Ignacy

I really enjoyed it, but I feel I need to reread it and take extensive notes to fully appreciate the book’s content. It can be quite dense in places, but it's rewarding. It's a strong case for the usefulness of philosophy in improving the coherence of one’s thought process.

The book was introduced to me as an example of a setting on a tidally locked planet. Well it was set on a tidally locked planet, but it was utterly incidental, irrelevant to the plot and hardly explored. The book is technically sci-fi, but it could just as well have been written as fantasy, and it wouldn't have changed a thing. And all of it would have been fine if I just could connect with the characters or felt invested in the story.

Certainly a pleasant read, well actually a listen, as I chose the audiobook format. I'd recommend the book to everybody solely to experience the superb narration by Stephen Fry. I doubt I would enjoy the book as much without his input. The story itself was fine but slightly frustrating. I've read the book years ago, and I forgot most details, and I'm afraid, those details bothered me quite considerably. At times, I found it extremely hard to compose my suspension of disbelief. A multitude of described events just didn't make any sense after you thought about them for like a second or two. The Forbidden Forest chapter was insane (in a bad way), and the finale was unbelievable (in a bad way too). But to be honest, there was some charm in the childish naivety of the plot. I simply hope, the next books will be a trifle more reasonable, because I might not endure it. All in all a pleasant, but frustrating read.

It was all right, but nothing special. The writing style was fine in my opinion; it was easy and quite pleasant to read. The main problem I had with this book was that I wasn't able to suspend my disbelief. I constantly questioned the characters' motivations and the plausibility of the imagined world. If I were physically able to raise my eyebrow, it would have been raised at least a dozen times. I didn't expect the ending as it was, but it wasn't satisfying. At least the characters were mildly interesting. In my mind, the book had the potential to explore more of the psychological side of the story. It did some exploring, but ultimately, it was mostly uninspired and unsatisfying.

To be perfectly honest the premise of this book does most of the heavy lifting. There were exciting moments, but there were also less exciting. Some parts were even frustrating. I was unticipating certain description of the resolution and they were completely skipped over. But all in all I enjoyed mostly because the life on a pulsar is an immensly interesting concept to wonder about.