mfc was thinking disgusting thoughts and hints of racist thoughts about people, calling them animals and monkeys (and no I don’t mean the actual monkeys, saying they were less than etc. Incredibly speciesist, even against their own species. The egoistical aspersions of the person etc I thought I could look past it as a villain origin story, of a sociopathic individual and that it wouldn’t be a huge continuing aspect in the writing. Boy was I wrong.
Even the god damn spiders had the same thinking. The author (a man) really loved to pound out the grossest most stereotypical feminist propaganda imaginable. (And I’m a feminist). It was like they wanted to make a joke of women.
The crew part was the most interesting part of this book. But the writing was all over the place. You had no idea half the time of how much time had passed. Where they were currently. What they were actually doing. And it would jump from different POV’s almost every chapter. And then you would get back and generations had passed?!?!? How the fuck is anyone supposed to keep up with the story, the timeline, or learn about literally anything when we get 5 minute snippets of bullshit plot.
Let’s not even get to the impossibilities of the science fiction aspects of this book. Clearly the author has no idea how science works. Infecting a whole planet instead of injecting the monkeys? Let’s not forget the crystal 💀 and sending signals plz. I just couldn’t fkin do it anymore.
One of my last straws honestly was one of the characters calling people ret^rded. Along with the spiders becoming religious and basically becoming a cult for this god and wanting to destroy others if they didn’t believe the same. 👎🏻🙅🏻♀️
Listen I tried.. I really did. What sucks for me the most is I didn’t listen to my gut when I read the sample of this book before outright buying it and wasting my money of this trivial piece of work.
The actions against humans and animals and the way they are thought about in this book is quite frankly racists, ablest and annoyingly ageist. Ageist is the least of its problems though.
At first when the mfc was thinking disgusting thoughts and hints of racist thoughts about people, calling them animals and monkeys (and no I don’t mean the actual monkeys, saying they were less than etc. Incredibly speciesist, even against their own species. The egoistical aspersions of the person etc I thought I could look past it as a villain origin story, of a sociopathic individual and that it wouldn’t be a huge continuing aspect in the writing. Boy was I wrong.
Even the god damn spiders had the same thinking. The author (a man) really loved to pound out the grossest most stereotypical feminist propaganda imaginable. (And I’m a feminist). It was like they wanted to make a joke of women.
The crew part was the most interesting part of this book. But the writing was all over the place. You had no idea half the time of how much time had passed. Where they were currently. What they were actually doing. And it would jump from different POV’s almost every chapter. And then you would get back and generations had passed?!?!? How the fuck is anyone supposed to keep up with the story, the timeline, or learn about literally anything when we get 5 minute snippets of bullshit plot.
Let’s not even get to the impossibilities of the science fiction aspects of this book. Clearly the author has no idea how science works. Infecting a whole planet instead of injecting the monkeys? Let’s not forget the crystal 💀 and sending signals plz. I just couldn’t fkin do it anymore.
One of my last straws honestly was one of the characters calling people ret^rded. Along with the spiders becoming religious and basically becoming a cult for this god and wanting to destroy others if they didn’t believe the same. 👎🏻🙅🏻♀️
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Physical abuse, Forced institutionalization, Animal death, Cursing, Racism, Death, Abandonment, Classism, Colonisation, Kidnapping, Ableism, War, Slavery, Murder, Animal cruelty, Blood, Confinement, Genocide, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Ableism and Racism
jaimiejaimiejaimie's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Infertility, Murder, and Death
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.charliereadsalot's review against another edition
4.0
4 STARS
CW: spiders (!!) & other insects, death, terrorism, mention of war, murder
This was unlike anything I've read before and though I was hesitant about it at first, I quickly began to enjoy the world building and story, as well as all the implications the technology in this book had.
First things first, about half of this book is about evolved sentient spiders but if you make it through the first fifty pages of this book, I believe you will be fine (most spider-y descriptions happen there). I at least found that as the character of Portia, Bianca, Fabian and the other spiders is explored more and more, the less I was bothered by them being spiders. But be aware.
I had expected the way this book ended to happen sometime in the middle so I was a little disappointed that I had to wait so long for the events. It is logical though, it really is more of a final showdown than a midway plot point.
It was super interesting to witness the expedited evolution of the spiders on Kern's World. Similarly, the developments on the Gilgamesh were equally fascinating. There were so many twists and turns and the thought of Holsten going through all of what he lived through was mind-boggling.
I've barely scratched the surface of what is being written in Sci-Fi and this reinvigorated my desire to seek out more creative and unusual stories in the genre. I immediately ordered the next book in this series to continue because the ending was just a mean one.
If you're intrigued, fascinated by evolution and a thought experiment (that's what this book felt like, it was really wonderful) and are unbothered by spiders, definitely give this book a try! (Bear in mind that I'm not a big fan of any creature with more than four legs and generally cannot stomach looking at only pictures of any sort of insect or spider but I was fine over the course of this book.)
CW: spiders (!!) & other insects, death, terrorism, mention of war, murder
This was unlike anything I've read before and though I was hesitant about it at first, I quickly began to enjoy the world building and story, as well as all the implications the technology in this book had.
First things first, about half of this book is about evolved sentient spiders but if you make it through the first fifty pages of this book, I believe you will be fine (most spider-y descriptions happen there). I at least found that as the character of Portia, Bianca, Fabian and the other spiders is explored more and more, the less I was bothered by them being spiders. But be aware.
I had expected the way this book ended to happen sometime in the middle so I was a little disappointed that I had to wait so long for the events. It is logical though, it really is more of a final showdown than a midway plot point.
It was super interesting to witness the expedited evolution of the spiders on Kern's World. Similarly, the developments on the Gilgamesh were equally fascinating. There were so many twists and turns and the thought of Holsten going through all of what he lived through was mind-boggling.
I've barely scratched the surface of what is being written in Sci-Fi and this reinvigorated my desire to seek out more creative and unusual stories in the genre. I immediately ordered the next book in this series to continue because the ending was just a mean one.
If you're intrigued, fascinated by evolution and a thought experiment (that's what this book felt like, it was really wonderful) and are unbothered by spiders, definitely give this book a try! (Bear in mind that I'm not a big fan of any creature with more than four legs and generally cannot stomach looking at only pictures of any sort of insect or spider but I was fine over the course of this book.)
Content Warnings
Moderate: War, Death, and Murder
fatalisticshrug's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
Mind blowing!
You follow two stories; The evolution of an entire species on an earth-like planet and the remainder of the human race journeying through space in search of a new home. Both stories span millennia, but the concept makes it possible to still follow them closely. This is brilliant science fiction and a must read for science fiction fans!
You follow two stories; The evolution of an entire species on an earth-like planet and the remainder of the human race journeying through space in search of a new home. Both stories span millennia, but the concept makes it possible to still follow them closely. This is brilliant science fiction and a must read for science fiction fans!
Content Warnings
Graphic: Gun violence, War, Murder, and Violence
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
vicky3's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Genocide, War, Violence, and Xenophobia
Minor: Genocide and Religious bigotry
csangell11's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Slavery, Violence, Sexism, War, Gun violence, Death, and Murder
Minor: Torture and Forced institutionalization