Ethan > Recent Status Updates

The Netflix series reminded me that I still hadn’t gotten around to reading the sequels…

Picking up this series again after starting it before the TV series started now that the TV series is ending...

I may regret this, but I guess I’m a sucker for the Dune universe and I guess I’m spice-addicted even to these sequels with much lower spice levels. I’ve read some of the original Frank Herbert books in the last couple months, so I’ll be interested to see how the contrast hits me reading one of these now.

Hugo ballots are due in 1 hour and 52 minutes, so I'm not going to finish this in time, but so far it seems better than the second one but not quite as good as the first. That "new universe smell" wore off in the second one, but it took me a while to remember who's who, although I'm getting there. A lot of set up so far, but then this is over 500 pages, which I didn't realize until I opened the box.

Does this get more interesting? I like Murderbot, but I feel like I just slogged through a 100 page battle scene with little sense of why anyone is fighting or what the plot actually is beyond “Muderbot says funny things.”

This is a weird book. I'm 300 pages in, and I still can't decide if I like it. I find myself not really caring about the narrative, but then I keep reading (okay, occasionally skimming). I think I'm reading it mostly to see if the interesting bits get more depth (there's a mild Gene Wolfe vibe), but I'm also chuckling a bit.

I'm loving everything about this so far. It's kind of like Dune with a sense of humor.

It's weird to say I'm reading this book, but I am using it as a reference source while I complete another trip to the Tower.

I'm not sitting down and reading this cover-to-cover, but instead using as a reference source as I embark upon another trip to the Tower.

I'm excited to be starting my next trip to the Tower. So far this is definitely a better experience having read the whole series already, mostly because as weird and difficult as this first book is, I now have a better sense of what King is doing and where it's going. I get the references and language. And everyone says it, but it's true: that first line is probably one of the best of all times and dimensions.

Enjoying this a lot so far. I like the first-person narrator's sarcastic sense of humor.

So far this isn't grabbing me like the first one did, but I'll probably finish it.

I'm loving pretty much everything about this so far.

I don't know what it is, but I haven't had this much trouble getting into a book in a long time. Maybe I'll try again another time, but I'm giving up for now.

I'm having trouble getting into this one. I may have to put it aside and come back to it. I'll give it a little more to see if it starts coming together for me.

It started off potentially interesting, but after 116 pages I couldn't muster the interest to keep going. I guess fairy tale-type fantasy isn't my thing, although I see why other people like it.

I think I finally found the Neal Stephenson book that's right for me.

It's not a bad novel, but so far I'm not finding it that interesting.

Having trouble getting into this, which is weird since I seem like the target demographic. A lot of stuff is happening but there's almost no plot. I feel like I'm missing too much context and background (also my experience with the other Discworld book I read, Unseen Academicals). Maybe I should try an earlier book?

It took awhile to get into this, but now I think I've made enough sense of what's going on that I can enjoy it.

This is my third or fourth reading. I'm being reminded of why I love this book so much: it's not just really funny, it's also good, philosophically-deep science fiction.

Seeing what the hype is about in preparation for the movie. I totally see why nerds love this. I'm a nerd old enough to remember the 80's so it's fun in a fluffy, fast food, page-turning sort of way. I am hoping for more actual ideas ... Annoying things about the present exacerbated in this future: income inequality, unwarranted hero-worship of tech billionaires, rose-tinted nostalgia...

This is some weird stuff, but I'm enjoying it. A big puzzle of the Dark Tower series is how something so bizarre that doesn't fit into any particular genre could be so popular. The King brand has a lot to do with it, I suppose, but you do get some of what King does well with characters and creepiness mixed with the sheer weirdness. Anyway, I'm excited to see what happens next...

I'm not sure I could explain the plot (it's either really simple or really complex), but I'm loving the world building, the cool biotech, and the weird/horror elements. It's at times teetering on the edge of something a bit too grimdark for my tastes, but we'll see how it goes.

The pacing of this is either a slow burn or painfully glacial. I can't tell which quite yet.

The alternate histories are cool, especially the idea of low-tech spaceflight, which is a nice way to question the Western European-based model of cultural and technological progress assumed in most science fiction as a baseline for all realities and time lines. On that and other topics, Baxter never ceases to bend some minds!