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3.79 AVERAGE
3.79 AVERAGE
What a wacky romp this is, and dizzyingly researched to boot—not unlike a számológép with all its twisting, turning and wending through time. It also makes fun use of a lot of narrative styles and historical tones of voice, takes the piss out of the military (and bureaucracy in general) and cleverly employs the kinds of well-timed twists that keep an adventure this dense worth following.
Clearly it was a kick to write. For that reason it’s just as much fun to read.
Clearly it was a kick to write. For that reason it’s just as much fun to read.
At least twice as long as necessary - I only finished it by skimming the middle third. I was intrigued enough to want to read the ending, but nowhere near invested enough to slog through the middle, which is written mostly in the form of bureaucratic memos.
So, normally my reviews are at sometimes, lengthy affairs, where I really sit down and think about what I liked about a book, find other summaries and analysis for things I may have missed, motifs and symbols etc...you know...hallmarks of actual good writing. I'm not even wasting my precious Sunday morning/afternoon with that for this book. My sheer disappointment is on par with me trying to cook lamb and it turning into shriveled lamb popcorn bits. The book synopsis, leads you (well maybe I was the only idiot who fell for it) to a book that is admittedly, what I viewed as a Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell rip off. That being said, I think even a Jon Strange rip off could be well written, and imaginative, and NOT read like a 14 year old girl's idea of what real literature and a "period piece" must be like.
Now before I get into the reasons why I hated this worthless waste of English words, I just want to say that I listened to the..utterly horrid and contrived sounding audiobook version. The female narrator, I'm sorry to say, killed any and all attempts to make any male character sound older than 15. There's a character in the book a Brigadier General, real grisseled type...Sounds like a kid trying to impersonate Patton. It's all like this, all of the "ethic" characters are all these exaggerated and cliche sounding voices that just tears you out of what small semblance there is to being an actual plot.
Even the writing style and choices of deposition is strikingly artificial and bad. It's so thick and artificial that it feels like the author was so lazy to try to cleverly work in how to explain things, that he just used the classic, 'have a new person ask a lot of question and get answers' approach. Which is the heavy handed completely uncreative way of just handing us the plot points.
And speaking of the plot, it started out sort of with *SOME* sort of intrigue. Of course that intrigue is lifted entirely from the story of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. And furthermore,it's not even done well! It's not lifted from JS&MN and then improved upon! It's lifted from JS&MN and then just stepped on by obese hairy men. I had no interest in these characters. The main protagonist whose name is Melasandre...(another lift from Game of Thrones btw) comes off as a flat, and vapid airhead who's supposed to be a linguist at Harvard, but proves to be pretty useless. Her opposite some government prick who in a long list of movie and novel tropes, first just see's her as an annoying tool to get what he needs, ends up falling for her.
I can’t even chalk this trash up to fun ‘light’ summer reading.. It’s so insultingly lame and boring, I can’t even guilty pleasure this
This book is not written as the book I was expecting. It is written as a teenie bopper Twilight-fest that is making it's capital based on the 'science-fiction/supernatural' phase. I hate that I stuck with it this long. And No..I'm not just saying this because I just previously read The Count of Monte Cristo! This book is genuinely bad. If my 13 year old daughter brought this non-sensical, and trite home, I'd know I was a failure of a parent in trying to get my children to appreciate good writing...
Now before I get into the reasons why I hated this worthless waste of English words, I just want to say that I listened to the..utterly horrid and contrived sounding audiobook version. The female narrator, I'm sorry to say, killed any and all attempts to make any male character sound older than 15. There's a character in the book a Brigadier General, real grisseled type...Sounds like a kid trying to impersonate Patton. It's all like this, all of the "ethic" characters are all these exaggerated and cliche sounding voices that just tears you out of what small semblance there is to being an actual plot.
Even the writing style and choices of deposition is strikingly artificial and bad. It's so thick and artificial that it feels like the author was so lazy to try to cleverly work in how to explain things, that he just used the classic, 'have a new person ask a lot of question and get answers' approach. Which is the heavy handed completely uncreative way of just handing us the plot points.
And speaking of the plot, it started out sort of with *SOME* sort of intrigue. Of course that intrigue is lifted entirely from the story of Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell. And furthermore,it's not even done well! It's not lifted from JS&MN and then improved upon! It's lifted from JS&MN and then just stepped on by obese hairy men. I had no interest in these characters. The main protagonist whose name is Melasandre...(another lift from Game of Thrones btw) comes off as a flat, and vapid airhead who's supposed to be a linguist at Harvard, but proves to be pretty useless. Her opposite some government prick who in a long list of movie and novel tropes, first just see's her as an annoying tool to get what he needs, ends up falling for her.
I can’t even chalk this trash up to fun ‘light’ summer reading.. It’s so insultingly lame and boring, I can’t even guilty pleasure this
This book is not written as the book I was expecting. It is written as a teenie bopper Twilight-fest that is making it's capital based on the 'science-fiction/supernatural' phase. I hate that I stuck with it this long. And No..I'm not just saying this because I just previously read The Count of Monte Cristo! This book is genuinely bad. If my 13 year old daughter brought this non-sensical, and trite home, I'd know I was a failure of a parent in trying to get my children to appreciate good writing...
Compelling, imaginative and thoroughly enjoyed. I laughed out loud at the finish.
Light and meandering, anda surprisingly fast read. I have to admit I actually enjoyed reading how the DODO bureaucracy ballooned, hampering the ability of the core group to maintain control over the various DEDEs at DTAPs. (The number of abbreviations and acronyms in use reminded me of my time at a variety of corporations.) And watching the smarmy and condescending Blevins at work -- blechhhhhhh!
I liked Melisande Stokes a lot and Erzabet frequently had me grinning.
I liked Melisande Stokes a lot and Erzabet frequently had me grinning.
Well written and exceptionally creative; multiple viewpoints expressed in a variety of ways = compelling, look-forward-to-it experience. Read this.
A governmental view on time travel and magic centered on a group of people attempting to slowly change the past to benefit the future. It starts off great. It explores time travel and different strands of time while also making a satisfactory way of explaining magic. It is told in a memoir/journal/messages format largely from one character, but also has other, shorter POVs. It is not hard science fiction, as the explanations are light and quick. The book is too long. It became very boring in the middle as other plots were brought into view, only to be dropped and seemingly meaningless. The ending gets much better as the plot finally gets interesting, but then it just stops. The book has a good amount of humor that still made it enjoyable throughout though. The audiobook has a full cast of narrators which likely made the book a lot better.
Melisande Stokes is an academic linguist hired by a shadowy government organization that wants to trivialize history using time travel and in doing so revitalize witchcraft, which was killed by scientific thinking and the emergence of photography. Wow, huh?
A tremendously fun story told through accounts by alternating characters, diary entries, email and human resources documents. The book flips between different eras, including the present, Elizabethan England, Puritan New England, 13th century Constantinople and, specifically, 1851. Things get a little weird when Viking warriors attack a Walmart but the book sweeps to a fitting, though incredibly abrupt conclusion (and no sequel on the horizon?!). It's a big, charming book with many a nod-and-a-wink and a refusal to take itself too seriously.
Recommended for those who like their books big, their female characters strong and a little practical magic with their time travel.
A tremendously fun story told through accounts by alternating characters, diary entries, email and human resources documents. The book flips between different eras, including the present, Elizabethan England, Puritan New England, 13th century Constantinople and, specifically, 1851. Things get a little weird when Viking warriors attack a Walmart but the book sweeps to a fitting, though incredibly abrupt conclusion (and no sequel on the horizon?!). It's a big, charming book with many a nod-and-a-wink and a refusal to take itself too seriously.
Recommended for those who like their books big, their female characters strong and a little practical magic with their time travel.
Could have been much shorter. Interesting concept, but too long
This book has some great moments in it but ultimately fell flat for me. It takes a long time to get going but the middle part was actually very enjoyable and I moved through it very quickly. I wasn’t terribly impressed with the ending.