Jared

Trolling Star Wars fans? Mediocre writing...

Revisado: 04-10-22

I've decided to listen to this series despite the poor story, mediocre character development, and shameful use of anything and everything from Star Wars and a few other scifi greats.... And its not just the use of generic terms like "blaster" - the author literally quotes characters in other works (Yoda formulations make an appearance in this part), place names, etc - stuff where there's literally no reason to not come up with something original. I dont understand this. Maybe its a joke? Maybe they intend to just troll those of us who know these other works thoroughly. I don't know. I continue to hold the opinion that the overarching story, here, is amazingly weak. Writing this poor makes me think I should take up writing, because if this many people think this is 5/5, seems there's lots of money to make. What this series has done well, so far, is purely articulate a series of battlefield vinnettes, but these are unfortunately rather weakly strung together. The authors do very little to pursuade the listener into continuing to the next book. In fact, these 2-book partitions are *almost* totally unrelated, just as in part 1. The only linkages are a couple characters, some family ties.... a couple of mildly fompelling story points. But there are no grand questions being built here, and there's no creative thought put into sharing any new ideas with the reader, such as you will find in lots of other *good* scifi, such as in works by Cixin Liu, Peter F. Hamilton, Craig Alanson, The Bobiverse, Jeremy Niven - The Mote in God's Eye (great book), Lucifer's Hammer, to say nothing of older writers like Frank Herbert or Asimov. This is definitely scifi junk food. I'm just binging it to see if the authors ever get somewhere interesting. But honestly it is iffy enough that I'm practically skimming thru it. It's shallow enough that this is a viable way to get thru it, unfortunately. There's a lot of drawn out battle descriptions, but very little content that actually matters to the overall story. Listen to this if you want, but please, if you haven't already, be sure to listen to the GOOD scifi, too. You wont regret it.

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A really boring Star Wars knock-off, anyone?

Revisado: 04-08-22

This is a joke, right? Near the edge of a vast republic, a rebel general traveling with Lena, a princess, who isn't actually a real princess, enlists the help of a quirky, wise-cracking smuggler who flies a heavily modified freighter, where they were temporarily hidden in a secret compartment under a floor panel.... Meanwhile, a youngish girl travels with her protective, supervisory robot, at a space port named Mos Orba (ahem, anyone heard of "Mos Icely spacesport, where you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villany?") The smuggler actually says, "Laugh it up," to his co-pilot at one time. One space fighter type is named a Tri-foil (ahem, Tie-fighter, anyone?) And the pirates fly aging fighters armed only with blasters on their wingtips. I could go on and on with more examples (Ackabar = Admiral Akbar, speeders, skiffs, scoring, deflector shields, jumps to light speed referred to as hyperspeed...)

This is a really dumb Star Wars knock-off. I say dumb because there's no driving plot... Its actually painful to listen to. I liked the prequels, but if you think this Galaxy's Edge pair of books is good sci-fi or even good writing you haven't read the right stuff. Try Craig Alanson, Expeditionary Force series, for instance. Or the We Are Bob series. Or The Synchronicity War. Or The Three Body Problem series. Or Peter F. Hamilton's Pandora's Star (or any of his other books). Those books are like a perfect steak dinner compared to this mental junk food.

I'm actually wondering if this author pulled a Lady Gaga - wrote this while high and listening to the previous work that inspired him (Born This Way vs Madonna's Express Yourself), only the resulting art is no where as entertaining to listen to as Gaga's...

I gave R. C. Bray only a 4 out of 5 for mispronouncing "baryon" as "bar Yon". That seemed especially egregious for someone in his line of work. Otherwise, normally, he's great.

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ignore the <5 star reviews

Revisado: 05-08-21

I almost skipped this book on the basis of reading several 4-star reviews, which is something i do to get a sense of what criticism I might feel myself as I read, and because 5-star reviews rarely include a usefully unbiased, critical evaluation of a book. Well, that paradigm doesn't apply to this book, and I think the problem is that this book is so "smart" that readers with weak philosophical, psychology, physics, and/or software engineering backgrounds are probably going to be overwhelmed by the subject matter, the sophisticated discussions of the characters, and the author's style of interweaving all sorts of open-ended, never-clarified possibilities into the story tapestry. Im a multi-decade software engineer with an obsession for studying all the physics and (materialist) human and AI-related aspects of philosophy, psychology, psychiatry, software and computer engineering, as well as a healthy sense of what great authors need to do to write great fiction. And so the only point of discomfort I felt was when the story seemed to be headed right into an Observer-Effect falacious interpretation of the double-split experiment - as in, I felt a meta-suspense-climax in the form of learning if this author was going to absolutely DESTROY a fantastic story premise by taking an off-ramp into loony-pop-pseudoscience tropes. Thankfully, he had good characters that responded appropriately, and even took the time to set the reader straight in an author-to-reader afterward.

And, so, with all that said, I can wholeheartedly recommend this story to all readers without any reservations worth mentioning. Just be aware that the more you are versed in the related sciences, the more you'll see the author leaving a whole tapestry of frayed, dangling plot possibilities. The author is not trying to dump-on the reader a tidy plot with all loose-ends tied up, wrapped up in a pop-culture-friendly bow. The more prepared you are, the more suspenseful and intriguing the story is because there a a bunch of different plot twists that could be going on in the background, and the author (wisely, IMHO) doesn't bother forcing the reader into any particular interpretation, nor does he insult his reader with drawn out explanations of these. Thats just good writing, in my opinion, and facilitates some great symbolism that lends a richness to the book that prepared readers can easily appreciate. All that, in a story that is plenty action-packed and well-paced, just as suitable to those that simply want an entertaining read as those that enjoy a great mentally-stimulating read.

So ignore those nay-sayers. The ending is NOT "bad" at all, despite some reviews saying so. I think they just want a simple, easy-to-digest plot, and I dont think any book that addresses AI intelligently is ever going to fit that recipe.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

Light Sci-fi

Revisado: 05-04-21

I don't want to discourage potential readers, but they should know this is lightweight scifi, and only moderate "military" fiction. Its a decent first attempt or minimalist short set of novellas, but I found it jarringly weak on the science.

Several times the book says ships came to a "halt" in the middle of orbital and battle maneuvers. The "lightning" weapon is very hard to square with even a single semester of electromagnetism.

The "black hole" weapon kept getting applied as if any black hole must have an ultra-strong gravitational field, seemingly oblivious to the fact that "small" black holes are completely possible (and would be much more practical to create, assuming you have to create them with energy or mass "on-hand' as opposed to borrowed from.... somewhere). But a black hole with a mass of 100 kg would require 90 million Gj to create (if a 100% efficient mechanism is assumed), yet the event horizon would be smaller than a proton, and its gravitational field would be minuscule at radiuses larger than a proton! As a weapon, such a black hole would be lucky to collapse a couple atomic nuclei, not spaghettify whole ships or function as a navigational slingshot tool. Such an object would probably be more deadly by just having a nicely charged accretion disk, relativistic jet, or maybe an unnaturally high spin rate. The weapon that creates these BH's is summarily described as "interdimensional," but no further attempt is made to lend credibility to how such a device could exist - nor how a device could create and "fire" a concentration of energy capable of collapsing into a BH without it immediately wreaking havoc on the very device that just "fired" it. And speaking of "spaghettification", the radius of a BH event horizon hugely impacts the difference in tidal forces, such that a "practical" BH weapon would just tear materials apart, while solar-mass BH's would be able to tug on near and far parts of a falling object enough to say it might "spaghettify' something, while a supermassive BH would just gently tug an object crossing its EH.

I also had trouble continuing to suspend my disbelief when mutual AI-hacking was represented as a medieval battle inside a VR stage.

So, for some light entertainment, its all right, but I personally think there are more entertaining books to read that don't short-change the science so much. In fact, I dont think getting the science right(-enough) would weaken the story or make a novel unapproachable. It definately is better than feeding the scientifically-illiterate more illiterate-punch.

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esto le resultó útil a 4 personas

Great discussion of the intertwined issues

Revisado: 10-16-20

Be prepared to be shown you were wrong and hadn't yet considered 3-5 more layers

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The Skippy Keeps Rollin On

Revisado: 08-21-20

Continues to be my favorite series of current sci-fi. This one started out just a little too contrived and formulaic for my taste, but more than made up for that by the end. I am literally waiting in angst for the next in the series, and continue to both hunger for and dread that it could come to an end too soon.

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Thoroughly entertaining, drips with sequel potenti

Revisado: 10-11-19

Yet another stellar installment from Alanson. Once again, the suspense and richness of his universe ratchets the listener, chapter by chapter, to a wholly unexpected place, then finally drops a final bomb on anyone's hopes of predicting where the next book will take us. This set of series might be the best sci-fi this generation will ever see, thanks to an amazingly adept blend of comedy, irony, and especially fringe (and beyond) science that is valid, yet approachable. If fate sees fit to let you read/listen to every installment, you will consider yourself fortunate, and your only remaining literature complaint will be that the "BOB" series didn't keep going like this one. Well, that, as well as the fear of ever seeing Alanson reach the end of his universe's stories.... Long Live Craig, Skippy, and UNEF!

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Can't wait for more

Revisado: 10-07-19

Just about one of the best audiobook series available, and I eagerly await every installment. Endnote on this episode by the author is great, and I am thrilled for his success.

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Engrossing and Fascinating!

Revisado: 07-11-18

Technically fascinating, the stories of a fighter pilot in the Vietnam War are conveyed both thoughtfully and compellingly. I only wish there were a second and third volume to read.

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disappointing

Revisado: 02-14-18

compared to the author's Expeditionary Force seties I found this book to be boring and lacking any interesting insights that make science fiction entertaining and worth the read. The plot quickly settled into a predictable arch, becoming laborious to plod through. Much more than usual the book felt like a contrived vehicle to string readers along to sell more books (ie like when an author has 8 or 9 books in a series, each barely more than eight hours long...).

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