A few of the things about this bug me enough that it was a pretty solid three if not for me making a pros and con list and being high off a decent ending, having just finished it.

Let’s start with what I did not like so I can end on a happy note:

First of all, the prose are fairly sterile and clinical, which seems to be the case across all his works. I’ve read this, The Last Empire, and both Skyward books and I have a feeling he keeps his vocabulary, sentence structure, and descriptions clipped in order to both limit page count (just imagine this with evocative prose, my god, it would be enormous) and to be accessible. Those are good reasons but it also means that the dialogue, plot, and “ideas” stand on their own. Buddy doesn’t even like a simile, typically. It makes parts where not much is happening, and not That Much does happen throughout the plot, more acutely slow because it always just a constant string of either dialogue or thoughts. I think he paces out world building exposition well this way, but the actual events, when you think about each persons’ story, feels really minimal.

Second of all, the pacing of each story felt really strange. For instance, one of the main characters story just like ends—somewhat on a cliffhanger, I guess?—until the veeeery end, and it’s specifically to do a little twist. And another character’s backstory is rationed out such that it really feels like mostly just his story, and that ends near the end of the book as well. Sometimes it works to string you along, a lot of the time it works against the overall cutting from character and scene.

This is also a pretty large sausage fest that super feels like it because it’s so, so long. Then one woman is just used for character development for a dude, and the other is in the book way less, and that bugged me because her story was pretty interesting. Would have liked for that to be paced out better.

I know people are like wow wow wow the stories all tie together but uhh yeah, I’ve read epic fantasy before... that’s what it’s supposed to do. If it hadn’t, I’d have thought I wandered into the wrong genre fiction. Also, this is a lot of setup and people seem to have given that a huge pass. Like, yeah, kind of the main plot threads are closed off? But those are very myopic and, again, when you think about the plot from each POV, not much happened, and that makes it feel more “basic”.

Now for what I like!
I really liked the magic system, the pacing of the world building such that it worked as a hook. I liked that doing “good” in a traditional sort of fantasy way, is predominate and played into a character consistently throughout. It feels like it’s a karmic infection that can catch in a more systemic way by way of the world building. There’s quite a lot I still don’t know, since this functionally setup and another hook. But Good and Evil and the moral fibre/chord of individuals seem to play into fabric of the world. So I dig that.

There is one character arc that is highly effective and another that sort of annunciates the other in a nice way. Much more nuance is integrated at the end. Really liked that (though the dialogue there was Wild). I liked how earnest they were and straight forward ways in which they communicated the most important aspects of themselves, and then those things were tested. Works for me.

I actually didn’t particularly think it was asking for a lot of act 1 faith in me. The POV switches did its work well there. Something happens each chapter. Sometimes it’s more words than need to be there to do it, because it’s dropping some knowledge, but I never felt like this chapter could just be deleted. They could be truncated I’m sure, but it kept me going.

I liked the very last chapter reveal quite a lot. The larger plot is more of a hook here, and it kind of has to be because of how this book is structured. I could see people just dipping right out if that hook wasn’t enough.

Overall, the absolute strength of this title for me is how interesting the setting is and this larger, meta plot rooted in history (and the hook at the very start of the book).

Not into the humour or the self awareness of the authorial voice or jarring prose. Just not for me sadly.

Edit: 5 years later I’m still pissed off about the plotting, the contrived af rape scene for the purpose of a very stupid plot point, which could have been done any number of ways. Boy, reading a review from 5 years ago is kind of cringe. Glad it’s here to remind me where I’ve been and that grammar is important, actually. I was having trouble remembering the rape contrivance and I chronicled it here. Helpful! Downgraded to 2 stars, as I the only lingering feeling I have for this book is how much it pissed me off.

OK. So overall I'm leaning towards 3/5 stars. I'll start with the stuff I didn't like first so it ends on a positive note. Warning: I go on a diatribe about the rape scene in the book and sometimes mention spoilers, though not enough to spoil the story at all, I think.

I've only read this and Snow Crash, but I think I just do not like his writing style. Everything is very passive and dispassionate. It was really hard for me to give a shit about any other characters besides Nell.

The details he chooses to provide often are really presumptuous of a shared headspace that he doesn't create, at least for me. Because of that it took me a while to finish the book, 4-5 days. I kept getting jarred out of the fiction until I could get back into it. This happened throughout.

Near the end Stephenson leans hard into the rape trope which is really upsetting in of itself. It pissed me off so much it was hard to enjoy the last two chapters of the book. Especially since it's two paragraphs, which,
- Spoilers -

is made clear later on in the fiction when he needed to explain the nanites in Nell's bloodstream. It also just felt super at odds with the rest of the story, even though it was used also to tell the reader that despite all her training with the primer, there's forces in the world that she can't surmount. Obviously super important since that in its entirety is 3 paragraphs including the rape she sees coming and dispassionately removes herself from. Only afterword easily getting a sword she uses to easily kill everyone.

His writing style also clashes with the theme of the book with being subversive of established cultures as every character in different cultures speaks the same way, except for Nell when she's younger. Who then speaks like the "Vickey's". Aside from the beginning which also includes a little bit of racist language when asians speak, not trusting the reader to be able to picture an accented Asian dialect not completely fluid in English.

I think it's safe to say that the story is more interested in viewing the characters and places in the world as an oversized chessboard, with the satisfaction coming from watching the story unfold instead of losing yourself in the character. That's not my thing, though. Especially with one of the main characters specifically because, aside from Nell once again, if you pay close attention exactly what the other characters say is most important to them is completely skipped over or glossed over in the story. Makes it particularly hard to care about them, right?

Also, the pacing off the book was really, really slow.

But this leads me to my next point segueing into the positive aspects of the story.

It was actually not altogether unpleasant for me to read a story like that even though it wasn't my preference. It was a really intricate story with a lot of moving cogs, that, when revealed (very fucking slowly albeit) was interesting. Even captivating sometimes. It allowed for me to actually finish the book.

World building was fantastic, the ideologies between each place was palpable. How each place looked when the characters were travelling through it, not the best. But when they're in a specific place interacting, it's pretty good.

The prose work was well done, in my opinion. It's an interesting story despite a bunch of things I dislike. I still enjoyed it and am glad I read it. Buttttt I'll probably not bother with any more of his stuff.

This book is such a strange beast. I’ve actually been moving it down my TBR because every time it hits the top, I’m just not in the mood or was hesitant because of the science aspects of the book. But it handled all of that really well, actually. I mean, I’m not scientist but this feels like it’s pretty well researched.

Putting labels on this is pretty difficult because of that. It’s definitely YA; it can feel too tropey sometimes. But I was finally in the mood for something like that, and it executes that aspect of the genre really well. The voice is personable and intelligent; it has excellent flow, definitely a page turner. It’s action packed, has a slow burn romance (the most indifferent things about the book for me, personally), and is post apocalyptic due to a virus.

On the tin, so to speak, it’s fairly generic: A young woman loses her father, a leading expert in virology, to a corporation that exfiltrates him to their lab in order to solve a pandemic; leaving her alone to make her own way through the rapidly declining civilization. 2 years later a solider finds her and tells her the father is dead, but hope for humanity lies in her own gene hacked enchantments. They just need to follow the clues to figure out how to decrypt it and deal with all the challenges beyond that.

I think someone recommended this to me when I was reading biopunk/cyberpunk stuff, because this book is great with those aspects. It’s absolutely the highlight of the text for me. There’s a neat intersection between here bio enhancements and integrated technologies. It’s not too cerebral, but the author definitely seems to know her stuff. She explains it just well enough that you get that she knows what she’s talking about (AFAIK) and then moves on.

It also works as a vector for larger themes we see today. Corporations attempting to monopolize the gene market and this research itself opening the door for ethical questions. While those questions specifically are not new, they aren’t antiquated. More recent decisions about this scientific research is at play, and the overall understanding geneticists have is far more updated than we have seen in the genre. For instance, it does not hinge on cloning (thank god).

The virus itself is also pretty unique. It’s still a zombie trope, but has an interesting spin. Once infected they go through stages, the last one being to actually explode—sending particulates and human debris into the air as a contagion. But if people actually consume people at an earlier stage of the virus they are immune, and there is a stage where the pheromones released make people want to do so.

It certainly feels like a man made, horrific, sick scientist sort of thing. It’s also handled in a way that really effectively annunciates the suspense and the themes of the book without, somehow, not being too melodramatic.

And melodramatic it is. But… in the exact right dosage? I don’t know how to explain it other than just “fun”? It’s not so melodramatic that you bail, it’s just enough that it fits the genre conventions and is dramatic. I think if the prose and craft weren’t there this could easily have turned into something that was unlikable. There’s plenty of plot twists and will-they-won’t-they and then cool action sequences that dovetail into talking about her cool, inbuilt technologies and other world building I found to be just as interesting.

It’s a story you need to be in the mood for, I think. But provided a perfect mesh of popcorn fiction, spec fiction, melodrama, and action. Truly a chimera of YA fiction, but I’m here for it, honestly.

3.5 rounded up.
4 friends go to a haunted house *on purpose* because a bride-to-be wants to elope in one. The connective tissue in this is without a doubt, tenuous. Their past history comprised of various dalliances and lives cut short and diverted stokes their inner turmoil, and when they decide to try and wake up the house, marital problems and past history become the least of their worries.

Let’s start with what didn’t work so I can end happily.

It is very meta and self-aware, which is a stylistic thing. It’s not for me. The whole, people who know they’re in a horror movie thing but actions have their own momentum so being aware that you’re acting out a kind of play doesn’t help whatsoever. Coupled with thin connective tissue though, this feels more contrived than an effective device.

Eventually, after the 6th Why Are We Here?, We’re in a movie, and What We Are Doing Doesn’t Make Any Sense, I tended to agree. I think this would have been loads better without the meta component and a more effective lead-up than them just being in the house.

However, there’s plenty I did like about it, too.

Atmospherically and outside of the meta component this shows really fine craftwork. Diction, specificity, verbiage, and simile use are all so good. Some of the most evocative prose around, especially when revealing character, and I include the house here as well.

Plot-wise, it’s… unconventional I’ll say. Sometimes it conforms to even the meta-perspective of how a horror story goes, sometimes it doesn’t. It’s effective at keeping you guessing but fulfilling tropes genre seekers will want. I particularly liked the third act and how it closed out.

As a sum of its parts it comes out ahead, and just to underline how great the prose work is, I boosted it up. I really loved that aspect of it. Had it ended poorly, just from the pleasure of reading it, I might have decided on 3 stars anyways. That’s how consistently good it was.

Definitely worth picking up when it drops and thanks to Netgalley for sending it to me.

Contrived, sloppy, terrible dialogue and character development. Bad pacing. I finished it purely because it was an audiobook.

There are so many granular interactions between the jurors that are pointless, stilted, or literally just infodumps that feel very weird coming from the specific character. Bad commercial fiction to an absolute tee, in my opinion.

I DID like that it was about the cigarettes but I think the movie being about gun deaths hits far better. Everyone knows these things about smoking; but maybe it was more relevant in the 90s?

Which means on all fronts the movie is superior. Though, credit where it’s due, the movie is obviously a different genre entirely, leaning toward an outright thriller.

An alright thriller that brings over some characters from the first book, most predominantly the two girls, slightly older now, driving to a town to visit a boyfriend, Justin (also in the first book). The same law officer, now very much down hill and an alcoholic, is the father of that boy and, when asked/begged, sets off to find the girls when they go missing.

This is the book that the TV show Big Sky. Except, the TV show adaptation is better than this in every way. Not to say that this is _bad_. But the contrivance of the girls being put in another wild situation like this is solved. A character that is not very nuanced portrayal of an overweight hoarder is far better and different in the show.

There’s way more agency for all of the women, who drive the narrative already, so should have more. It makes the story way more dynamic and interesting than the book. It’s overall, just far more aware of tropes and the shortcomings of the book, and they do an incredible job updating it and restricting it. There’s a trans character in the show that never appears in this book, and serves as the cornerstone of the show - as an additional for instance.

This book is a serviceable thriller that is mostly a standard affair but the fat phobia and hoarding as a short hand for “bad person” in multiple cases—and just knowing how inclusive the show is vs the book, it did not exceed expectations whatsoever, and was a bit of a let done in comparison, tbh.

The show, however, stands out. One of my favouriteS of the year. Definitely check it out.

This was a fun crime story. The pacing and plot lend it to a very cinematic feel, which I like a lot. I tend to think in those terms often enough. It’s a fun heist flick that becomes complex and Bug, the main character and wheel man, has to deal with both the fallout from his individual circumstances—his own and southern poverty, in general being a major theme here—as well as powder keg situation that erupts from the heist itself.

This book has good character work. I really liked Bug’s character arc and his reactions to the world around him feel very authentic. His actions really telegraph his inner life, in a way that I think a lot of authors would aspire to. I love the details with the cars as well. I’m just interested in cars enough to find that fun and cool. It strikes a good balance. I don’t think people not into cars will get bored. It’s interspersed enough, and the plot is fast paced enough, that nothing overstays it’s welcome.

So why only 3 stars, right?

This would have easily been 4 stars for me, except I didn’t get on with the writing despite liking the form. The actual prose are serviceable in terms of diction and imagery (when not using similes), but there are some wonky things at the paragraph to paragraph and sentence to sentence level that repeatedly pulled me out of what was happening.

Sentence to sentence the cadence is really repetitive because of the writing style. Short clipped sentences and no meaty long ones create a stilted cadence.

Paragraph to paragraph there’s an issue with stuff editors usually catch. There’s a lot of similes that go against what the paragraph is about. When we first get to see the main characters wheel man skills in action the simile is him gripping the steering wheel like a life preserver. Then it goes on to describe the car as his instrument, and driving is his symphony. Why not… just lean into the vehicle as a musical instrument and then make the shifting happening while driving from the police “notes” being played. It would have been really cool, but instead there’s a dissonance that occurs—and reoccurs often in this fiction—where imagery is summoned with a simile that doesn’t help at all, pulls you out of the fiction, and then the rest of the paragraph continues with something different.

The character pulls a man off of his bed he’s sharing with a woman, who has breasts spilling over her front like an avalanche. For one, it’s a crime story so summoning that image is weird, and it also doesn’t work? She’s stationary and breasts wouldn’t be like that. On the other hand, if her entire body and posture was shaped like an avalanche going down a hill or something, I’d at least kind of understand the figure of the person on the bed and it might be communicating character info that becomes pertinent. But if there is a simile in the book, it’s probably not there for that kind of craft work.

To end on a positive note though, one thing this book absolutely excels at though: action. The sentence to sentence structure, while a clipped cadence in scenes that need to breath, absolutely belong in the action. I’m betting the authors style comes from crafting these kinds of scenes. It imparts just the right amount of information and creates a sort of suspense like feeling when each short sentence comes to an end. It’s like a repeated hook, love that about it.

I think if you come to this expecting commercial fiction you’re gonna love it. It’s more intelligent than something you’d pick up in that setting. It’s got a good marriage of crime/heist that doesn’t lose sight of it just being about action. Clearly it wants you to think about the variables that force these people to live like this and situate them in time and place, in the south. I was expecting more of a literary novel, especially with a cover like that. Had my expectations been more in line and the craft stuff not bothered me, It would be higher rated.

I’ll freely admit that I just find this series quite fun and get on with the voice. I didn’t read it as critically, because this is my pop corn, fun movie type fiction. I also don’t know annnnything about the time period, and it was fun being learning a bit about it. I also do not think that historical fiction = historical accuracy, as some reviewers seem to think and require. There’s witches and demons and vampires, beside - I have no idea why you’d think it was a critical framework of the time period.

With that said, I know I’m not reading it critically because you pretty much need to accept these books on its own terms or else be disappointed. You must be alright with the idea that these two can fall in love in like a week and go straight into a marriage. What I liked about this was that the romance is a fairy… until it’s not. There’s issues they have to navigate and they question wether they made the right decision even as their relationship is like a bullet shot from a gun still. Recklessly forward, even with substantial issues stemming from not knowing one another. I liked that it was more complicated than the first book.

It clipped along nicely for me too. It’s a slightly step above commercial fiction for me. Readable and easy flow, decent pacing. This is also not a large book for me either, so maybe I’m just more acclimated to a structure like this. I mean, you read Sanderson and you can get through anything. 1200 pages where barely any plot happens and the most sterile prose imaginable - this is a damn gift in comparison.

The plot was very straight forward but there’s some cool world building reveals and I just really liked the story. It was interesting and fun. Though, I strongly dislike Matthew now. I hate his pet names and how antiquated he is toward his wife, making her push back. I guess it’s going for a bad boy vibe for him but I just wanted to punch him in the face sometimes.

Lots more witchy stuff going on, the stuff with the book of life and the time travel was just fun. I’m fine with it. 4 stars means it exceeded my expectations, and it did. I like this more than the first book, which I enjoyed but certainly raised my eyebrows at the whirlwind romance aspect to it. I think this is a stronger instalment, though I just much prefer the plot because it’s just “cooler”; so I’m somewhat biased on that front.

DNF 30% in because of the Truly Terrible narration. It just sounds like a speech to text robot sometimes. I’ve tried slowing it down and speeding it up, it’s always the worst. My eyes just instantly glaze over. I’ll have to try and get it from the library sometimes.

No rating because I don’t think I really even consumed anything of it and seems unfair to give it 1 star when that’s the case.

Do avoid the audiobook though!