Jeppe

Unlistenable narration

Revisado: 11-12-18

This is the first time I had to stop a book because of the narration. I am usually very tolerant for all kinds of narration and I love when the author narrates their own work, it usually adds something to the overall experience. However, here I wish Simon had got a professional to do it. It sounds like Simon has a very nasty cold while trying to narrate his book, making it very hard and mentally straining to hear what he tries to say. A real shame, because the subject for this book is really interesting.

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Great ideas

Revisado: 08-06-18

This novel has great ideas and really scratch that itch for ancient alien mysterious artifacts. It feels a little dated, but not too much. Since the whole concept of the novel is waiting for a specific event to happen, the whole plot can seem a bit unnecessary because you are just waiting for what is going to happen in the end. However, the characters are interesting in themselves and even though this novel is fairly short, it still gives a great sense of a much bigger universe and timeline.

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Small improvement

Revisado: 06-25-18

This series has been falling in quality and ideas for some time now. This fifth installment is a great improvement over the 4th book. The ideas are actually somewhat new and it develops some of the characters a bit. But it is still not really enough to make the series feel fresh again. Everything ends up being one big self fulfilling prophecy and while time travelling paradoxes can be fun, Meyer completely overdoes it here. Simply making more of the same paradoxes doesn't make it any more interesting. It still the same idea done again and again. Luke Daniels suberb narration is what makes this somewhat worthwhile to listen to.

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Poor imitiation of Contact

Revisado: 06-01-18

I really wanted to like this book, but just couldn't. A first contact story inspired by Carl Sagan's Contact has great potential, but it reads like a mediocre movie script filled with cliches, tropes, ridiculous stereotypes, unnecessary romantic subplot, a main character who as a school teacher is somehow smarter than top NASA scientists, and the dialogue totally over-explains everything. Every point and thought the characters make are hammered in and the repeat obvious things, in the same way as bad science fiction movies do it, to make sure even people at the back row who isn't paying attention can keep up.

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Great concepts, little weak story

Revisado: 03-22-18

The concepts introduced in this book is really unique and interesting. Entire planets and its populations goes into hibernation for decades, then to be awake for a few years and then goes back into hibernation. This is a universe without FTL, so by coordinating the hibernation times between solar systems, they mitigate the time dilation effects by slower than light travel. It is quite an ingenious concept and Schroeder explains it really well. Original and unique new concepts are a rare thing in modern sf, and this is one of the best ideas I have seen in sf for a while.

On the other hand, all this is just background and the actually story in this novel is really not that interesting. Basically the main character just wants to reunite with his familiy, but this is complicated because he has been gone for generation and he has in the meantime become sort of a god figure. I hope Schroeder will return to this universe with a better main story.

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Only a few good stories

Revisado: 03-22-18

Some great sf authors in this collection, but only a few of the stories were actually interesting. The highlights being the stories by Ken Liu, Ian R. MacLeod and Craig DeLancey. Most of the stories stick to being hard sf with reasonable plausible science, but only a few of them uses it to tell anything interesting. Good science fiction is about ideas and concepts, but there are few of those in this collection. However, do check out novels or other short stories by the these authors. I have read much better from most of these names.

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