Dušan Jovanović

If there is one word that I would use to describe this book it would be "efficient". It's a competently written, self contained story that sets up an interesting world leaves and just enough hints to entice you to check out the rest of the series. And I have to say I will be doing that. Schwab's efficient writing style it is right up my alley. She gives you just enough words to describe the situation and let your imagination do the rest.

She also structures the story brilliantly and doesn't waste your time. If she mentiones something or someone, that person or item will reappear later in the story. No loose threads.

I didn't know anything about this author or this series going in. After finishing it I saw that it's being classified as YA. I can feel the YA vibe that others are picking up but it's not a adjective I would use to describe it. There are some despicable acts being committed (murder, torture, rape attempt).

The obvious task of the (first) book is to establish the world(s) and take the main characters on an adventure. But for all their traversing between worlds, the scope of the story seems rather small to me. Because they flip between 3 versions of the same city, it kind of feels like switching color palletes between scenes.

The villains are evil just for the sake of being evil. It's established that in white London you have to be ruthless to stay in power and rulers get overturned frequently. Schwab might've sacrificed developing the villains at the expense of brisk story pacing. Ultimately, they served their purpose in driving the plot forward.

The two main characters, Kell and Lila, have a dynamic chemistry and hilarious exchanges. Their pasts are obscured enough to spark our interest in their origins. And even though their stories have been neatly wrapped up I will want to know what happened next.

Even though this second book in the series has a premise very similar to the first book (a girl goes missing and our heroes have to find her), it builds on the world established in the first book. It expands on the political dynamics between Earth and Mars. It introduces badass new characters (Chrisjen "Potty Mouth" Avasarala is my favorite). It continues building the protomolecule mystery. The book gripped me from the very beginning and never let go. I started keeping notes after every couple of chapters just so I could follow the story. When I was done and when I read my notes, I couldn't believe how much was packed into this book. There were only a couple of chapters where I felt my mind wondering. But otherwise it was a thrilling ride. Can't wait to get to the next installment in the series.

Despite it being masterfully written, despite it having colorful and fleshed out characters who evolve during the course of the story, despite it having cinematic action scenes, despite it having some pivotal moments, this is still just one portion of the story. Can't wait to read the third book and finally see where all this is going.

It's never a good sign when you are reading a book and you recognize a skippable paragraph (or few). By the last section I was skipping whole pages. The writing in this book is bloated and redundant that makes me wonder how long the first draft was or if it was edited at all. And there are quite a few stylistic writing choices. The worst one for me was persistently repeating what's already been said. This got really old really quickly. Why use one word when three would make you look stylish.

When you have 10+ main characters then none of them are given a chance to rise above the rest. Some characters even get introduced in last third of the book! and are given equal importance as the characters we've been following all along. Following is a strong word. You start a chapter with one character, get their back story and then you move on. In the next chapter a secondary character from the previous chapter gets the spotlight and the cycle continues to no end.

If reading pointless back stories about each (and every) character hasn't made you tear this book up then the lack of plot will surely push you over that ledge. It's supposed to be a multigenerational time-hopping story that spans decades. Story is also a strong word here because, other than the fact these people live with (or near) each other, there is no narrative string tying them together. Even though the author will make sure to tell you where each (and every) character has been, you don't get satisfaction of knowing where any of them are going. They are just thrown into random situations reminiscent of TV sitcoms and their stories serve more as a commentary about the life of (first and second generation) immigrants, rather than building blocks of a coherent storyline.

There is an attempt, at the very end, to merge each individual story into a crescendo but it's done clumsily and comes off as too little too late. By that point I just wanted the story to be over and couldn't care about the last-minute twist the author pulled out of her ass.

Asteroid/moon hopping space murder mystery with a backdrop of political intrigue sprinkled with a pinch of horror. It's a fun ride. The two main characters are broad archetypes that could've use a bit more development. The worldbuilding got me interested enough to continue with the series. I do want to find out more about the dynamics between Earth, Mars and the Belt.

This novel is a fun ride that is reads like a script for a film. It doesn't take too much of your time. The science is easy to digest. Character development is sacrificed in order to keep the story brisking at a steady pace. Except for the apocalyptic disease-ridden Chigago, that section felt unnecessary to me. And out of character, as well. It's hard to believe that a man of science wouldn't go back the minute he realized he was walking into this world. But I guess the author need to drive the point home how much he loves his wife.

Some interesting questions asked about identity, the choices we make in life and the consequences we have to live with. But not much exploration. Because that plot needs to continue chugging along in order to arrive to it's Hollywoody happy ending.

Going into this book, I never would have thought that reading it would be such a chore. But, at the same time, I can see why it was so influential when it was first published. The prehistoric section was an interesting intro to the whole book. And then pace takes a dip. It picks back up when Hal starts doing his thing. And then the last section was interesting and boring at the same time. The main thing that I didn't care for was the exposition, even though Bowman found himself in an extraordinary situation. It was a roller coaster of a read and I really had to concentrate in order to not lose interest in some sections. I don't know if I'll continue on with this series.

I tried reading this book in high school but I didn't finish it because I couldn't understand what was going on. Now, about 25 years later, and after watching the new films, I decided to give it another try. There is nothing I can say that hasn't already been said before. The book is that good and it still holds up to this day. The amount of ideas, themes, and characters Herbert was able to competenly weave into the story is amazing. Melding sci-fi, fantasy, philosophy, religion, politics, magic(?), into one (relatively) cohesive narrative, it is remarkable the story didn't collapse under its own weight. All this accomplished with an unconventional writing style I haven't seen in modern fiction. I have a feeling he was sleeping with a thesaurus under his pillow.

The book isn't perfect though. The middle section is a bit of a drag and the ending is a bit anticlimactic. There are some inevitable differences between the book and the films. The dinner chapter is completely ommited from the film. As are a few characters. But I enjoyed it immensely nonetheless.

I don't know if all modern fantasy and sci-fi series are written in this manner but this is the second first-book-in-a-series I've read in which nothing substantial happens. It only sets up the world and the characters. How do sequels to these books get green lit? Do authors nowadays receive three book deals in advance so they know they can take their time. But how can they be sure people would be interested in the sequels if the first book doesn't have a hook.

The world is interesting enough but there isn't much meat on the bones in terms of story. You don't feel a sense of urgency in any of the three main storylines. Yeah, there is a war brewing in the North. And the wizard is gathering a ragtag team for a mission. But that's kind of it. The book ends with the team being formed with no mention of what their objective is.

It is competently written and the author is well versed in writing action scenes. But I could've done without a few of them if it would've meant we would get a some glimpse into the overarching plot and what our protagonists were getting themselves into.

Right of the bat, I want to give big praise to the translator of this book, Bojan Tarabić. I read it in my native language (Serbian) and the choice of words had me reaching for the dictionary quite a few times. I don't know if it was an artistic choice of the translator or a stylistic imitation of the original to use such unorthodox phrasing and wording but it strongly elevated my reading experience.

That being said, this was a awful book. I could understand the one-dimensional characters, pasing issues and the messy narrative structure if the ideas were at least presented in a meaningful way. But they are not. They are dry exposition dumps that are no more exciting than reading a physics textbook. And they are delivered in a very non-organic way where the whole story is interrupted just so the author can take a few pages to explain a concept. They concepts are not organically woven into the story.

I had no idea what to expect when I started reading. The opening had me hooked. Science community during the Chinese cultural revolution. Sounds exciting. Certainly novel to me. But then it goes to a present day murder mystery. Which turns into a sci-fi mystery with the countdown (which gets completely abandoned) Then there is the video game which helps introduce the alien race. And after the video game is finished it's just meanders from one info dump and character back-story to another with eye-rolling plot conveniences, interruptered only once for that boat-cutting "action" scene. Even though digestable, interesting sci-fi concepts does not a good story make.

This whole book is just clumsy introduction with fascinating concepts and one interesting character (the cop). Someone else wrote this, but I could read a book just about the adventures of Da Shi. I am very hesitant about continuing with this series. And I've grown tired of people telling me to endure the first book because everything improves with later installments. If the author wanted me to continue, they should've written a more compelling first novel. Nowadays we get these thousand+ page monstrocities that are divided into three parts and we are asked to blindly trust that things will get better as the story progresses. I'm not sold.

This is essentially Hungers Games fan fiction written in the style of a Hollywood script, devoid of any meaningful story, that concludes in a very unsatisfying way. The first third of the story is there to vaguely set up the world and the other two thirds is just kids trying to enslave each other. The chapters end on cliffhangers like TV shows would be cut for a commercial break. You can feel the author gunning for that movie rights deal. Also, it definitely feels like a part 1 because not much is accomplished (apart from Darrow winning at murder school) and the book ends on a cliffhanger. But I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that Darrow wins everything by the end of the series. He is, by the looks of it, God incarnate.

If you are into kids murdering each other without any logical reason other than the fact that it's a significant trope in this genre then this will sate your hunger.