Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.99 AVERAGE
3.99 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I laughed i cried i screamed. This book took me forever to finish and i wouldnt have it any other way. Thank you seth dickinson for breaking my heart again 🩷
This is a brilliant book, and completely not what I was expecting. It has one of the most diverse and fleshed out cast of characters I've ever seen. It also has one of the craziest plots I've ever seen, with stakes ramping up beyond what I even thought was possible. I not only was taken on a thrilling ride through alien invasions, political maneuvering, and visceral scenes of body horror, but was confronted with serious ethical questions that were based in real instances of genocide, and extended easily to the speculative plot presented in the book. I was glued to this book for a few days. I sympathized with every single human cast member, even those who I disagreed with.
This absolutely deserves 5 stars, and I'm glad it's my first 5 star read of the year!
This absolutely deserves 5 stars, and I'm glad it's my first 5 star read of the year!
challenging
dark
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
This was my intro to Seth Dickinson and I won't be reading another book by him. I enjoyed both of the aliens, yet nearly every one of his human characters was weakly built and I didn't care about any of them. Some of them were nothing but stereotypes, and one has to wonder exactly why he chose the characters he did. Some of them did not even fit into the story whatsoever.
The novel also fails at less is more. I know basic physics and the extreme lengths he went to explaining in extensive detail was just plain boring and took away from what could have been a fast-moving, action novel, which I'm pretty sure is what he wanted to go for. When things were actually happening, the novel was a good read. I loved that there's a lot of body horror to the point of nightmare mode. But long pages of Li going into philosophy and physics? No thanks. Same with the masturbatory descriptions of every fighter jet in existence. Who cares? Most readers won't.
This also read like trying to appeal to the far leftist publishing world and far leftist readers, why throw in random gay characters or characters wondering if they are gay? None of it had much of anything to do with the actual plot. There are modern sci-fi authors who are big who don't need to do this kind of crap to appeal to modern SJW politics. It's weird.
The novel also fails at less is more. I know basic physics and the extreme lengths he went to explaining in extensive detail was just plain boring and took away from what could have been a fast-moving, action novel, which I'm pretty sure is what he wanted to go for. When things were actually happening, the novel was a good read. I loved that there's a lot of body horror to the point of nightmare mode. But long pages of Li going into philosophy and physics? No thanks. Same with the masturbatory descriptions of every fighter jet in existence. Who cares? Most readers won't.
This also read like trying to appeal to the far leftist publishing world and far leftist readers, why throw in random gay characters or characters wondering if they are gay? None of it had much of anything to do with the actual plot. There are modern sci-fi authors who are big who don't need to do this kind of crap to appeal to modern SJW politics. It's weird.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
funny
informative
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
DNF. Started out weird and fun and then they took away the weird and fun parts and I was left with a military/war/preventing the end of the world sci-fi dense with big science words. I started a better book in the meantime and didn't feel like coming back to this.