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3.8 AVERAGE
3.8 AVERAGE
I don’t think that I will ever like anything as much as I liked Snowcrash. But this was pretty flawless.
SPOILERS!
OMG HOW DID MEL GET BACK AND HOW DID MORTIMER GET THAT NOTE THERE AND WHAT IS GRAINNE DOING EVEN?!
Also, I def knew Rebecca Este-Oda was going to be a witch. I just knew it.
This book was SUPER fun to listen to. I’m not entirely sure what happened all the time. And there was so much to take in. But the play like quality of the story was so fun and funny! Science meets magic. Science is magic. Loved it.
OMG HOW DID MEL GET BACK AND HOW DID MORTIMER GET THAT NOTE THERE AND WHAT IS GRAINNE DOING EVEN?!
Also, I def knew Rebecca Este-Oda was going to be a witch. I just knew it.
This book was SUPER fun to listen to. I’m not entirely sure what happened all the time. And there was so much to take in. But the play like quality of the story was so fun and funny! Science meets magic. Science is magic. Loved it.
Stephenson returns to the fun and pacing of works like Reamde and Snowcrash. Total fun! Magic, time travel, and supercomputers - what could go wrong? ;-)
Co-author from Mongoliad added depth and breadth to characters and narrative. A romp!
Co-author from Mongoliad added depth and breadth to characters and narrative. A romp!
As complicated and tightly woven as any Stephenson story, packed full of reports, emails, messages, etc. Told mostly in one long diary, it holds together cohesively, and less important or interesting sections are summarized to keep the story from dragging. There's a lot of time travel, and several groups working towards the own goals, with some hints about what's coming, as the main part is told from a vantage point of the future.
Packed full of adventure, history, language, paradox, magic, and a smidge of romance, it's an engaging read.
Packed full of adventure, history, language, paradox, magic, and a smidge of romance, it's an engaging read.
Whew. That was a long one at 700+ pages, though I've come to expect that from Stephenson. I'd be hard pressed to say what should have been cut, so I guess it needed to be this long to tell the whole story. I do appreciate that it was broken up by different voices, different fonts, and different presentations (some online chat style, journal entries, etc). A fun and scientifically-is interesting look at magic and time travel.
adventurous
funny
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This was a fun adventure - part serious science, part sightly comedic fantasy. The characters were well-developed and lively, and the plot moved along at a good pace. I listened to the audiobook, which was read by an ensemble cast. Some of the voices/accents were excellent; others, not so much.
I know people think it fell apart in the back half to two-thirds, but though it dragged a bit (and lost some of that bureaucratic magic, so to speak) I thought it held up well. Super compelling premise!
SUCH a cool premise. I had so much fun reading this even though I don’t think I even understood all of it... I tried to just avoid giving myself a headache by thinking of time travel paradoxes too much and enjoyed the ride. But it felt very clever and complete with respect to world building. I think due to the format characterization was maybe a little weak (Tristan was a bit of a black box) but it didn’t take away from the fun story, settings, and characters that popped up.