Matthew

Unlikeable characters, bad message, poorly paced

Revisado: 02-14-23

I bought this book because I was eager to read a good hard sci-fi story set on a generation ship. Unfortunately it reads like a 70-year-old environmentalist with an unbelievably anti-science bend wrote the book, which is somewhat true.

You could make this book 75% shorter and it would still be terrible. An unlikeable main character who is bad at everything becomes de facto leader of a bunch of implausibly bright and well educated set of people born as the final-generation on a generation starship despite her only talents being a) taller than everyone else on board b) quite randomly, sluttier than everyone else on board (a plot point introduced, then thrown away, like several others). Somehow these luddites, instead of making the best of their bad situation, choose the *worst* option available to them, one that is very illogical and antithetical to their entire way of life, *and* they persevere due to sufficient plot armor. I rooted against them the whole novel and thought the end, which also went on too long, was a cop-out.
It feels like the author had a series of loosely connected ideas and said "hey why not, now it is a book". Seriously, <2000 people and there are extremely bright scientists and medical doctors born and raised *every* generation? Why are the actions, culture, and sensibilities of the 25th century generation ship people *and* the Earth of the 2800s+ so 20th-century-seeming? Then there are long, l-o-n-g segments of the narrator talking to itself, going on and on about existential philosophy. Isaac Asimov would even blush about how little seems to *happen* in this book.

I'd say 'Aurora' is a bad title, as very little of the book takes place on or near Aurora, but 'Boring' or 'Skip this one' are probably not great titles either.

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Time travel is hard to write

Revisado: 12-01-22

All I could think about as this came to a conclusion is Dean Pelton from Community crying "Time travel is so hard to write!" Series started good, ended with a bit of a whimper with too many inconsistencies and coincidences.

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esto le resultó útil a 2 personas

tinny performance, book feels padded

Revisado: 12-12-21

Just me or did it sound like the audio fidelity was low? did the narrator have exactly the right higher pitched voice that doesn't record well somehow? it was annoying how loud I had to turn the car radio up sometimes to clearly hear what was going on.
As to the book: it could have been 100 pages shorter if you cut out the surprising amount of teen same sex/trans romance. I don't read straight romance novels either. halfway through it decided to stop being an angst-filled romance novel at which point it got much better. Except it then ends before the really interesting parts! looks like two more books to read. not as continuously fun as the quantum magician stories, but very entertaining and fascinating world building again.

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Good adventure, bogged down by Bob...again

Revisado: 10-08-21

It was like going on a fascinating trip with the most annoying, nerdiest, obnoxious classmate. Good thing Bob made so many clones, because no way would real Bob have had any friends.
This book has 2 neat ideas at its core, but doesn't deliver. Just read Ringworld again.
If you absolutely loved the other Bob books, then you'll probably love this, but if so you probably aren't into hard scifi.

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I couldn't wait for it to be over

Revisado: 10-24-19

Ugh. I couldn't wait for this to end. It *finally* ends, and then there are THREE appendices that are approx 2 hours long that shift the narrative to characters NO ONE cares about, which have no bearing on the 'plot' and whose stories are uninteresting and wildly unrealistic.
The central premise of the book is that the characters live in a universe controlled by a god who is actually a hack TV writer. Except the book IS written by a hack writer. It is a neat albeit recycled idea applied to a scifi context, I'll give him that. Everything else? Ugh. For the first half of the book every character is basically the same obnoxious, interchangeable person. I had a hard time keeping track of the 'protagonists' until something like 4 hours into it. It doesn't help that Wil Wheaton is an awful narrator. How does he get voiceover work? Every voice he does is the same sarcastic Wesley Crusher voice; this makes it harder to tell apart the mostly indistinguishable characters.
Spoiler alert central to the 'plot' resolution that is utter nonsense:
If you allow the central conceit, that the redshirts are created by a TV writer and look like the actors who play them on a TV show, why on earth would, when the redshirts travel back in time/to the 'real' level of existence, would the redshirt characters be ANYTHING LIKE what the actors are like offscreen? The guy who plays Karenski on the TV show is paid to act like the character he's written as--why on earth would the actor who plays Karenski and the real Karenski immediately discover that they are soul mates at the deepest possible level?

If you loved 'Old Man's War', you'll probably like this. Me, I'm regretting having bought a second Scalzi book. Thank god it was only 7 hrs 41 min long. I think this could have worked as an hour long short story.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Lives up to its title

Revisado: 06-06-19

The book is just what the title says, junk. Silly throughout and feels like it was written as a part of a creative writing class for college kids. Full of pop culture references *just to remind you* that the author is cool. Will not date well. This guy wrote 'Taken'?
Somewhat, I bought it for John Waters as the narrator, but he was disappointingly bland.

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Disappointing

Revisado: 01-16-19

Was this book supposed to be funny? Frankly I found 80% of it to be boring; either that or just very, very, very, very dry humor. The angel and demon who pal around are fun but basically everything and everyone else just snoozes by. I don't even know how to categorize this book. This is my first Gaiman or Pratchett book--I've heard their (certainly) legendary names for years, but if this is what novels are like, I'll happily go back to my sci-fi and high fantasy, thank you very much.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Aged really poorly

Revisado: 12-31-18

'Gay female homosex'? One of the many cringe-inducing lines throughout this 'classic'. I remember reading this 20 years ago as a teen and liking it; as a much more literate adult now, though, this book doesn't possibly compare to higher profile authors from then or from now. Interesting idea from a science and philosophy perspective that really suffers under the weight of the heavy heavy handed Vietnam metaphors, the politics, and the rampant sexism throughout the book.
Will not bother with the 'sequels'.

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What a bargin: 51 hours!

Revisado: 09-18-18

What a deal; 51 hours of Arthur Clarke's short stories with a small amount of author commentary, read by 3 different performers. Many of the stories haven't dated very well, so there is that, but if you have a series of long road trips, this may work for you.

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Kind of bland

Revisado: 09-18-18

Kind of bland. Major macguffin inserted from nowhere mid-story that is needed to explain the rest of the story. Then when you get to the 'twist' ending, everyone except the main character has long since guessed what's coming. I found myself waiting around just to see how long it would take the main character to figure out that there was a twist ending coming...
Narration good.

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