Reviews and Comments

This is incredibly imaginative, but sometime maybe too smart for its own good. There are parts that don't make a lot of sense and are occasionally a slog to get through, but they all weave together by the end. There is a lot of insightful commentary on the current state of social media, and this was published before Musk took over Twitter. This is likely to be one of the 6 novels I nominate for the 2023 Hugo (assuming nominations ever open).

As always, Annalee Newitz is astoundingly smart. She fills this book with many interesting ideas. Unfortunately, the story she writes around the ideas in this book is a little weak. The most notable example is in the first section where two factions have little reason to trust each other, yet they do so in only a couple pages.

Terraformers is still worth reading for the concepts, but Newitz's previous two works of fiction are easily superior.

There's no real way to state why I didn't like this book as much as its predecessors without spoiling nearly the entire thing. Suffice to say, the tone of this book is inconsistent with the rest of the series.

There is nothing wrong with this book, but there is nothing especially interesting or memorable about it either. It feels like it was written as a side project, which it was. It does get extra consideration since, like all Sanderson fantasy, it has a well thought out magic system instead of one that evolves to fit whatever corner the author writes themself into.

This one took a little longer to get going than the previous volume, but all the pieces were lined up to fall neatly into place at the end.

This book is far less about helpful tips for actually doing the cleaning, and more about giving yourself permission not to be perfect. I cleared that hurdle long ago. I am sure there are many people who will gain a lot from this book, but I wasn't one of them.

There was a very long, dull, drawn out bit in the middle, but otherwise this was a very good middle book in a trilogy. It did a good job of making me eager for the final volume.

The story overall isn't all that great, but the contrasting worldview of the two POV characters gives it something special.

Beautiful writing, but almost nothing happens. It feels like it's setting up a great story for the subsequent novels, but I'm not pleased going through an entire book just to get the setup.

Is this a fun ride with lots of satisfaction, a good story and a quick pace. Definitely. Is this a good book? No, not really. Scalzi is an amazing storyteller, but not a particularly good writer. (Having said that, he is far better than he used to be, and he's even commented on problems with his writing that he has tried to correct.) I started this as a light vacation read and it performed exactly as expected.

his book starts off strong, but doesn't maintain momentum through to the end.