Reviews

Diamond Dogs: There is a certain genre of movie that I quite enjoy. It involves a group of unwitting strangers being thrust into an unknown situation and forced to work out various puzzles in order to proceed. Often times, coming to the wrong conclusion has dire effects. Diamond Dogs is this premise put into a novella, and I heartily enjoyed it.

The cast of characters were each vibrantly drawn, with depth and personality to spare. Watching them work their way through the Blood Spire, each reacting in their own unique way to the pressures of the situation was fun in that same gut curdling kind of way watching movies of the genre is. I thought Reynolds did a good job working with this concept, adding in enough originality and spice to keep it interesting, while still including some fun references to people like myself who enjoy this type of thing regularly. I wouldn't call this story a masterpiece, but I would definitely call it a satisfying read, worth the few hours it took to get through. 4 stars.

Turquoise Days: This one moved at a much more leisurely pace, taking it's time to build up the world and to let us get to know the narrator before ratcheting up the action quite quickly towards the end. While I did enjoy the first portion of the story, there were points where it dragged on a bit, seeming to meander forwards with no real sense of a developing story. Nevertheless, the climax was well worth the wait, and the ending was satisfying, despite being rather bleak. 4 stars once again.

rileedawg's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-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? Yes

4.0

dracola112's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

pigsflew's review against another edition

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2.0

Diamond Dogs was an incredibly gritty story with no happy ending, and no lessons learned for the main character. It appears to be a moral lesson in greed and pride; how the characters who survive the novel seem to suffer a fate worse than death. It is of course well written, but does not contribute to the RS universe of which it is a part, except in setting up monsters to be taken down or used later (see Galactic North).

Turquoise Days made a brave attempt at exploring the Pattern Jugglers, a probable sentient species that is so alien that humans can't actually decide if it is sentient or not; it does a fantastic job of that exploration. The problem with this story is that ultimately they are contemplating the destruction of an entire world's worth of an intelligent species to prevent the reemergence of one man. It appears to me that the solution could be much more simple.

I cannot complain about the design and artful storytelling behind these two stories; Reynolds has not faltered there. But their content does not agree with me.

thedadsie's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

11corvus11's review against another edition

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5.0

Turquois days felt almost more like cosmic horror than general sci-fi. Creepy in a good way.

bionicbeaver's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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