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I actually really enjoyed this one. I'd put it in the same category as something like “A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet”: a quick, nice read. Nothing too challenging idea-wise, and it's not going to win any awards for innovation in the genre, but I don't regret reading it. A great book for a vacation read, I think, and the different Bobs let it sample a couple of different genres in a neat enough way.
Good read in an enjoyable series. Now that Stross has fully dropped the pastiche angle, it's nice to read in his own voice too. If you liked the earlier novels, you'll enjoy this one too.
This book was an awesome ‘end' to the main series, and they handled dealing with Clariel/Chlorr in a surprising way in lieu of the cliche I expected. Plus, getting to see the Disreputable Dog again made me far happier than it had any right to.
I really enjoyed this one, from the pacing to the atmosphere to the characters. I was worried that this was going to hew too closely to the And Then There Were None formula, but was delighted that it simultaneously did and did not. It's great when in hindsight you can see the clues you noticed and the ones you did not. The great shame was finding out that this book is part of a series with ten others...only one of which has been translated, though a second one is coming out in May.
A very good end to a very enjoyable series. I think it says a lot that this book doesn't come to a grand, satisfying ending - that would make it clear it's a story. Rather, you're left with a somewhat unsatisfying realism, a sense that the saga continues to play out long after we've stopped peering into their universe; after all, nothing really ends. It's hard to build a universe that does that, so my hat's off to Ann Leckie.
Featured on an episode of the delightful if at times very smugly snotty podcast “I Don't Even Own a Television”, Slow Bullets is a nice little soft sci-fi novella about a prison ship in a very dire situation. Alistair Reynolds enjoys his grimdark stories and this is no exception, but it's a short and enjoyable little glimpse into a world in great peril. There's a bit of a smug anti-religiousness that some people might find grating, but I felt it was tempered by having characters observe that there were positive things brought to the table by the "believer" faction as well. On the whole, if you enjoyed Revelation Space this is worth a quick read. If you've never read anything by Reynolds though, I'd suggest starting with something else.
The most enjoyable sci-fi book I've read in a long time. I love Alistair Reynolds, and Chambers is the opposite of him - but in the best possible way. Another reviewer described this as “feel-good sci-fi”, and I couldn't agree more. Well-written, entertaining, superbly paced, funny and touching in equal measure. I was very happy to find out this won't be a one off.
A good primer on how spectacle and sentiment can do a lot of work for your budding tyrannies.
It's always fantastic when an author comes back to a series and the book feels like he never left it. Fantastic book that really helps a reader understand just how someone in the world of the Abhorsen might be seduced by Free Magic.
I find Charles Stross' works to either be very good, enjoyable and thoughtful (Eschaton #1, the Laundry series, etc), or very much not my thing (Accelerando.) This work falls, fortunately, into the former category. Stross spins up a believable, well-fleshed out post-human world ruled by a very believable form of future capitalism run amok, and takes the reader on a journey that contains some genuinely enjoyable twists and turns. All in all, a very enjoyable read.
A bit funnier than the first book, which I appreciated - and manages to not feel too much like merely more of the same. I read it on a whim, but I don't regret the hour or so it took.
I always enjoy little anthologies like this, and it was well worth acquiring via interlibrary loan. If you enjoy Lovecraft and Doyle, you will like the stories. The authors run in interesting directions with the content, with some preferring Holmes to Lovecraft and vice-versa, but not one of the stories dragged or was unenjoyable.
Fantastic. Sweet and bittersweet, weird and retro but also a bit timeless - Cordwainer Smith is sublime and this story was a nice little joy and distraction.