Ira Elton Eure

Overrated and Implausible

Revisado: 10-06-24

I believe that Adrian Tchaikovsky is a good writer, but as a science fiction writer he leaves a lot to be desired.
This book is essentially comprised of two alternating plot lines: the human story and the spider story. Although the narrative flows well and is expressive and colorful, only one of these storylines actually makes sense.
After abandoning an extremely interesting (and what certainly would have made a much better book, in my opinion) initial concept of an amazingly advanced future humanity embroiled in political, ethical, and philosophical conflict, the author chooses instead to explore what I can only describe as high fantasy with a sprinkling of technical terms to make it sound like science fiction.
Throwing the words ‘nano’ or ‘virus’ around does not sufficiently explain how huge leaps in biology are possible. However, the biggest problem with the book is that it doesn’t actually make any sense. Why would an extremely advanced human civilization capable of terraforming planets use an ‘evolution virus’ on transported earth animals in the first place? Why not just clone human beings and seed the terraformed planets with people?
These questions (and many others) haunted me through the entire book. I did enjoy the human storyline, but the spider story was so absurd and ridiculous that I could barely make it through the entire book.

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Excellent story, mediocre narration

Revisado: 05-31-24

The Eternity Artifact is one of my favorite books by L. E. Modesitt Jr. The far future expansion of humanity, with its various competing factions, is something of a staple in modern science fiction. However, the author manages to weave a compelling narrative with relatively few characters and a very unique premise. We see the world through the eyes of the characters, along with their motivations, hopes, and fears. It’s a fascinating world of high technology, political intrigue, human nature and, of course, a long lost alien civilization. The characters are solid, the narrative is fluid and interesting, and there is enough mystery to keep you guessing what will happen next.
Unfortunately, this great story is not done any favors by the substandard narration. The choice to use two narrators is the first problem, the second is that both the male and female narrators have all the enthusiasm and dramatic emphasis of a junior high school student being forced to read their book report in front of the class. It sounds phoned in, to be honest. The timing is off. The accent and cadence is off. The delivery is flat… When the female narrator reads a male character she defaults to an absurd caricature of a male voice that sounds like a little girl imitating her father. It’s just awful. If I hadn’t already read the book I probably wouldn’t have thought much of it after this reading. The book deserves better.

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Truly awful…

Revisado: 10-02-23

I really wanted to like this one, but the writing was excruciatingly dull and sophomoric. On the one hand you had a potentially interesting premise (ancient alien secrets), while on the other you had an agonizing first person jaunt through puddle deep characters and 80’s action movie cliches. The endless action sequences become more boring with every word. If every encounter is an end of the universe scenario with the maximum amount of pain and struggle multiplied exponentially as the story wears on, then none of the scenes have weight or gravity. It’s just mind-numbing hyperbole.

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Utterly Ridiculous

Revisado: 09-26-23

I gave this book a chance due to the reviews and (seemingly) interesting premise. Needless to say, I’ve learned my lesson. The Hunger trilogy is extremely short on science and rather long on fiction. In fact, the ‘science’ amounts to nothing more than a kind of absurd magic that only a person with a preschool level understanding of science could find believable, even accounting for a strong suspension of disbelief. It’s just silly… and gets sillier as the story progresses. To make matters worse the main characters are cliched, annoying and puddle deep. Even the villains are all over the top caricatures (I’m looking at you, Mason!) that lack any hint of subtlety or development. Pure comic book trash. The narrative reads like a Netflix original script submission written in 2021, with all the appropriate sociopolitical boxes checked and accompanying predictability. I rolled my eyes and sighed in exasperation more times than I could count. You’ve been warned.

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As it should be

Revisado: 06-08-23

Fantastic! So much better than the films. A beloved story brought to life as it was truly meant to be. Top tier narration by Andy Serkis!

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Fantastic narration of classic tales

Revisado: 05-23-23

Great production by people who genuinely love the source material. One of my favorite horror collections from childhood revisited. Highly recommended!

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Is it really ‘unimaginable’?

Revisado: 02-05-23

Although I enjoyed the overall story of this book and the series so far, I have to weigh in on one important aspect of the writing… The overuse of the word ‘unimaginable’ (it’s used at least 20 times in the book) is so lazy and ‘unimaginative’ that it grates almost to the point being unbearable. I found myself involuntarily eye rolling and groaning with every use. Please, get yourself a cheap copy or digital version of a thesaurus and NEVER use the word ‘unimaginable’ in a science fiction novel again! It IS imaginable, it’s science fiction.

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