Can't complain for such a cheap find, but it covers the history of the railway being built but is very vague on the specs of the locos, just "bought from such and such railroad". Also bittersweet in that it is old enough that the railway was still running. There is a note in the foreward saying "ah no closed a few years later".
Looking forward to trying the tourist train to carcross at least
Humanity welcomed the Olyix and their utopian technology. However, mankind was …
Enjoyable again, but a bit confusing
4 stars
Without spoilers, there's a lot of stuff happening in a lot of different times, but those times are flowing at different speed relatively to each other so the stuff that starts earlier finishes later. And, as opposed to the the first book with locations like "this space habitat" or "that bit of London" it's "in this ship, which is between these places" and I found it very hard to keep apart.
But again I also read the book at 4am, instead of failing to sleep, so that didn't help. The trilogy is concluded, but there are two hooks left open to tug on later.
I also really can't work out whether the author wants us to like billionaire autocrats or not. It very much feels like you're supposed to, in the same way that classic fantasy has "kings, what a good idea" through it, as they're all wise and fearless …
Without spoilers, there's a lot of stuff happening in a lot of different times, but those times are flowing at different speed relatively to each other so the stuff that starts earlier finishes later. And, as opposed to the the first book with locations like "this space habitat" or "that bit of London" it's "in this ship, which is between these places" and I found it very hard to keep apart.
But again I also read the book at 4am, instead of failing to sleep, so that didn't help. The trilogy is concluded, but there are two hooks left open to tug on later.
I also really can't work out whether the author wants us to like billionaire autocrats or not. It very much feels like you're supposed to, in the same way that classic fantasy has "kings, what a good idea" through it, as they're all wise and fearless (the hero ones, anyway). The billionaire characters are definitely the good guys (and girls, and omnia) but it's yet another set of books that say "whoever makes their fortune in the 2200s will have it for the rest of the civilisation of the humans, if they don't outlive the others". Everyone else is spending each lifetime paying for life extensions of one form or another.
It's also nice to see PFH broaden the gender spectrum, but writing this I've realised he does do it to exactly three. No more or less.
Book 1 I was surprised but pleased the sex had toned down a bit. It's back again, although I'd concede it's I guess-sort-of-plot-relevant. I read this while unable to sleep so I struggled a lot with the far-future sci-fi gobbledegook. Reading it during the day might have been easier! Much like the Void books, once the sci-fi gets this far ahead it feels a bit comic fantasy.
qntm has been writing science fiction for most of this millennium. His works start from …
Enjoyable bleak sci-fi
5 stars
Not as miserable as the SCP stuff, mind. Some of the short stories are either too smart for me or finish like a twist is resolved but it's just a short story.
Eagerly picked up a new Hanrahan book as I'm enjoying his Iron-Gods-Is-Not-A-Trilogy. However this one is as grimdark as The Iron Gods, but with no joy in it at all. This is some years after a successful vanquishing of the Big Bad Evil Guy, and it's everything slowly going wrong. It's not written badly, but it's certainly less funny, the characters are mainly arseholes, and I'd rather have read a book about the events before this book.
Also a little unfair, but it feels too much like a D&D campaign in a book. I'm sure ironically it will turn out to be one of the few fantasy books at the moment that isn't "based on our cool campaign in university" but the descriptions are literally thieves, wizards, barbarians, etc. And a lot of healing potions.
Nice space opera start, with Canterbury Tales/Hyperion vibes
4 stars
Considering I didn't actually like Hyperion, ahaha. But a lot of the book is a bunch of people travelling to an alien crash site, while telling a tale each about their lives.
The great surprise for me though was that there's not much sex in this PFH book! He's finally settled down a bit. He does still like a tech leader who's now basically a benevolent dictator. And at the back of this book he basically says the one in here is Musk. Looking forward to the next two though.
Great comic, mainly but not exclusively about a fishing trip in Gaspésie, and the earlier events in the character's lives that they recount.
This isn't a full Canterbury Tales type thing, it's just a slice of someone's life. However the book gets pretty dark, with some detailed coverage of their attempts to have a child. Fair warning, not just about fish!
So, there is a girl called Echo Désjardins, who is Métis and in Winnipeg Middle School. She seems entirely depressed and detached from her life. She is interested in her history lessons, but daydreams in them, and then enters the actual past of how the colonials treated the Métis (spoilers, not well at all).
So half the book is telling this story from the roughly 19th century, and the other half is Echo wandering around being confused. She gets a bit happier, I think, but I'm not sure why. And then the omnibus finishes. Now in general one can say that true life doesn't have a neat beginning, middle, and end; but the historic parts told a much better story to me than Echo. I certainly hope the girl has had some character growth but it was difficult to tell.
The artwork of the book is nice, and I appreciated …
So, there is a girl called Echo Désjardins, who is Métis and in Winnipeg Middle School. She seems entirely depressed and detached from her life. She is interested in her history lessons, but daydreams in them, and then enters the actual past of how the colonials treated the Métis (spoilers, not well at all).
So half the book is telling this story from the roughly 19th century, and the other half is Echo wandering around being confused. She gets a bit happier, I think, but I'm not sure why. And then the omnibus finishes. Now in general one can say that true life doesn't have a neat beginning, middle, and end; but the historic parts told a much better story to me than Echo. I certainly hope the girl has had some character growth but it was difficult to tell.
The artwork of the book is nice, and I appreciated the timelines and other historic sidebars, e.g. what is pemmican and how was it made.
Difficult to review in detail without spoilers, but all the things I like about the first one. The characters still manage to find some time to have a lot of sex but do calm down a little. Still a very horny future. I'm sure billionaires now read it and love it, as basically the plot is "the billionaires get together to sort out all the problem" in a similar manner to fantasy books where the kings and queens do it. The myth of competence is reassuring.
After a break of reading PFH, I've started reading some of his books again. I still absolutely love Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained. I really liked his previous long space opera (Night's Dawn) but this universe feels a bit more fleshed out. Cars and trains (oh, the trains) have models and people clearly have preferences. There's discussions about sports and brands and TV and paying attention to some of it now rewards later on, but not in a major way.
The action is good, the science is fun, but unlike his next trilogy in this universe, it doesn't feel cartoonish. The Void Trilogy to me feels like a lot of technobabble and deus ex machina. Book 1 here starts well.
But it's difficult to ignore the sex. Everyone is constantly horny and having sex with at least one other person. In fact it is stated in the book that after …
After a break of reading PFH, I've started reading some of his books again. I still absolutely love Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained. I really liked his previous long space opera (Night's Dawn) but this universe feels a bit more fleshed out. Cars and trains (oh, the trains) have models and people clearly have preferences. There's discussions about sports and brands and TV and paying attention to some of it now rewards later on, but not in a major way.
The action is good, the science is fun, but unlike his next trilogy in this universe, it doesn't feel cartoonish. The Void Trilogy to me feels like a lot of technobabble and deus ex machina. Book 1 here starts well.
But it's difficult to ignore the sex. Everyone is constantly horny and having sex with at least one other person. In fact it is stated in the book that after a human goes through medical rejuvenation, there are whole planets for no-strings sex. Unlike previous books, PFH has calmed down a bit and we don't get a shopping list of positions every single time.
From the master of the space opera comes a dark, mind-bending adventure spread across time …
Fast page turner
5 stars
If I described the plot it would sound like a classic SF novelette and barely push 70 pages. It's a credit to Reynolds that the 300 odd pages here feel very short. It starts slow, and each time I start thinking "okay you've made your point" it speeds up the exact right amount. So it repeats, but not in a bad way.
