Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.67 AVERAGE
3.67 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
informative
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
funny
hopeful
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
funny
mysterious
medium-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
There is a lot of potential here in this character, but the later time frame pieces were a bit of a struggle. Excited to see where the trilogy goes!
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This is such an odd book. I’m a longtime fan of Stephenson and no stranger to his tendency to infodump but this book isn’t what I was expecting. It’s historical fiction focusing on the life of Dawn aka Aurora, a woman who was born in Russia, grew up in America and returned to the Soviet Union set in the 1920s and 1930s with some mentions of the Russian revolutions of the early 1900s.
I’m not sure I knew enough Russian history to pick up all the details on this one.
Aurora is an odd character. She’s likeable but odd. A communist but a realist and somewhat opportunistic one. She’s possibly one of the most jaded young characters I’ve read in a while. Her story is told in flash backs and flash forwards. There’s a general trend of the story towards the ending twist…. But I’m not sure what just happened at the end?
Stephenson has a tendency to fumble endings for me but I’m not sure that’s what happened here. It’s more like a cliffhanger to get you to read the middle book of a trilogy when all we’ve had is setup and we’re finally getting to the meat of the story only to have us left hanging—which is more than a tad frustrating.
So far, the story is well crafted. Stephenson’s prose is more than satisfactory and meanders as it is wont to do which isn’t an issue as I knew what I was signing up for. However, I think this book might have been mislabeled in the promotional material as I was expecting more science fiction than this appears to be.
I’d label this historical fiction straight up. I’m not sure i could even call it speculative fiction at this point without doing a historical deep dive onto the events of the Chicago World’s Fair.
In short, I’m not sure what to think. It’s not terrible. Aurora is an interesting point of view with her i-just-so-happen to be a these random important early 20th century events which she is plausibly able to actually have done. I’d rate it higher than 3 stars but it’s no 5 star read. I’m going to give it a provisional 3.5 stars with the caveat that when I finally get the sequel it might go up or down. I am curious enough to keep reading so we’ll go with the extra .5
Spice rating: hardly present. There’s a romantic sub plot that is very dry and matter of fact, some crude/vulgar language around having sex but there’s no steamy sex scenes.
I’m not sure I knew enough Russian history to pick up all the details on this one.
Aurora is an odd character. She’s likeable but odd. A communist but a realist and somewhat opportunistic one. She’s possibly one of the most jaded young characters I’ve read in a while. Her story is told in flash backs and flash forwards. There’s a general trend of the story towards the ending twist…. But I’m not sure what just happened at the end?
Stephenson has a tendency to fumble endings for me but I’m not sure that’s what happened here. It’s more like a cliffhanger to get you to read the middle book of a trilogy when all we’ve had is setup and we’re finally getting to the meat of the story only to have us left hanging—which is more than a tad frustrating.
So far, the story is well crafted. Stephenson’s prose is more than satisfactory and meanders as it is wont to do which isn’t an issue as I knew what I was signing up for. However, I think this book might have been mislabeled in the promotional material as I was expecting more science fiction than this appears to be.
I’d label this historical fiction straight up. I’m not sure i could even call it speculative fiction at this point without doing a historical deep dive onto the events of the Chicago World’s Fair.
In short, I’m not sure what to think. It’s not terrible. Aurora is an interesting point of view with her i-just-so-happen to be a these random important early 20th century events which she is plausibly able to actually have done. I’d rate it higher than 3 stars but it’s no 5 star read. I’m going to give it a provisional 3.5 stars with the caveat that when I finally get the sequel it might go up or down. I am curious enough to keep reading so we’ll go with the extra .5
Spice rating: hardly present. There’s a romantic sub plot that is very dry and matter of fact, some crude/vulgar language around having sex but there’s no steamy sex scenes.
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
Bones of a great story, started off strong and then absolutely meandered
dark
tense
fast-paced
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Clearly the first in a series.... other than introducing Dawn/Aurora I'm not really sure what the book accomplished or what the purpose of the plot was, and yet I still mostly enjoyed reading it.
As is typical with Neal Stephenson's books one of the main draws for me was the historical setting and the juxtaposition of a fictional character interacting with "real" characters and people from that time/place.
I will look forward to reading the next books in the series, but I might have been less positively inclined towards them had I not managed to get this one on sale :)
As is typical with Neal Stephenson's books one of the main draws for me was the historical setting and the juxtaposition of a fictional character interacting with "real" characters and people from that time/place.
I will look forward to reading the next books in the series, but I might have been less positively inclined towards them had I not managed to get this one on sale :)
I am an enthusiastic fan of Stephenson, but he does have some misses in his catalog and this is one of them. I got just over 110 pages in, realized I had no idea what the actual story was supposed to be and gave up. I have very limited knowledge of this period of history, so maybe that's why the events that were described but not explained were so opaque. The detail was in all the wrong places - the intricacies of polo - instead of the details of how and why her father was whipped and run out of the camp they'd been staying in. Here's hoping he wraps up this trilogy quickly and gets back to the excellence of works like Anathem and Seveneves.
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated