Ingrid

Confusing

Revisado: 12-04-23

The story begins in the middle of some action scene, and I just can't push through it because I have no idea what is going on. There are tons of characters and I don’t remember most of them, if they even appeared in previous books. It's surprisingly terrible.

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Beautiful

Revisado: 08-25-23

I am really suprised to see so many negative reviews. If you are coming from Murderbot, then it's sort of understandable. This story is nothing like Murderbot. It is a heavy and complex fantasy story, rather than a tounge-and-cheek novella. It's still very character focused though, which I love.

I thought this book was beautiful. It really moved me. The author creates a tribal society which has a symbiotic relationship with demons who possess their dead. The main character is a young demon who has his life upended when his tribe is wiped out by foreign conquerors. He is kept chained in the conqueror's palace for decades before being rescued by dissidents.

The story does jump around to different time periods, showing you his life in the tribe, his participation in the rebellion, and his life a century after he overthrows his oppressors.

In the latest time period, the main character has been imprisoned and murdered by an unknown person. He moves to a new body and tries to figure out who was behind the attack and why they attacked him. As he investigates, we get lots of flashbacks that help us understand his character. It works for me. For the most part, I wasn't confused.

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Boring

Revisado: 01-16-21

Book 4 was just dull compared to the others. No one really had a stake in what was happening, there was little mystery, the otter world felt flat and cartoonish. I had no desire to finish it.

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Murderbot 2.0

Revisado: 08-22-20

I love Murderbot. The series retains all of its charm, while opening new doors for future adventures. I hope that the alien remnant thing develops into a more complex plot. Of course I read these books for the character, but a longer story with more involved plot would be welcome.

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Full of Contrivances

Revisado: 08-21-20

Book 3 was a disappointment in many ways. Every third sentence had a "but': It should have been impossible, but it wasn't. I should have felt happy, but I didn't. I should have been able to help him, but I couldn't. Stop telling the reader what to expect, especially when we know that the opposite is about to happen. That pattern gets so obnoxious.

There is so much poorly delivered explanation of Opal's shamanistic abilities. An enemy will throw a fireball or shoot a gun at her, and then the book will launch into a page long monologue where Opal figures out a weird shaman-y way to counter the attack. In the split second before the projectile hits her. It doesn't make sense, it kills the pacing, and her powers seem totally random. The book constantly reminds us that she shouldn't be able to do things and her enemies are much stronger than her, and yet she seems to defeat them easily by making up a new use for her powers on the spot. Her shamanistic powers are very abstract and can seemingly be used for anything. I found the action really boring.

The events of the book feel contrived and artificial. Young needs to hide, so he somehow becomes temporarily invisible so he can follow Opal around. Except when he wants to take her to dinner and becomes corporal again for one scene. Except that dragons and spirits can see him. Except none of them actually see him when Opal encounters them. Young makes up with White Snake literally seconds before the Arena Master tries to get him to kill her. It wasn't terrible, but struggled to hold my attention.

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Meh

Revisado: 02-02-20

Ivy Gamble is a sad-sack who wishes she had magic. The book spends way more time on her moping than it does on the murder mystery, which is lackluster. I finished the book but it hardly left an impression.

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Ugh, why?

Revisado: 02-01-20

The book starts with a mind-numbing monologue where the narrator apologizes for everything she is about to say and tries to speak to all the hypothetical future-earth educational backgrounds and perspectives of the people who might be listening to her, and what they were taught about space travel blah blah blah. If you already know this about space travel, I'm sorry for telling you again. What a waste of time. I was doing other things while listening to this, and somehow silence was less boring.

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Tepid

Revisado: 10-19-19

Vine Witch is well written for a romance novel and not super tropey. The story is set in the early 20th century. Often this is done so that the heroine can do something ahead of her time, and thus be respected by modern audiences, and yet totally unremarkable by modern standards, so that the audience can also view her as especially feminine. In this book, it's also supposed to set the stage for the clash of superstition and science, but it doesn't. Jones has created a world where real witches are common and practice openly, so love interest John Paul ends up looking more like an idiot than a man of science for 100% refusing to believe in them. He is also the only one in the entire story who doesn't believe in them, and is constantly being be-spelled and mind controlled by at least 4 different witches, which makes him look even dumber. So much for societal transformation. He is also a lawyer who hates lawyers, and so wants to become a farmer. As a lawyer, I don't really appreciate this attitude, but oh well. I also don't feel that France is inherently romantic and I don't like wine. I guess it's not hard to see why I didn't love this book. I am not going to finish it. I don't care what happens.

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Solid Sequel

Revisado: 08-17-19

Did Children of Time need a sequel? No. Did I enjoy the sequel? Absolutely.

The plot is very similar to the first book's. Humans sort-of-accidentally make an animal species sentient, and then have to deal with the fallout centuries later. A little weaker, but still very good and well worth reading. The characters were not as good as in the first book, maybe because the octopus are harder to understand than the spiders.

I hope to see a lot more books from this author in the future.

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Never felt so apathetic towards a book

Revisado: 05-28-19

I couldn't connect with the characters or the ideas on any level. The names are so stupid, the poetry isn't nearly as clever as all the characters keep insisting it is, and this whole idea of 'people living outisde of the empire are barbarians, no they are not even people, no they don't even exist'... the author thinks all three things can be true at the same time, but they are mutually exclusive! She really should have made these people aliens, because at least then there would be some excuse for all the nonsensical elements of their society. She also should have kept the imigo functional, as it was the only good part of the story. Cannot recommend.

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