Juraj

I think I converted to Bokononism. It's the most honest fake/real religion ever. It admits it's all lies and jokes but gives mostly good advice.

Wanna know why all the shootings in schools are happening? Read this book. Its always been quite obvious. Especially when you mix in all the pills kids are taking nowadays which make them potentially more unstable instead of the opposite.

This book makes me want to drop my readthrough of Earthsea. I'm yet to decide. If I ever read Tehanu it seems like it's gonna be more of a hate read than anything else since reviews say it's as bad as this one only with 1000% more of “THE MESSAGE” and it completely ruins Ged's character.

This one is pretentious. There is nothing happening for 98% of the time and when there finally is something it's so extremely vague that even the metaphors she tried to put in there sound dumb. No tension. No sense of awe even though they are traveling through half of the world. It's all dull and vague. And I HATE her style of writing where she spoils the ending at the beginning. I know this is a children's book but god damn it why?!

I really liked first book and second one was passable, admittedly better as it went, but this book is jaw-droppingly poor compared to it. I cannot even fathom how this book can have average rating above four stars.

Originally I didn't know whether to first read Le Guin's sci-fi or fantasy novels so I created a poll and Earthsea completely obliterated Hainish Cycle. Can someone for the love of all good books explain to me how that's possible?

Imagine you write a novel that wins basically every major sci-fi award in English speaking world. (Not that awards actually matter.) Partly because you write great orwellian novel from the future with original spin of AI being the main character in human skin fighting an all knowing other AI that is simultaneously at war with itself. Partly, I fear, because you inject your woke ideology into it but it's not overhanded and it's enjoyable even for someone like me so activists prop it up while normies don't mind.

Now imagine you throw that original worldbuilding out the window and write a sequel confined into one space station and tea plantation on the planet. Promise of epic space opera? Nowhere to be found. Promise of over the top woke social talking points? Everywhere.

There's more characters in here so the inability to differentiate gender, to imagine what the characters look like is almost impossible at this point. Author uses only feminine pronouns so reader has no idea who is male or female. Additionally, it was established in the first book that AI with IQ probably somewhere above 300 can't tell a difference between men and women... On top of that literally everybody, even characters on ships who are from various parts of the galaxy are all “dark skinned or darker skinned”. Tea plantation is a metaphor for cotton plantations and workers are slaves in all but name.

But even despite all of that I'd be okay with the book if it moved plot forward or if characterization of anybody, ANYBODY was better. But this is a filler, a spin-off. Maybe it should've been the first act of Justice's sequel instead of whole book. It doesn't even much feel like a setup for sequel until the last 20 pages.

There's no characterization of Breq's crew. They are all human but since previous captain liked them to act like ancillaries (ship's AI in human bodies) they act like them. They're robots without a hint of character except for Kalr Five's love of porcelain, lol. And near the end they say they like living like this. Has the author ever talked to a soldier? To another human being for that matter? Is she in love with Star Trek's Borgs?
I guess that's how author masks her biggest weakness because character's from space station and plantation are also just as flat.

I fear the conclusion in Mercy won't conclude anything if it's going to be in any way similar to this book. If I ever even bother to waste more time on this series.

When I went to put this book to my reading list I saw all the one and two star reviews and started to wonder if this book is actually as good as advertised. Well... it's not. I would even like to give it one star but I stopped myself and thought about it. Because if I gave this one star, what would 50 Shades deserve then? This isn't as bad. So two stars it is even though Goodreads' description of two stars doesn't fit it. It wasn't “ok”.

The story about a man and his son. No names, no details. They wander through a grey post-apocalyptic wasteland trying to survive and get to the shore where they hope to find some community. It's a long road though. 300 pages long. Luckily, the font is really big and in terms of normal books it would be 150 pages. But even that felt too long.

The book is weird in that it's not a typical story with opening, middle and end. It's the same thing over and over again. No character development, just some minor events of little consequence that help them survive and fill the pages. It's a mirror to the world where nothing lives and sky is always grey. It's written in a way where it could be 1000 pages long and it wouldn't change a damn thing about the characters. Thank god it's not because I wouldn't have finished it then.

One of my major issues is the boy. Even though he was completely raised in the post-apocalyptic world by his father he still acts like a spoiled brat who was thrown into this scenario after years of comfortable family life. That's atrocious writing. That's not how someone who only experienced dark world like would behave. A kid like that wouldn't question morality. “Are we the good guys? Are we the good guys?” Oh, shut up! Look at the instances where kids in real world were rid of their childhoods. That's not how they act! I guess his behaviour should've brought up compassion in the reader and we should pitty him in such situation. But I felt the exact opposite. This is about survival and that dumb kid only annoyed me by his pleads.

Other thing that I found annoying is the way the dialogues are written. No quotation marks which can be annoying as hell. But that is topped by the actual dialogues of which one third comprises of repeating what the previous person had said. Sometimes in different order of words or with added “yes” or “no” at the beginning. A kindergartener can write better.

Is it on purpose? No doubt. But it's incredibly stupid. Just as the whole book. There is something beneath the surface but the surface itself is so poorly crafted I barely bothered to think about the deeper stuff. That's not a sign of a great book or a great author. It's exact opposite and it's beyond me why McCarthy gets the praise he does.

If you want to know more just save time and watch the movie. I watched it 5+ years ago and barely remember it but the impression it left was definitely better than this book. I think it's very faithful to it so you won't miss much anyway.