Zachary

Great premise, great characters

Revisado: 02-28-25

I was almost immediately hooked on this one, and it just kept getting better. I love the characters, and I love that I could feel sad for them at times; that's rare. The premise of this book is great too.

If you're like me, you may find the cosmology of this book a little dark. In that case, it might help to remember that we have no indication that what we see is the final resting place of ALL the departed, or even that it's final. Make of that what you will.

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A great end to a great trilogy

Revisado: 02-16-25

This book takes us to some fantastic places. It's a great read, well-paced, and with several good characters. I like the doors that open when you become more of yourself - it reminds me fondly of other magic doors in other places

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Great followup to the previous title

Revisado: 01-14-25

This was a great followup to the previous title. I can't think of a single negative thing to say about it. It was exciting to see more of the characters and more of the world, and the story was engaging at every point. As with the previous book, there are hooks for a sequel, and I really hope we'll get it

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kinda hit and miss

Revisado: 12-07-24

Some of these were real bangers. Others were sort of forgettable. That's kinda the nature of collections. Only the last one really impressed me, and only bcz I'm a fan of the creature featured. All the reading was good, at least.

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Last two stories are great

Revisado: 12-03-24

I can't speak to the quality of the first two stories (the synopses for them sounded way too dark for my tastes) but Aloft and Rain are well-written, well read, and engaging enough that I've listened to them both three times now. I kinda wish we could hear more about the cloud and what happened to it after the events of Aloft - it's a fascinating concept - but the story is about Aubrey, so we only know what he sees and hears

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Surprisingly engaging

Revisado: 02-28-24

These are just preliminary impressions - I'll update when I finish the book. I knew it was doing well when I got excited for an anthropomorphized Roomba to recognize writing; that's getting your reader engaged. The two main characters are likeable and the story looks good so far. The RPG aspect is less developed than "This Quest is Broken" or "Small Medium Big Trouble", but I'm not sure a more developed system would help the story much.

There is ONE problem that made me want to write this prelim...or maybe there isn't. An editor probably wouldn't like this, but maybe it's important to choose your own path. On the other hand, maybe editors have a point; maybe it's distracting. Thinking about it though, it often happens when characters are mulling something over, and real people go back and forth. Do they really though, and do people need to read about it? Maybe not, and it might make the characters seem wishy washy. Maybe it's a good idea to consult an editor, but no, the writer will go with their gut here.

I'll stop now. If the previous paragraph made you impatient, be warned there are quite a few instances of that kind of writing in the book. There're also patches where something is stated... and then restated in a different way... and then restated a third way...and sometimes a fourth way just for fun. It isn't a deal breaker for me, and weirdly, it makes this the first audiobook I can play as background noise, but I don't think that's what others are looking for. At the risk of repeating MYself, some parts of this book may call for more patience than you are prepared to use.

Then again, you seem to have gotten to the end of this long ramble, so maybe you'll be fine. Thanks for coming to my TED talk 😅

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Underwhelming and forgettable - read Dead Moon instead

Revisado: 01-23-24

This book was engaging enough that I wanted to finish it, and the reader did a wonderful job, but that's the best thing I can say about it. The characters are just okay. The world building isn't very interesting and feels sloppy. The bad guys are not very compelling.

Like I said in the title, read Dead Moon by Perer Clines instead. It does almost everything right, and if you can accept the silly premise of industrial moon burial in service of a great story, its few mistakes aren't even worth mentioning. Unlike 2389, Dead Moon makes full use of the moon setting - the low gravity is consistent and important, as are things like moon dust and vacuum exposure. The characters are all compelling and feel real, and when they make the rare dumb decision, you can sympathize, because they are clearly on tilt at the time. Also, the setting feels plausible - it's basically NASA's vision of a lunar colony, complete with those nifty suits that serve as airlocks to keep the pesky moon dust outside where it can't slice up your lungs or grind down your machines (IRL moon dust is basically tiny stone needles, yo).

2389, on the other hand, is a paint by numbers zombies story, except it's on the moon. Not that that matters, since nobody is wearing a space suit and the whole thing takes place inside a giant enclosure that's pressurized. Occasionally, they make reference to the low gravity, but that's actually inconsistent. There's also a conspiracy because why not, and one of the bad guys is the government, because that never gets old.

Also, the setting seems really dumb to me. Imagine Space Mountain or the Star Wars stuff from Disney. Now transplant that to the moon. Don't build a space adventure around being on the moon - ignore that completely for made-up aliens and pew pew pew science fantasy. Nonsense! The moon is an expensive and hostile place and the only reason to go there for leisure is to BE THERE - why go all the way to the moon and then pretend to be somewhere else??? Bah, I say! Bah!

In conclusion, I've read Dead Moon at least three times now. I will probably never read 2389 again. It's depressingly mediocre.

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Barking madness verging on word salad

Revisado: 01-16-24

What the hell did I just listen to? Pontypool is one of my favorite movies, and I really, really, REALLY wanted to like the source material, but there's a throwaway scene in the first half hour where a deer gives birth to THIRTY fawns who immediately freeze, and the next day some kids decide to use the corpses and the afterbirth for ice hockey. It only gets more bonkers from there, and not in a good way. How is anyone supposed to follow the story or engage with the characters if the book keeps jabbering about tomatoes in people's mouths? There's no sense of rising action and no indication the book is going anywhere or building anything. It all feels like a non-rhyming poem I might have written in college, or "what if aphasia was a book?"
The movie deals with a town being overrun by a linguistic virus transmitted when infected words are heard and understood. How the movie makers extracted such a compelling narrative and concept from this gibberish is a mystery beyond my understanding.

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Nothing much to do with pregnancy

Revisado: 12-12-23

This is pretty hot if you are like me and into futa. Some of the anatomy is wrong and some of the paragraphs could have used a second editing pass, but the sex scenes were varied enough to be fun.

This only gets three stars tho, bcz I feel like it's trying to pull in pregnophiles like me and then failing to deliver on the goods. The pregnancy doesn't really feature in the sex and might as well not exist - we do get an occasional mention of a heavy belly, but that's not enough to save it from my judgement as a pretender to the pregnancy erotica genre.

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Nothing to do with pregnancy or bisexuality

Revisado: 11-26-23

This story is garbage and it's deceptively marketed. The title and the description imply that pregnant sex will happen at some point, and since the word bisexual is right there in the title, it's not too much to assume that there will either be a lesbian scene or a threesome. None of these things are true - the pregnant women is less than 6 weeks along and she never has sex, let alone a threesome or a lesbian scene. Garbage!

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