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Excellent narration - decent story

Évalué le: 2024-07-27

A fairly straight forward story with a predictable ending, but it’s good. The narration and voice acting are superb. My favourite aspect of the story itself is that you, as the reader, are not treated like an idiot. You view things as Ender does. When he has a revelation, you do too, and you’re not left thinking the other characters are idiots, but that Ender is simply a smart kid.

I wish I pirated this though, knowing that the author is such a terrible person to kind of everyone, including his own church at times, just makes me not want to support him. I read the Wikipedia for the remaining books though. They get weird, but not in a good way.

Anyway, this was good. Get it, don’t bother with the sequels.

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Don't Waste Your Time

Évalué le: 2022-02-28

This was the 3rd book I’d read in 8 years at the time of my first listen, the previous two were the two prior books in the trilogy. Everywhere online in the past few years, I’ve read that women are often portrayed poorly in books written by men. As a man myself who is not an avid reader, I of course didn't/couldn’t understand what they were talking about...

...until I read this book.

tl;dr I couldn't even finish it after loving the first two books.

**THE REST OF THIS REVIEW IS SPOILERS**

I should say, I haven’t read the book fully. I couldn’t even finish it. I just loved the previous two books and was excited to see where humanity went after beating the trisolarans. Boy what a huge let down. Not because of the course humanity takes, but because the characters are simply bad.

I have to talk spoilers. Our main character is a woman and is elected the next “sword holder” and accepts the mantle of responsibility to hold the dead man switch to earth. She was elected because she was motherly and wanted to be a protector and when she needs to press the button, her only freaking job, she freezes and thinks of the babe she held to her bosom during her election. It was a mans job and she wasn’t a man. My eyes rolled out of my skull reading that.

So what consequences does she face for killing millions? Nothing. She’s treated as a victim and people even worship her as some kind of Madonna, a perfect woman. Fuuuuck offffff.

Every woman is described as “beautiful beyond imagination” and it gets really tired, really fast. Then the Trisolaran ambassador wears a camo outfit and dawns a katana cutting people in half without perceptually moving because she’s so fast while wearing a smile telling humans to eat each other.... it becomes so campy and silly, like bad anime.

Then somehow after the trisolarans are beaten AGAIN, everyone forgives the trisolaran ambassador and starts literally to worship her and literally kiss the ground beneath her feet, forgiving and forgetting the beyond-evil atrocities she committed only a few years earlier.

The worst part about this book is that the most interesting story about the rogue ships only gets I think 3 chapters. They single handedly defeated the trisolaran droplets, travelled into the 4th dimension, created FTL drives, colonize 4 planets, and even create a shield made out of a literal black hole..... but only the first two things I mention happen on screen. The rest is stumbled upon by the main character at the end of the book and they’re like, “Oh hey, what’s up? Look at this amazing shit we did while you weren’t looking lol”

The whole thing is just bad. It seems people are praising it because humanity loses and everyone dies but that’s the only bold step it takes. I don’t need a happy ending, and I should, on paper, like the ending of this book, but it’s so undeserved. I don’t like the main character. The plot kind of just happens around her while she sulks for 500 pages. Humanity makes stupid decisions and they all die which I was actually happy about because they deserved it.

1/5. Read the “Plot” section on Wikipedia and save yourself $25 and 24 hours.

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Soft-Scifi And Mystery Afoot!

Évalué le: 2022-02-28

I read this book in the span on two days. When I started I couldn’t stop. I also went in blind which is highly recommended.

Intrigue and mystery guide you through the plot. Several stories take place through several time periods and each one was genuinely interesting. There are occasional twists and turns which keep the reader engaged as well the big question, wtf is going on? Is everything connected or is this a series of events that unrelated yet important events?

My only hold back from 5 stars is that it can kind of drift. As I said, some things are seemingly unimportant, and while in the grand scheme they might actually be important, they don’t feel that way when reading them.

From my experience, most readers seem to gloss over the VR game that is brought up. It’s an interesting idea but you kind of get the point after a while and it begins to feel redundant.

Other than that, solid book, 4/5. I’d almost say a necessary read just so you can get to the true goal of reading The Dark Forest

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A Classic (though a little dated)

Évalué le: 2022-02-28

I wasn't expecting a collection of short stories! That's not a bad thing, it's just not something I would normally read. Due to the format of short stories, characters are given little time to develop, so you're really reading for the plot and themes of the book.

It's a short, easy read, but well crafted. This is a very dialogue heavy book, and every line of dialogue is used perfectly, no wasted fluff, and every sentence either propels the story, or details a character's intentions.

Unfortunately, this book was written and published in 1951 and it shows. Women are referred to as either wives, or people who will spend lots of money on vanity. That's it. In fact, not a single woman is named in this entire book, which if you think about it, is pretty strange to kind of forget to represent half the world's population even once. Oh well, a sign of the times I suppose, but it did stick out to me as a male reader, female readers might just see it as par for the course at this point sadly.

Representation aside, I do recommend this book to any sci-fi reader. Asimov is a staple of the community for a very good reason. His diction is tame, but he gets the point across and it's usually a good one. I've already purchased the sequel, hopefully it's just as good!

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An Almost Perfect Sequel

Évalué le: 2022-02-28

A great sci-fi read for first timers. The sci-fi aspect isn’t very outlandish given that there is a plot device that curbs technological development so nothing ever seems too foreign an idea.

The “Wall Facer Project” by far is the most interesting aspect of the book. Earth is facing an impending doom coming in 400 years and needs to work as a whole, through generations, to tackle this problem. 4 people are given unlimited power and resources and are tasked with finding ways to beat the aliens BUT must not let the aliens know what the plan is, despite their constant surveillance.

This leads the book to become a sort of mystery novel. Can you, the reader, clue in to what these people have planned? Who are the Wall Breakers? Can humanity work together or will it crumble under the pressure?

What stops this book from 5 stars? Well it’s hard to ignore the way female characters are written, it just sticks out. There is an entire chapter early on that would likely turn readers off of the book where one main character makes up a fantasy woman in his mind, flirts with her, falls in love with her, talks to her, and even goes on a road trip with her. It’s quite simply, very weird. The book treats it, however, as if it’s the most normal thing in the world. People even sympathize with him saying they have done the same thing?? If my friend told me he went in a road trip with his imaginary girlfriend and spoke to her the entire time, I’d be VERY worried.

She comes back several times in the book and every scene with her is just cringe inducing. I’d recommend either speed reading or just skipping these sections entirely.

It’s a real shame because this could have been a masterpiece if not for that one exceptionally misplaced love story.

4/5 - An essential read if you’ve read the Three Body Problem, but speed read or skip the love story.

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Definitely YA

Évalué le: 2022-02-28

tl:dr Great book for beginners (12-15), but if you're older and looking for something with substance, look elsewhere.

I'm 27. Looking for something new to read. I picked this up from my wife's recommendation. It's okay, but definitely YA. The drama is over the top, and the characters aren't realistic. Kady (the protagonist) runs over someone with a car to save her bf, and the bf says "Licence and registration please." I audibly groaned and almost put the book down then and there.

The protagonist is also a Mary Sue which I've heard is to be expected of the YA genre, but maybe that's a generalization. She's 18, but can hack any computer, is incredibly stealthy, hijacks a dropship. and even repairs a shipboard AI at one point. How does she know how to do all this? She's the protagonist, that's how. She isn't a career engineer, she isn't a street rat, she's not a super soldier trained from the age of 6, yet when the plot demands something, she can do it.

The writing is serviceable, there wasn't a line in the book that really stuck out. I'm told it's written by two authors, one more proficient than the other, and it really shows.

The VO was okay. Everyone but the protagonists were great. Kady is written so poorly though, that the voice actor has only one tone she can work with, and it's relatively monotone. I don't blame her however, I think she and the other protagonist had a tough job.

The second quarter of the book started to get interesting and really hook me in when the military conspiracy started, but then the book turned into Dead Space and I've already been there done that.

5/10. Nothing groundbreaking, but not terrible. Rather forgettable.

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