Steve Sullivan

Too much, too soon?

Revisado: 11-26-24

I am forever in the debt of Nick Bostrom for the insights he shared in Super Intelligence, however, Deep Utopia is far less accessible, relevant, salient nor interesting. That last is unfair, it is interesting that he creates a fictional narrative of himself giving a lecture. It is interesting that he chooses to sprinkle into the story another seemingly unrelated thread recounting the travails of Fyodor the fox and Pignolious the pig as they seek to improve the society of the forest around them through decidedly unconventional means. But I am not sure that these literary constructs “work.”
If “work” is a unit of measure tied to one’s likelihood to finish the book then, maybe it does work. But I have to say I would not be comfortable recommending this book to anyone. There were just too many times when I found myself thinking not about the concepts discussed in the content rather about the excess that content represents.
An alternate title for this review might be, “High percentage of unnecessary words.” Ceteris peribus, it could have been half as long and just as replete with meaning. In other words, it has ~100% too many words.
In fairness toNick, I will remain open to the possibility that I missed something of foundational importance.

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Super engaging

Revisado: 01-07-24

Henderson again sucked me in and would not let me go until I finished the entire book. There were a couple of moments that brought tears of excitement to my eyes, well, those same eyes rolled several times at the characters, abundance of poor choices. I called this out, only because it is a theme I’ve seen in other books of Sanderson’s, and one that I find a little bit annoying. That said I found this trait somewhat muted in Skyward compared to others.
It is unfair of me, but I compare all fiction now to one of the best fiction. Writers, Patrick O’Brien. But the fact that I felt compelled to leave a review makes me realize that I really liked this book.

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Fun story, great performance

Revisado: 12-19-23

I enjoyed it very much. The only issue I had was with the length of heavens River. It would’ve taken far too long to build it. 

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A great for anyone

Revisado: 11-14-23

Beautifully written, well thought out and extremely illuminating. Looking forward to diving more into the umwelten of others.

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I’m sorry, but, no…

Revisado: 07-27-21

The story is unique and could have been interesting but for the terrible and repeated misrepresentation of solders, astronauts, scientists and business people. Every character, was a caricature of something real. It was embarrassing to hear breathless dialogue from supposed, trained professional astronauts and bureaucrats prattling endlessly about this love interest or that obsession.

I found there to be such an excess of words without meaning that I am wondering if the author was paid for volume rather than substance. If you are going to use a lot of words then explain interesting things about science or orbital dynamics, don’t drone on for pages about how the jump will be short and how the person feels about dying.

I am not a writer, but I am a reader, and one cannot read or listen to authors like Peter F Hamilton or Patrick O’Brien and then feel anything other than duped when reviews rave about something so mediocre.

All that said, good for you David Wellington for putting yourself out there like this. I hope I can build the courage some day. Just, please get better, and in the interim, don’t let publicists lie about the quality of your work.

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Super fascinating m, extremely dense.

Revisado: 05-23-21

I’m still sitting with the conclusion of the master and the cemetery and therefore do not have much to say on the story other than that it is fascinating and dense.

I must say though that the narrator really must learn to pause and using flexion during his reading. There were many times where after a quote, he would continue on reading in the same tone of voice and without any pause making it almost impossible to realize that the quote had ended.

A must listen for sure.

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Best fiction series ever...

Revisado: 12-30-19

Not because of the subject matter, though the complicated and precise nature of the nautical content may lend itself to the clever turns of phrase and veiled entendre, rather because of his brilliant use of dialogue in which he buries hints to tiny and sometimes hilarious details.

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A brilliant writer who just gets better and better

Revisado: 02-20-19

William Gibson used to write about the future, but, by the time he got to spook country (the prequel of this book) he was writing about the present, not because his genera had changed, rather because it had stayed the same and time had passed such that he was now writing about the present.
Zero history is a classic Gibson book. It makes you want to start a company and build something he has so easily and deftly imagined.

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More than enough to get you hooked

Revisado: 07-14-15

Golden Son (along with its prequel Red Rising) is not going to hold the interest of someone looking for plausible science fiction, on the other hand, the story is well written and engaging on an emotional level. The characters are somewhat understandable and therefore approachable for the reader. It all adds up to a very entertaining and enjoyable set of books. I look forward to the finale.

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Just because we listen to it does not mean it should be poorly written

Revisado: 06-27-15

I read to escape so there is not much worse than being rio back into the present by poor writing. I put this not on the author, rather on his editor. If he does not have an editor then shame on the author.
There were numerous instances of extra words and crapy turns phrase, even repeated words within the same paragraph that any editor worth their salt would have corrected.
As for the story overall, it kept me me listening, despite the fact that I like a lot more details in my science fiction.

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