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3.81 AVERAGE
3.81 AVERAGE
When I keep poking at a book for two months, I know any chance of finishing it is doomed. Every other book seemed more interesting.
I adored Gladstone's Craft series until the last novel, which shocked me at how... sloppy it seemed. Characters acted randomly and I felt absolutely no connection to the story.
This book felt the same way. I tried, I really tried, but I abandoned it at page 125.
I'm starting to feel that of late Gladstone is more about world-building and flashy details than character development. I used to love his Craft characters.
I am so disappointed and sad.
I adored Gladstone's Craft series until the last novel, which shocked me at how... sloppy it seemed. Characters acted randomly and I felt absolutely no connection to the story.
This book felt the same way. I tried, I really tried, but I abandoned it at page 125.
I'm starting to feel that of late Gladstone is more about world-building and flashy details than character development. I used to love his Craft characters.
I am so disappointed and sad.
adventurous
reflective
tense
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Moderate: Body horror, Genocide, Gore, Torture, Violence, Blood, Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Sexual content, Slavery, Suicidal thoughts, War
adventurous
lighthearted
medium-paced
This was a dense, exhausting read. Leave time to savor the language and the world-building (even its occasional hapax-legomenon throwaway history). Do read the acknowledgements. Don't plan to read an epic all at once. Which is why I generally hate them: you can't summarize the episodes, or necessarily follow along. But I could see myself rereading this eventually. In retirement. It's beautiful, it's transhuman, it's transplanetary.
Nobody tell me the Journey to the West isn't too long or sweeping to give a shit. I need something bite-sized for a while.
Nobody tell me the Journey to the West isn't too long or sweeping to give a shit. I need something bite-sized for a while.
adventurous
emotional
medium-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
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Content warnings are, as always, at the bottom.
2.5 stars. I wish I liked this better! I'm always looking for good space operas, especially ones that a) deal with the moral implications of colonization and/or b) deals with the Other without resorting to stereotypes/Whole Planet Culture. I did really appreciate the inclusivity of the cast, but unfortunately found the characters rather flat. I did like Zanj's character arc, though. I prefer the Craft Sequence, but I do see something going on here that recurs throughout Gladstone's work. He's sort of...remote. Lots of brilliant world-building that hinges on creative use of philosophy, mathematics, and beyond, but it's all highly abstract. While this worked for me in the Craft Sequence, I found it sort of locked me out of the character arcs here. I think there's just so much going on here that it was harder to latch on.
CW: mild (lesbian) sexual content, profanity.
Content warnings are, as always, at the bottom.
2.5 stars. I wish I liked this better! I'm always looking for good space operas, especially ones that a) deal with the moral implications of colonization and/or b) deals with the Other without resorting to stereotypes/Whole Planet Culture. I did really appreciate the inclusivity of the cast, but unfortunately found the characters rather flat. I did like Zanj's character arc, though. I prefer the Craft Sequence, but I do see something going on here that recurs throughout Gladstone's work. He's sort of...remote. Lots of brilliant world-building that hinges on creative use of philosophy, mathematics, and beyond, but it's all highly abstract. While this worked for me in the Craft Sequence, I found it sort of locked me out of the character arcs here. I think there's just so much going on here that it was harder to latch on.
CW: mild (lesbian) sexual content, profanity.
Overwritten, predictable, and exhausting. Not sure why I finished it — Gladstone’s style is not for me.
If you like word salad and run on sentences and gross instant relationships you might have a better time. Here, have some action:
...or, perhaps some tech:
…and so forth.
If you like word salad and run on sentences and gross instant relationships you might have a better time. Here, have some action:
He heard her, understood, pulled free, and they ran through a hangar of acrid smoke, ozone, burning plastic, burning air, hot metal, oil, blood, and then the ramp by some miracle was underfoot, and they climbed it into a space empty of threat, a space whose silence rang like a bell, and sought, because this ship had been built by creatures not so inhuman after all, up ramps and past a dinner table (a dinner table!) and a cargo hold, for a space with two chairs and a great deal of buttons, dials, levers, and unsettling hoses that Viv, to her own surprise, recognized as a cockpit.
...or, perhaps some tech:
Viv could not see the Cloud, but as they approached the fleet Zanj told her of the shadow the fleet cast, filling the hyperdimensional night with three-thousand-year dreams, dragging in information, every meager advance in weapons patterning and science the galaxy had yielded in their silent millennia, and, too, the great art and gripping schlock and cooking shows and tritone mesosymphonies that rose, fell, rose again, surviving the empires that were their cradle. Waking, the ships fed.
…and so forth.
Isekai, in my science fantasy space opera?? It's more likely than you think.
This is a hella fun book. It reminds me of those summer blockbusters that come out that are super fun, like Detective Pikachu. That movie looked hella fun and enjoyable, and it was. It didn't go for Best Picture Oscars, but it was never meant to. That's what this book was like for me: I knew it wasn't going to be the best literature I'd read all year, but the storyline seemed cool, the title was interesting, and I found myself curious about the cover art, so I dove in (that last note about the cover art – I've read an embarrassing number of books by judging the cover. It's actually not that bad of a strategy!).
The book is a fun experience. The future world that Max Gladstone creates is fun to frolic in! He doesn't shy away from taking us into a wide variety of unique situations and introduces really cool sci-fi dynamics into those situations to create an easily readable hero's tale. I found some of the twists to be mildly predictable, but not to any extent that I was bored or found myself trying to hurry through chapters. There's so many cool things to think about in the Empress of Forever world!
This book largely takes place in space, so, read it if you're down with that and in need of a pretty quick burst into the cool world created by Max Gladstone.
It took me an entire month to read this because I went on a little reading hiatus, but I should be back up to speed now.
The book is a fun experience. The future world that Max Gladstone creates is fun to frolic in! He doesn't shy away from taking us into a wide variety of unique situations and introduces really cool sci-fi dynamics into those situations to create an easily readable hero's tale. I found some of the twists to be mildly predictable, but not to any extent that I was bored or found myself trying to hurry through chapters. There's so many cool things to think about in the Empress of Forever world!
This book largely takes place in space, so, read it if you're down with that and in need of a pretty quick burst into the cool world created by Max Gladstone.
It took me an entire month to read this because I went on a little reading hiatus, but I should be back up to speed now.
Enjoyable, with a slight twist on the usual 'chosen one' plot.