TL;DR
Average, I really liked the setting, a small city on the moon was very interesting. While reading it really gave me Bioshock vibes if you ever played that video game. Story was not as interesting, it's a simple plot that resolves around messing with the wrong people and when there's money involved it always leads to drastic measures. Thankfully the side characters were likeable, unfortunately our main protagonist is not.
My Scoring System
I have five things I look for in a book, if the book checks all five it's a 5/5 stars book, if it checks none it's a 1/5 stars and everything else is a combination:
X - Main Story: It was kind of bland if I'm honest, apart from the location there wasn't anything super interesting. Same goes with the main plot, all about money as always.
X - Side Stories (if it applies):
✓ - Characters: Every character except our main protagonist is great, I really liked all of them.
✓ - Setting/Ambiance: This small city on the moon really gave me Bioshock vibes if you ever played that video game. I liked it, I liked how every bubble had it's own people and main purpose and how different they are from eachother.
✓ - Ending: Best part of the book, the final action sequence was really thrilling and I really enjoyed it.
Extensive Review
Great setting, not so interesting main story, good side characters all of that is nice but let's talk about the biggest problem of this book in my opinion. The main protagonist.
My eyes really hurt at the amount of times I rolled them while reading this book. I've read the reviews and saw people say how much she talks about sex but my god this is something else. The amount of sexual inuendos from our main protagonist's inner monologue is very annoying. Every single thought she has always ends with a "get your mind out of the gutter/don't get excited/it's not what you think..." at the end. She constantly gets mentioned on how she could do anything she wanted and how smart she is, while having the maturity level of a sixteen year old horny teenager. I don't believe it. She's literally risking her life doing something very dangerous like having to blow up two machines at the same time and she says "Don't take that out of context" it's so jarring and and frustrating, all you can do is roll your eyes and hope it doesn't happen again, unfotutunately, it does, a lot...
This is a personal thing but I hate unnecessary cursing, I hate how much our main protagonist curses, it's not like I just broke my leg and I yell "Fuck", she's in the middle of a conversation where the person asks her "Why not?" and her response is "Because fuck you" it's that kind of cursing where is really stupid and if you try to defend it saying that's just her personality then her personality is garbage and should be written better. Also it's very ironic considering she's muslim. This made me really dislike her and it's very frustrating because when she's focused on doing something dangerous or planning she's really smart and focused but the second her life is not in danger anymore it's back to her horny teenager personality where everthing is sexual and she curses at everything and everyone.
She's constantly making stupid decisions followed up by "it probably wasn't a good idea but we've established that I make poor life decisions". Consciously knowing you're making bad decision but not changing just because that's who you are doesn't make you funny, endearing or quirky. It makes you very stupid. Again not believeble since she's really smart and comes up with good plans on the fly when she's in danger.
It's very sad that the main problem with the book is the main protagonist but that's how I felt. Decent story with great setting, good side characters and an awful main protagonist with some sprinkles of how good she can be in certain situations before she's back to her usual self.
Contains spoilers
TL;DR
I started liking this book but by the end I had to force myself to finish it. I's so weird, it's starts out okay, gets interesting and then drops to be so boring it was hard to finish it. I did not like this book but the idea and how it tells us the effect it has on people and the world is why I would recommend this book.
My Scoring System
I have five things I look for in a book, if the book checks all five it's a 5/5 stars book, if it checks none it's a 1/5 stars and everything else is a combination:
✓ - Main Story: As with [book:Dark Matter|27833670] the idea is amazing and even though the execution is far better I still didn't like it. But the idea is so great it has to be given credit.
X - Side Stories (if it applies):
✓ - Characters: Halena and Slade are the stars of the show, Barry is uninteresting. A guy who constantly cries at everything, had me rolling my eyes a lot when I was reading his point of view. He's probably the worst character in the book so it's unfortunate that he's one of the main protagonists.
X - Setting/Ambiance: It's just America, even if we are playing with alternate realities nothing impressive happens.
X - Ending: Not an amazing ending but it wasn't terrible. The lead up to it was horrible though.
Extensive Review
A bit better than Dark Matter, while on that book we had an incredible idea that wasn't used properly, here we get an incredible idea that shows us the consequences of using it. The beginning is pretty boring, then we get to the mid section and it's interesting and then towards the end it gets so boring that I couldn't believe I was reading the same book. Let's get off the easy stuff out of the way first.
- Slade and Halena were good characters, I really liked both of them. Always happy to read the chapters with them involved, sadly Slade only appears for about half the book.
- The idea of this book is amazing and how it tells us the effect of these alternate realities is perfect. Nothing bad to say about that just like Dark Matter, Blake Crouch's ideas are amazing. I don't want to spoil anything but if I had to rate this book based solely on the idea it presents it would be a 5/5 stars.
Now to the bad stuff:
- There's a running theme in this book, where people when they get these memories from alternate realities suddenly go crazy and commit suicide. I just can't believe it, I don't believe that you can be okay one day, you suddenly get these memories and a few days later you kill yourself because "you don't know what is real anymore". They all keep asking "is this real?" and I just have to roll my eyes, doesn't anyone in this book know what reality is? Reality is what our brain perceives so you're always in reality.
- Barry as a character is pretty boring, I hate how he constantly cries at everything. Yeah I get it he's been through some very grieving moments but seriously, every chapter with him I was reading he was crying about something.
- Minor thing but I hate when it happens in books. Towards the end of the story someone will tell someone that they can do something, they will have to work hard at it and it will be the hardest thing they will achieve in their life. Literally a few paragraphs later that someone does it first try without any problems or difficuly like it's just another Monday at work.
- At some point this book turns into Minory Report, while the book itself acknowledges it. And it's nowhere near as interesting as the movie.
- Before the ending of the book, the last fifty pages are so boring I couldn't believe I was reading the same book. It's boring because nothing new happens it's just the same thing over and over without any progress bring made. I guess the author's intention was to put us in the helplesness of the characters that they can't escape this loop? Well it was very boring and made it so hard to finish this book.
- Meghan is a piece of shit, she doesn't just commit suicide which is already a coward thing to do she sets a fire on her building killing three other innocent people, great job dumbass (it was an accident but she left her stove on when she knew she would kill herself so it's still her fault). I get that she wasn't a big character in the book but still a garbage character for what she did.
- MASSIVE ENDING SPOILER I don't get the implications of the ending. Slade killed Halena to avoid her finding out what she created. Barry kills Slade so Halena will eventually create the chair again. She has the same driven mindset as Slade so I have no doubt that eventually she will try to kill someone to get them to release DMT and figure out how the memory mapping works. Maybe if Barry tells her what happen in his previous timelines she will stop but I'm not sure...
I wish I could enjoy the book like the rest of people who rated it four/five stars but one of the main characters beeing so boring and a crying constantly, the Minority Report section and the lead up to the ending were so boring it destroyed my enjoyment.
TL;DR
Average in my opinion, the last part of the book is definitely the star of the show, when you learn some pretty big things about the universe and if we are alone or not in it. Up until then it was very boring, I don't think that our main protagonist is very interesting to follow him for most of the story. The science is pretty heavy on this one, I'm not a smart guy but I do like to check out and research a bit on every new thing that I've never heard or understand and I was googling constantly in this book. Some people may not like it but I like when it makes sense and it's not some magic thing invented by the author.
My Scoring System
I have five things I look for in a book, if the book checks all five it's a 5/5 stars book, if it checks none it's a 1/5 stars and everything else is a combination:
✓ - Main Story: Boring until the second half of the book.
✓ - Side Stories (if it applies): Boring stuff with the cultural revolution, not interested in it at all. The part with the Trisolarians is interesing and their story and plan is amazing. The VR game part is trash, didn't like that at all.
X - Characters: The only good one is Da Shi and out of the 10 people we meet and interact with that's not good.
X - Setting/Ambiance: It's just normal day China, boring.
✓ - Ending: I liked it, was really enjoyable to read and I like where this is going.
Extensive Review
This has to be a cultural thing but I've read a few Asian authors so far and they all have a distinct way or writing dialogue that always seems off to me. I don't know how to explain it but if you give me a book without telling me anything about it I can tell if it was written by an Asian author. I don't like it at all. It has to be cultural becasue the same happens when I watch an Asian movie. The dialogue to me always seems like they're never genuine and they're always putting up a facade. It doesn't help that the characters are pretty bland to be honest.
So poor dialogue and a lot of infodumps, Cixin Lui is not very interested in showing you stuff, he's way more into telling you about it and in very exact detail stretch over whole pages to just talking about inconsequential stuff that isn't important.
The only good character is Da Shi, I liked every scene where he was involved in. Unfortunately he doens't show much in the story, towards the final part he gets more involved though.
There are some very cool scenes with some nanofiber our main protagonist invented that was amazing to read.
TL;DR
I did not like this book, main protagonist is an idiot and the story is boring. The only good things about this book are the ideas, Schrödinger's box and the little time we spend with Amanda. Everything else is not worth the read.
My Scoring System
I have five things I look for in a book, if the book checks all five it's a 5/5 stars book, if it checks none it's a 1/5 stars and everything else is a combination:
X - Main Story: I disliked it a lot, creating such a great idea of a machine capable to move between all the infinite realities currently going on and wasting it on just trying to find you wife is so boring it's not even funny. Thankfully the book is short.
✓ - Side Stories (if it applies): The other universes we visit was pretty cool, I liked some of them and they were interesting but mainly because of Amanda if we were just following the main protagonist I'm sure it would be much boring.
X - Characters: Main protagonist is an idiot and his focus on getting back to his wife is not interesting. The only good character is Amanda for the short time she was with us I like it and was sad to see her go away but she made the right decision to abandon our protagonist, which is why I liked her. She's definitely smart for doing that.
✓ - Setting/Ambiance: Schrödinger's box is the highlight of the book, the rest is just Chicago so nothing interesting there, but the different worlds they travelled to were good and interesting. Which only makes me more sad that we weren't focusing on those intead of the boring one we got.
X - Ending: Terrible ending, but was glad it happen so I can put this book to rest.
Extensive Review
This story is about a guy who invented the posibility to move between all other realities just to be with his wife. It's just as boring as it sounds, with all the cool and interesting things we can do with this and we're just focusing on this insignificant thing when you think about the implications of what can be achieved with such a discovery. The only good part I like is when we meet Amanda and they're both trying to figure things out. I was expecting for him to just get over his wife and go on some cool adventures with Amanda but no he keeps trying to find his universe in a sea of billions of them. When Amanda left the story my interest went with her, hope she found herself a nice good universe to live in. Wish we could have followed her instead of the story we got.
The amount of dumb decision our super smart main protagonist makes is infuriating. When Amanda leaves him just proves my assumptions that she was smart and dodged a bullet by getting as far away from our protagonist as possible. Good for her and hope she went on to go on some nice adventure, she has after all, the ability to visit any world she can imagine out of the infinite possibilites there are. She probably didn't go back to boring ass Chicago to her mundane life trying to get back to her lover. Like out main guy did.
Great idea and the possibilities it could have been just makes me sad when we're just focusing on these mundane things of two peoples love life. You're telling me you have the possibility to switch between realities and go to any number of them from the infinite pool and you just want to get back to your mundane life being a teacher? Just because you love your family so much? Yes that makes sense but it does not make for an interesing story at all.
