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A review by yevolem
The Consuming Fire by John Scalzi
5.0
This was significantly better than the first book, which I rated 4 stars. It's simply very fun the entire time throughout and when considering its brisk pace and ~300 pages there wasn't any point where I wasn't enjoying myself or feeling that it was bloated. I thought over a while whether I should rate this 4 or 5 stars, so I've settled on 4.5 rounded up for now.
Is this is a literary treat? No, obviously not, it's more like summer blockbuster or tv series that's just a lot of fun. If that isn't something you enjoy, then this, or really anything Scalzi writes, isn't going to be for you. At the end there's a scene that's very reminiscent of an iconic scene in Breaking Bad and I don't know if that was intentional or not, but it was still extremely fun either way. Considering the religious implications of the scene, it may also be a reference to Hebrews 12:29.
Scalzi definitely has a lot of misses for me, but this certainly isn't one of them.
The one thing I wonder the most about this series though is how much of it is an emulation of "What if my daughter had wrote this?" (~19 at the time), which he has certainly improved upon from Zoe's Tale. It doesn't read really at all to me as if were written by a 49 year old man, which if anything is a testament to his ability to adapt to trends to continue writing salable commercial fiction. I don't see anything wrong with treating writing as a job.
Rating: 4.5/5
Is this is a literary treat? No, obviously not, it's more like summer blockbuster or tv series that's just a lot of fun. If that isn't something you enjoy, then this, or really anything Scalzi writes, isn't going to be for you. At the end there's a scene that's very reminiscent of an iconic scene in Breaking Bad and I don't know if that was intentional or not, but it was still extremely fun either way. Considering the religious implications of the scene, it may also be a reference to Hebrews 12:29.
Scalzi definitely has a lot of misses for me, but this certainly isn't one of them.
The one thing I wonder the most about this series though is how much of it is an emulation of "What if my daughter had wrote this?" (~19 at the time), which he has certainly improved upon from Zoe's Tale. It doesn't read really at all to me as if were written by a 49 year old man, which if anything is a testament to his ability to adapt to trends to continue writing salable commercial fiction. I don't see anything wrong with treating writing as a job.
Rating: 4.5/5