Pam > Recent Status Updates

It got too frustrating too quickly with the romance dynamic. They are both being too stupid for me to finish this book. :/

I care so little about anything these people are doing or their circumstances. Will try again later.

Having to shelf this one for now. Could be good but I can't stomach childish sister betrayal over a guy right now.

The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Daughter: The way revisiting the past can bring freedom and redemption
Exhalation: A gold-and-air (argon) robot’s take on what we would call the heat death of the universe.
What’s Expected of Us: Free will?!
The Lifecycle of Software Objects: How digital life could potentially mature along side of, and also vastly divergent from, human emotional and technological development.

Oh good, they’re all dead. I am a horrible person.

None of them are sympathetic characters yet. Zzzz.

Please don’t make one of your main characters someone who makes and sells therapeutic tea blends as a business—and then uses microwaved water to make tea. :(

Needs more editing (punctuation errors, verb tense disagreement) but otherwise a stereotypical very fluffy cozy mystery.

Vaguely interesting plot beset by clumsy, sophomoric attempts at what I can only assume will become implausible sexual tension between basic characters. I hope it becomes self-aware at some point. It would also be nice if it weren’t a recycle of another Mysterious Artifact trope (though maybe I should have actually judged a book by its title and expected that.)

I’m too disgusted with Rapey McShallowCharacterface as the antagonist to carry on with this book at the moment. Also protagonist Occasionally Mary The Sue-ist is getting boring. I want to solve the mystery without them. May pick up again later.

So far, this fits the stereotype of old SF, full of made up words, supercilious antagonists, and heavy-handed prose. The noble savage vs. the foolish "advanced" scientists. It's... fine. Like a day-old cheese sandwich. Edible, certainly. Stunning, thrilling, or engaging: not yet.

Delicious flavor of space pirates, with a tech approach like Roadside Picnic.

Well, that's a hell of a first chapter! I'm sold already!

I've only read the foreword so far, and I think Joan is a badass. I understand and appreciate the her perspective on social changes and those in the SFF community affecting the Hugos. I like going into a work with a bit of a feel for the author's attitude (even if it is decades after she wrote the novel.) Now, on to reading!

Just now figured out the nightmares. Shivers.

This was recommended to me in relation to the names. I am quite pleased so far, not only with the names, but with the arts and lit references that aren't all above my head. I'm sure I'm missing many, but those I do catch amuse me.

The writing is sophomoric at best. If it were in first person I could understand that it sets the tone for internal monologue, but since it's in third person, it seems that the author doesn't have the skill, or possibly the desire, to write above a high school level. The plot is also relatively unsophisticated and predictable. The characterization is painfully flat. It's hard to read much in one sitting.

So far, very reminiscent in tone and texture of Stephenson's System of the World series (so of course I love it).

So far I have no interest in or sympathy for any of the characters, and there isn't enough technical detail to draw me into the world. In a word: boring.