James

Really enjoyable despite the late story “twists”

Revisado: 08-24-24

Fun book. The whole scolding people for the sins of their ancestors trope is getting a bit thin since around 100% of said are dead today, but to be fair I didn’t know the original even existed so it would be unfair to impart motivations to its revisor. And to be more fair, that isn’t the broad meat of the book, it’s only the point (not a spoiler it practically leads with this notion).

HOWEVER. The same four…, or so? characters Scalzi has always used in every story are in their expected form and are a lot of fun. I was amused to realize those characters have been going strong for as long as they have at the time of this review. And they deserve praise.

The preface makes clear that it’s an authorized tribute, and one intended to modernize the original from the way things were back then into a howard zinn wet dream of tomorrow, and that’s what you get by the end.

But the story of it all is great.

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Really solid 4. Worth your time.

Revisado: 08-10-24

I laughed. I was interested. I was bored. Again and again because this felt like and probably was three books forced together to reach the required hour count. But it was a fun take on the future that will make you think a bit about your pre-conceptions of the reasons for and the direction of human progress. There are friends and betrayals and redemptions and everything a good story needs. I don’t expect to ever listen to this again but I’m glad I did once.

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This one actually deserves its all 5s.

Revisado: 07-30-24

Funny, heavy, sarcastic, easygoing, absurd, and on in that fashion. Sort of a modern alice in wonderland, except turned upside down so that the emphasis is on the story of the problems and satire is just the vehicle. And the robots are a lot of fun in their roles. Occasionally it drops the satire to touch on large issues, and every time you think you’re about to be woke lectured… something happens where instead of finger pointing and ideology, the actual problem turns out to be just the actual problem. This was a very refreshing listen.

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This was way better than the movie.

Revisado: 04-03-24

The terrible characters in the book make a lot more sense than their portrayals in the movie. The movie felt like gratuitous violence for its own sake. The text is full of it, but with a purpose. I make no suggestion that the lessons the protagonist learns along the way are worth the cost of shattered lives left behind him, but the book shows an odd sort of purpose in it. Gross, but a purpose still.

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Audible hit a new low inventing this “series”

Revisado: 03-09-24

I bought the first installment of “the b team” series for $1 because it was made to look like a spinoff, but that is a made up title reminiscent of the book it says it is related to. It’s an old (good) book split into a dozen microtransactions and renamed as a series. Bad audible.

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Holy virtue signaling

Revisado: 03-08-24

Such good and virtuous cliche people. Never miss an opportunity to prove it in the corniest possible way, either.

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How do people like this?

Revisado: 11-28-23

I’m not hating on fantasy books. But oh. My. God. Would this series never end. I imagined the movies were just bringing in sidebar filler to seem more epically long, but no, the sidebar filler is 55/60 hours of the whole trilogy.

I suppose this review would be better left on book 1, but here we are, some two years after I started book 1.

Fortunately the narrator is quite understandable at 1.25x and above. -1 star narration only because, and probably not his call, so. Slow. So slow. Genuinely can’t imagine listening to him voice the ents at 1.00x.

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Extremely low effort book. Wheaton’s narration is a rare miss.

Revisado: 10-14-23

Scalzi’s books used to have at least a solid appearance of well planned then carefully executed clever plots with some Who cares this book is just for fun thrown in. Lately they are a weekend of rambling, edited into book, style of cash grabs.

The story is a tiring ramble of Just one irrelevant surprise after another!! kiddy summer camp style fantasy jumble of events. The author eventually finds a few ways to make use of some of those things, right at the end, but mostly it feels like a children’s ‘novel’ with a few f bombs dropped in for the veneer of being something else.

Wheaton’s narration of this one is so painfully slow and cringingly enunciated that it’s impossible at 1x and sort of listenable at 1.25x but the weirdly careful enunciation of every individual syllable still ends up as an obnoxious sing-song distraction. I have liked all of his other narrations so far. This one is just annoying.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

broadcast tv cop drama meets scifi

Revisado: 06-04-23

Pretty corny even by the standards of the genre. Narration would be fine but in recent Audible production fashion has been slowed down to the point it sounds inhuman and I found it unlistenable slower than 1.2x. Nothing happens. Eventually something kinda happens. Then it ends with a “hook” that didn’t leave me wanting to do it all again.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Great series, ended at the right time

Revisado: 05-26-23

Just as i was starting to wonder if I was tiring of the excellent characters and general universe of this story, it ended in a way that felt both spontaneous and coherent. This is how story arcs ought to be. 5 stars. Great performance too.

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