N. Anderson

Poorly written, aimless

Revisado: 08-05-23

I downloaded this looking for a "true crime" version of a spy thriller. This is not the kind of book. While obviously there are limitations on what a non-fiction version of a book like this can say, there are regular interruptions with “paragraph redacted, CIA review“, or “word redacted, CIA review“. While that may add an air of authenticity to the work, it is also possible to just rewrite around that and tell a more coherent story. It's an editorial trope that tires quickly. I also wonder if they are actually true redactions, as the remaining details in the book easily allow the identification of almost everything supposedly “redacted“.

The actual stories of training and missions in the CIA are told in a bland, dull prose, and the entire mid section of the book wanders without purpose. The most engaging passage is actually the most shocking, where she describes having a full on screaming match with another CIA member in a European city because he insulted her. It is wildly unprofessional on both sides, and paints the CIA in a pretty terrible light.

Ms. Wilder transitions to discussion of the FBI and her time there, and pivots rather sharply from fairly capable team member to "underdog girl boss" voice, calling out sexism and viewing to "change the culture" in the FBI before quitting after 15 months. (it isn't clear if that includes her 4 months in training at Quantico).

The last chapter, describing her aims as a teacher in a girl's school, is the best written, and attempts to tie everything else together, but only partially succeeds.

Though I'm sure Ms. Wilder is a fine individual and I honor her work for her country, I did not enjoy this book.

Not recommended.

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Though provoking, worthwhile

Revisado: 01-29-22

This is a thought provoking book, and worthwhile considering. It brings a smart human perspective to the question of AI and what that means for humanity, told by someone who wrestled with technology at the peak of human performance in his own sphere.
The only small criticism I have is the reader when he reads chess notation. If you don’t know anything about chess, you probably wouldn’t notice the errors, but if you do know something about chess, it is mildly distracting on the rare occasions when chess notation is discussed. He will read things like "Nxe4" as "N X E 4", rather than “Knight takes E4“. Small, but noticable.
Still highly recommended.

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Beautifully told disappointing story

Revisado: 10-17-20

The sound and style of the production were fantastic. But the story itself was disappointing.

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Sci-fi fluff

Revisado: 09-19-20

I loved the Bobiverse books. I also really enjoyed the Singularity Trap. So I was excited to get a new book by the same author.

But this one disappointed me. The characters are pretty one dimensional, and it's obvious that no one you care about is getting hurt.

William Faulkner's Nobel acceptance speech (look it up) kept running through my head as I read. He condemns a lot of modern writing saying that authors write "not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, of victories without hope and, worst of all, without pity or compassion" and that they write "not of the heart but of the glands." That applies here.

It's a decent, fluff story that was probably composed with a future screenplay in mind. But it lacks the quirky humorous premise of the Bobiverse and ends up being predictable and a little boring.

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Cursory overview

Revisado: 09-07-20

A decent, very brief overview of the events, from a perspective biased towards the British position. The narrator mispronounces essentially every Irish word, which is a bit distracting. A reasonable introduction, but definitely incomplete.

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Predictable, poorly written

Revisado: 11-26-19

This is a basic, boilerplate thriller. There’s nothing truly surprising in the storyline, which becomes very predictable almost as soon as the character development of the first couple of chapters is complete. There are at least two wildly improbable “coincidences“ which are key to the storyline, and their improbability is distracting. The author writes about military situations without convincing knowledge, but seems eager to show off descriptions of weapons he's read somewhere as if that gives credibility to his words. Hence a relatively long dircursus about the relative merits of the M16A3 over the M16A2, which ignores actual practical considerations of use.

Additionally, the descriptions in the book go back and forth from excessive, comic detail to blithe unconcern. The staccato nature of his sentences is also distracting from the storyline.

The narrator did an OK job, but mispronounces even common words like “carabiner“ by adding an extra syllable to the end.

I bought the next book in the series to give author and narrator a second chance, but it hasn’t improved my opinion. I will not be finishing the series.

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Predictable, poorly written

Revisado: 11-26-19

This is a basic, boilerplate thriller. There’s nothing truly surprising in the storyline, which becomes very predictable almost as soon as the character development of the first couple of chapters is complete. There are at least two wildly improbable “coincidences“ which are key to the storyline, and their improbability is distracting. The author writes about military situations without convincing knowledge, but seems eager to show off descriptions of weapons he's read somewhere as if that gives credibility to his words. Hence a relatively long dircursus about the relative merits of the M16A3 over the M16A2, which ignores actual practical considerations of use.

Additionally, the descriptions in the book go back and forth from excessive, comic detail to blithe unconcern. The staccato nature of his sentences is also distracting from the storyline.

The narrator did an OK job, but mispronounces even common words like “carabiner“ by adding an extra syllable to the end.

I bought the next book in the series to give author and narrator a second chance, but it hasn’t improved my opinion. I will not be finishing the series.

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Decent overview

Revisado: 01-06-19

Overall, this is a decent survey of church history through the first 800 years. The quotations from the fathers were illuminating and helpful, and in many cases deeply thought provoking. The author tells a story well, and makes the history engaging.

He does have a tendency in some cases to overstate his case for a Roman Catholic interpretation of some church fathers. There is more controversy and less dogmatism on several points (such as the description of the Eucharist as a sacrifice, the nature of the Real presence, and the degree of deference to Rome) than he states.

However, overall I enjoyed the book, and would recommend it as a supplement to additional reading on the people and the time.

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Slowly paced, incredibly disappointing

Revisado: 04-16-18

The author can't decide what kind of book to write: social commentary through a London gangster setting, or a spy thriller with poorly trained assassins. About 90% of the book was pretty boring scenery from London's East End, and if it was advertised as that maybe it would work. But it's advertised as a thriller, which it isn't. The whole of it was cliche, often boring, and none of the story arcs resolved satisfactorily. The supposedly well-trained assassin (Britain's best?!) is a terrible shot, and inexplicably stops checking to see if he's being followed halfway through the book, with cliche consequences. I won't be purchasing anything else by this author.

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