Kindle Customer

An intriguing mix of fantasy and science fiction

Revisado: 06-15-24

This is a well-told well-worn story with numerous twists and turns and surprises. If I must describe it's genre, I'd say it's science fiction that has gone around the world and butted up against fantasy from the other side.

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A multi-level story

Revisado: 08-20-22

The voice of this book sounds as though it was meant to be read aloud, and the story can be read as a simple adventure story, a feminist parable, or a modern take on Japanese mythology. Or all at once.

The narrator did a great job making the characters distinct and imparting their speech with their personalities. But I had a problem with some of her mispronunciations of words -- such a thing tends to draw me out of a story. The most egregious was her pronouncing "hearth" as though it rhymed with "Earth", which I found jarring.

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The dialog!

Revisado: 05-21-22

This book is outrageous, engrossing and very funny. But I strongly suspect Moore wrote "Noir" and "Razzmatazz" primarily as an opportunity to play with post-WW2 American slang. Not that that would be a bad thing...

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A simple story, but well told

Revisado: 05-18-22

I found there were few surprises in this book. The story is straightforward and not difficult to predict. But Amy Harmon has written this story so beautifully I found the book hard to stop listening to.

Tavia Gilbert has done a masterful job narrating this book, so I'm not surprised she's won an Audie award. She clearly delineates each character's voice, and even manages to hint at the exotic cadence and tonal structure of English being spoken by people who grew up speaking a First Nation language.

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Good listen...odd accent

Revisado: 05-07-22

The book is an excellent example of its kind: it's funny in places, sad in others, triumphant over all.

If I must find fault, it's the choice of narrator. Please don't get me wrong -- Erin Moon is a GREAT narrator, and more acts out the book then narrates it. It's just that Ms. Moon's broad North Midwestern accent may not be completely in line with a book written by a woman who was born and raised in New Jersey. This comes to attention the many times in the book where the word "Mom" is used as an exclamation.

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Hard to categorize

Revisado: 04-27-22

If someone put a gun to my head, I couldn't say definitively that this novel is science fiction, fantasy, a psychological profile or a romance -- it has elements of each. But I feel certain that Ms. McNeil left it ambiguous on purpose. By keeping our view of the story firmly centered in the point of view of the main character, Annie Beyer, we are forced to limit our conjectures to Annie's impressions of what happens.

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Yes, Virginia, the bad guys act intelligently, too

Revisado: 04-01-22

First, let me state the things I liked about this book....

R. C. Bray does his usual masterful job performing this book. And in this one, you even get to hear him sing!

Smith does his usual job coming up with horrific ways for people to be killed and maimed. And he does his usual job of piling on the action to the point where it becomes tiring to read sometimes. I found myself pausing the book, wanting the protagonists to catch a breather.

Also, the bad guys in this book act intelligently and honestly behave like they think they're the good guys.

Then what I don't like...

The leadership of the good guys' side in the conflict, the Nova Alliance, continually expects their enemy to not act intelligently. This leads them to make a series of dumb mistakes when the enemy does, in fact, act in the enemy's own best interests.

Two monumentally dumb decisions are needed to set up the climax. From the first dumb decision I can only hypothesize that E-Day takes place in a universe where the character of James Bond was never created and the umpteen Bond movies were never made. Had the Bond stories existed, the protagonists would have known the number one lesson of Bond movies: never take your archenemy, alive, into your headquarters. The guy will get loose, destroy your headquarters and foil all your plans -- which happens at the beginning of the climax of the book, setting up Smith's apocalypse. It's like watching those idiots dragging that damned horse inside the gates of Troy all over again.

The second monumentally dumb decision requires that the military of the Nova Alliance have never learned how force insertion vehicles were used in combat in the 20th century. Whether it's Higgins boats on the shores of Normandy, Huey helicopters in the jungles of Viet Nam or Zodiacs in those places we rarely hear about where Navy SEALs ply their trade, you don't leave your ride where you got off it, especially when you're stepping off into a hot combat zone and the situation is unknown. Instead, your vehicle drops you off to (1) return to pick you up at a preset rendezvous time, (2) loiter at a safe distance waiting for you to recall it or (3) go back to base to get more people to drop off in the combat zone. And you do this because to do otherwise gives your enemy the opportunity to either destroy your ride and leave you stranded, or take your ride and use it against you. In this book, however, the good guys just assume their very militarily offensively capable landing craft will be safe where they left it -- and in the book we all learn this is not what happens. Again, a required dumb decision to set up Smith's apocalypse.

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Surprising

Revisado: 02-28-22

The book starts slowly, but steadily gains speed as you get to know the characters. I liked that none of the characters' lives end with easy or neat solutions.

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A good story, but a flawed nation.

Revisado: 11-14-21

It's a well told, well researched piece of historical fiction, though there were times I came to loathe the titular character, Mirielle. She's a vain, shallow, flighty character who, I suppose, trend herself in the last section.

I have some strong criticisms of Nicole Poole's narration, particularly when pronouncing south Louisiana place- and family-names. For example, "Derouen" is pronounced "DER-wan", "Lafayette" (at least the town in Louisiana) is "Laf-YET", and "Opelousas" sounds approximately like "ah-pe-LOO-sas". I found myself grinding my teeth every time the narration included the mispronunciation of a name the character would have heard spoken aloud by a native character.

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One of the best books I've heard this year.

Revisado: 09-05-21

I became a fan of Amy Harmon through her "Saylock" books, which are great. But this book is amazing. It's a great story featuring great characters.

Rob Shapiro has outdone himself in this book: he doesn't narrate it, he performs it.

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