jakej's Reviews (94)

Would’ve rated higher except I was coming into this expecting a masterpiece. It’s not. It’s a decent sci fi book that does a good job of building a flawed, tangible main character. However, it’s too casual, crude and scatterbrained to approach a masterpiece. Shows how far the literary quality of sci-fi has come in the 50 years since this was written.

An odd book in terms of pacing and writing style. It felt like he was really rushing to wrap things up at the end: at just over 200 pages there’s not a ton of room. Lots of interesting ideas though, an influential and early sci fi book about sapir whorf. Interesting cast of characters.

An extraordinarily original fusion of mythology and speculative fiction.

Overall a great collection of short stories, but the very short ones didn't do much for me ("The Great Silence", "Dacey's Patent Automatic Nanny", and "What's Expected of Us"). "Omphalos" was a mixed bag, while "The Lifecycle of Software Objects" and "Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom" were excellent. "The Truth of Fact, The Truth of Feeling", "The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate" and "Exhalation" are some of the best SFF short stories I've ever read, absolutely luminescent. When Chiang allows himself more than 10 pages he almost always ends up with a heartfelt story that explores a theme with compassion and curiosity towards the reader and the characters.

The greatest children's fantasy book ever written. It is a singular tragedy that Harry Potter is a monstrous success when the Earthsea books were written 40 years prior and blow them away in every aspect.

Overall enjoyed it but it stretched out more than it should have. As another reviewer put it, “400 pages is a lot for a book where nothing happens”. Ignatius wears out his welcome quickly, and it’s only the great cast of other characters that makes this fun.  It is funny, but not side-splittingly. The dialogue was written well and brings the scenes to life (as it must: the book is mostly dialogue).

I enjoyed it well enough, but not a rich story at all. Mostly dialogue, little world building, reads like a series of mystery short stories. One of those sci fi classics that deserves to be revered for its influence and originality at the time, but not an enthralling read in 2020. Written from 1941-1951, and was prescient, given that nuclear power or weapons hadn’t been demonstrated yet. Psychohistory is a cool idea, since refuted by chaos theory.

This is my canonical choice for 1) classic hard science fiction 2) alien contact.

Lem realizes what so many others miss: aliens are alien. There is little plot or personal characterization in Solaris: it rests solely on the execution of the alien contact story. The pacing is slow and the writing can be clunky at points, but it succeeds in its goal.

"If a lion could speak, we could not understand him" - Ludwig Wittgenstein

A classic of the genre that has aged well in the 60 years since being published. Addresses a lot of great themes: the contrast between secularism and religion, morals vs knowledge, what knowledge actually is, and the duty of citizens towards government. Takes place over a large period of time to show the 'arc of history'. One qualifying note: a reader totally unfamiliar with Catholicism, or Christianity in general, will probably get much less out of the book: references and in-jokes abound.

I’m torn on this one. A lot to like, but a lot that put me off.  Spoiler free summary: I think this book, and the author, is way overhyped. There are some great ideas here but the execution falls flat and devolves into tropes.

The first part of the book of them as kids was not encouraging. A lot of YA tropes here: most distractingly, literally everyone except the main characters is an awful person: a combination of stupid, cowardly, and vicious. Kids are always getting framed for stuff and adults don’t believe them because they’re kids. Parents don’t let clearly precocious kids do the things that interest them, which makes no sense.

Way too much is going on: the far future stuff plus

the Unraveling plus Laurence’s machine plus magic

plus the central story of Patricia and Laurence made everything else feel discarded, especially the minor characters. CJA basically comes out and admits

even though Patricia’s parents had horrifying dramatic deaths,

she’s just going to shove that to the side and never talk about it for the rest of the book. The ending is tone deaf and out of character

considering that literally everyone that Patricia has had a personal bond with besides Laurence has died an excruciating death. These are people who were her close friends and family, for years and years.

Also we have no idea what is happening with the

assassin: where he comes from, whether his visions were accurate, why he is introduced as an assassin but seems like a rogue witch, why is he even in the story except as another adult bogeyman etc.

It was fast paced, which made it an enjoyable read. There’s a lot of honesty to be found in Laurence and Patricia: this is where all the character development is.

How Laurence views Serafina, his chip on his shoulder from his upbringing, Patricia’s chip on her shoulder from messing up in Siberia, etc. Their sex scene wasn’t gratuitous and made sense.

The fusions of magic and science are interesting, and I like how things connect in the end,

re The Tree and Peregrine.

I like the explorations of themes that did actually happen:

what is deemed ethical by the scientists vs the witches, whether Peregrine is benevolent or not, etc.