Alias Pending > Recent Status Updates

A prime factor of disliking this book, for yea, I shall assuredly dislike it in the end, is the narrator of the audiobook.
Replace every "he said" tag in this book with "he said smugly, as if the biggest prick in the world" to understand the choices he has made in narrating.

Alright, I read the wiki on this so I could figure out what the plot is supposed to be. Now that I know, do I care about Kai, our protagonist? No. Do I care about his goal? Also no. But is the world building interesting? Again, no. I can't imagine that last 30% is going to pull out of this nosedive.
ALSO - the extended flashbacks? Absolute storytelling mistake.

Chapter Six. "I'm tired of being told things I already know."
No shit. I feel like I've been swimming in circles for hours.
This started strong, Moorcockian even.
Now its dialogue, same dialogue again, Encyclopedia entry, same dialogue again.
"there were parts of the story he had no intention of telling anyone"
no shit.

"Man has to fuck it or die trying." This has now moved into my top ten list of best scifi quotes ever.

...I should make a top ten list of great scifi quotes...

I guess we follow Bren for the rest of the book. In the last 40 pages, Bren has "been attacked" (ok, good start), gone to a meeting, sorry - was taken to a meeting, taken somewhere else, taken to a more different meeting, taken to a gothic alien mansion (I'm making that sound more interesting than it is) and gets food poisoning. How did this spawn 30 more books...?

There have been three time jumps so far, so I'm kinda wondering if I should get attached to the new new main character, Bren? Seems like another time jump will happen thus making the last 50 pages of inaction seem doubly unimportant. World building, yes. History dump, ok. but, I'm getting bored

Is this whole thing written in Iambic pentameter?

The story structure, sentence structure and Agatha Christie level disregard for proper punctuation is FREAKING AMAZING. I love it.

I knew Harlan from Star Trek and Twilight Zone and his persnickety TV appearances, but GOD DAMN I didn't know he was this hard core weird. I've been missing out. i'm 4 stories in.

Tea, cup of; Not Mine. Yet research continues. so far:
YA (?!?) Female protag spy/mage(?) wants to get tortured by the King's right hand man in this meet-cute.
Grim. Grueling. Dull. "Romantasy"
And yet, I can see why a very narrow niche audience would be entertained.

65% done, I have no idea what the Protag wants or is trying to do. I have no idea why the secondary character is off to fight a revolution.
All I know for sure is that 2/3rds of all the words in this book is "calorie."

dios mio.

Thinking this may be DNF...
I've never heard a story that was all tell no show before.
well, 98% to be fair

"U of Dub"...?
Surely you mean UDub.
further, UDub what?
the correct phrasing would have been UDub Mad. sheesh.

Mostly annoying. Occasionally amusing... about a 20:1 ratio.
Smug to clever at 15:1
Surreal to real: Light bulb
Pointless to pointed: 10:1

Whew, 1975 was a different culture. Aside from some dated and insensitive language, this is gold.

CONVERGENT META-PLESIOMONSTRUM GARGANTUAN, excellent

The Days of Future Past part is fantastic. That's the 1st two comics included here. The rest - Days of Future Present - so far, is a disaster. A confusing, disjointed mess with low quality art whenever the Fantastic Four come into it. I hope it pulls out of the nosedive...

Just finished Night Surf. Glad I didn't read this last year. A6. Hong Kong Flu, huh? and, Captain Trips...!

Roleplaying game archaeology. (ArchAeology? since when?)
This is great. Amazed TSR never did a straight D&D in Space conversion, though. so odd... I've learned the author, Jim Ward, lives in Elkhorn, WI. Maybe I should visit him and find out...?

Frankenstein, once created, has to kill some chumps, or it will never be really alive. This is the theme? That?!

JFC...

"homeostat" - drink!

"homeostat" - Drink!

this tale is totally nonhomeostatic

getting real close to Destination: DNF

words. words. words. this is the eqv of scifi radio chatter ambient noise. This is the first of a quadology, a rough start, originally written for Galaxy magazine. I can't believe they printed this.

this is a lot of nerdcore pitter patter leaning hard into technobabble... the idea that this story is part of the DUNE universe (even if not officially) is keeping me going though.

Tale of the Shipwrecked Sailor
now we are getting somewhere

Floods, floods, floods

yes yes get on with it

American Psycho minus Irony