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thegreenknight3's review against another edition
4.0
Good prequel, although I hoped for a little more in Zalem, the last sky city.
swissmunicipal's review against another edition
3.0
I have exactly zero background on Alita prior to this prequel. It was an interesting novel, enough to make me want to know more, but probably not more than maybe watching the film.
erebus53's review against another edition
3.0
This is a novelised prequel to a film I have seen so I wasn't going in completely blind.
As always I'm thankful for the narrator (Brian Nishii) having a clue about how to pronounce Japanese names. Too many audiobook producers don't seem to care about or notice this sort of thing, but it's a trend that seems to be slowly righting itself, as Audiobooks become more popular.
I feel like this content straddles a line of "written for young people" and "content for science fiction fans and anime/manga fans". As a science fiction model it doesn't flesh the world out much. We get the same enclosed, bottom-looking-up view of the world as you do in other things like Maze Runner, Divergent and Hunger Games... a sort of "potted world". This isn't always bad, but you'd hope that it would give more scope for fleshing out the characters and actually describing some of the differences of the world.
I guess that, because it's a novelisation, a lot of the look and feel of the places is left out of the book because they expect that you will have watched the movie, but I like for my books to be the deluxe version... a chance to get more detail. This is really a lot more plot driven than thematic, or character driven. Hugo feels like a cardboard cut-out, and even his internal conflicts seem lacking in nuance.
It's... OK. There don't seem to be any huge gaping holes, except for in the hearts of the characters... and that's part of the point I guess.
As always I'm thankful for the narrator (Brian Nishii) having a clue about how to pronounce Japanese names. Too many audiobook producers don't seem to care about or notice this sort of thing, but it's a trend that seems to be slowly righting itself, as Audiobooks become more popular.
I feel like this content straddles a line of "written for young people" and "content for science fiction fans and anime/manga fans". As a science fiction model it doesn't flesh the world out much. We get the same enclosed, bottom-looking-up view of the world as you do in other things like Maze Runner, Divergent and Hunger Games... a sort of "potted world". This isn't always bad, but you'd hope that it would give more scope for fleshing out the characters and actually describing some of the differences of the world.
I guess that, because it's a novelisation, a lot of the look and feel of the places is left out of the book because they expect that you will have watched the movie, but I like for my books to be the deluxe version... a chance to get more detail. This is really a lot more plot driven than thematic, or character driven. Hugo feels like a cardboard cut-out, and even his internal conflicts seem lacking in nuance.
It's... OK. There don't seem to be any huge gaping holes, except for in the hearts of the characters... and that's part of the point I guess.
lacyduckie's review against another edition
3.0
I listened to the audiobook. After watching the movie Alita recently, I'm curious about her universe so I thought I would check out the books (not the comics). It was cool learning some of the character's backstories but we still don't find out why Zolem is so special in this particular dystopian universe.
ladyida1's review against another edition
5.0
I saw the movie Alita Battle Angel and I was very interested in the back story.
Hopefully they will make this back story into a film as well.
Hopefully they will make this back story into a film as well.
theaudioauditor's review against another edition
4.0
Audio book review.
An excellent prequel! I'm a big fan of the original Alita story (movie & classic manga), and getting more background for Hugo, Ido, Chida, Vector, hunter warriors, and motorball all against the backdrop of the glittering idealized world of Zalem floating over a ruined garbage city. It's wonderful and haunting all at the same time.
An excellent prequel! I'm a big fan of the original Alita story (movie & classic manga), and getting more background for Hugo, Ido, Chida, Vector, hunter warriors, and motorball all against the backdrop of the glittering idealized world of Zalem floating over a ruined garbage city. It's wonderful and haunting all at the same time.
captainjaq's review against another edition
3.0
This wasn’t a bad book. It was nicely written. I just didn’t get *why* it was written. Yes, we got some background into the characters of the film, but not Alita herself. And nothing that wasn’t really explained in the film. There just didn’t seem to be a point to this book.
barrynorton's review
4.0
I'm quite suspicious of novelisation of manga stories, even moreso of European cooption, but I do like Pat Cadigan. This was not bad.
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