Me

Decent story with bad narration

Revisado: 01-16-25

This was a pretty enjoyable story, sufficiently different from most other hard sci-fi I’ve read but still clearly with a lot of thought put into it. High-quality writing. And it has that wonderful future-of-the-past vibe like Neuromancer and other futuristic sci-fi written decades ago. The ending didn’t feel particularly satisfying, kind of a bit too out there. Still definitely worth reading.

This is one of those books I’ve heard references to over and over again so I’m glad I read it. Better than most other Neil Stevenson books I’ve read. I’m generally not a big fan of his rambling story arcs that often feel too ridiculous to credibly care about, or feel more tedious than enjoyable to get through.

That all being said, the narration was horrible. Not so much the narrator’s voice, but the audio quality. Soft and muddled, definitely from a previous era of audio equipment. I very often couldn’t understand what was being said unless I turned the volume way up and made sure to be in a very quiet area. I normally listen to audiobooks while hiking and this one was very hard to do, I kept missing what was being said even with my headphones at maximum volume.

If you can find a different recording of this I would absolutely recommend going for it instead. But as of 2025, this is the only audiobook version I’m aware of.

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Enjoyable but tedious

Revisado: 07-15-24

This one was a slog to get through. Overall it was enjoyable, and it contains some decent if well-trodden ideas, plus lots of silly references. It just gets so monotonous and tedious in the way it’s told. It took me a long time to actually get through this book.

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Lots of action, not much substance

Revisado: 10-13-20

Lots of action, not much substance. I never really cared about the characters. I guess it's entertaining if you care more about fighting and military action than about the sci-fi. I lost interest before getting through the first book.

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Just whiny and depressing

Revisado: 02-28-19

I love traveling to and reading about China so I was looking forward to adding another perspective. But this guy just seems to want to whine about little things and try to make everything into something more meaningful than it is. He gets all depressed and misses enjoying the adventure he is on. And he keeps trying to make it political and emotional but fails to really say anything actually significant. This sounds like it was written by a spoiled teenager who thinks he has a sage, world-weary perspective. Not enjoyable at all, and doesn’t paint a compelling picture of China. Not recommended.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Surprisingly good

Revisado: 02-17-17

This book was much more interesting and applicable than I expected. It is by no means a dry academic text or a completely pop science Gladwell-style book. It is comfortably in the middle. My only gripe is the narration is a bit too slow, but that's what 1.25x playback speed is for. I would recommend this book regardless of your computer science experience, you'll definitely learn something!

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Extremely long winded

Revisado: 03-12-16

It just kept going! This could have been a series of books with how much the plot just keeps going and going. There were several points where you feel like there could be a climax and a resolution, but instead he throws another random twist in there. And of course it all culminates in a big shootout that could have gone either way. It was overall a very forgettable book and my time would have been better spent on other things.

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