Reviews and Comments

Felt more like a soap opera than a space opera at times.

There's a lot of people thinking about, talking about and having sex. There's a lot of scheming and plotting that sometimes makes sense but often doesn't.

PS: I'm looking to have a good time reading a book so I try to meet the book I'm reading halfway and appreciate what it's trying to do instead of comment on what I think the author should have done.

So I rolled with it, strapped on my suspension of disbelief pants and enjoyed the ride.

John Scalzi is an amazing writer; every few pages I would have to stop reading and sit there, stunned, by how funny a joke was, or how well set up a scene was, etc.

He managed to immerse me in this universe with an empire on the verge of collapse that felt real(ish) and lived in by real(ish) people which kept me engaged and interested in seeing what would happen next.

The POV characters are all great in their own ways and have such different voices which made reading their chapters fun. All their story threads tie up neatly at the end of the book which I really appreciated.

Kiva is the best though, she's completely absurd and definitely who I want to be when I grow up and become the rich nymphomaniac noble lady I'm meant to be.

If you're looking for a well written and fun raunchy and rompy space opera, the Collapsing Empire is definitely a good one of those.

I'm curious to see how this series continues and I'm interested to see if it can deliver on the story threads it sets up here.

Felt more like a soap opera than a space opera at times.

There's a lot of people thinking about, talking about and having sex. There's a lot of scheming and plotting that sometimes makes sense but often doesn't.

PS: I'm looking to have a good time reading a book so I try to meet the book I'm reading halfway and appreciate what it's trying to do instead of comment on what I think the author should have done.

So I rolled with it, strapped on my suspension of disbelief pants and enjoyed the ride.

John Scalzi is an amazing writer; every few pages I would have to stop reading and sit there, stunned, by how funny a joke was, or how well set up a scene was, etc.

He managed to immerse me in this universe with an empire on the verge of collapse that felt real(ish) and lived in by real(ish) people which kept me engaged and interested in seeing what would happen next.

The POV characters are all great in their own ways and have such different voices which made reading their chapters fun. All their story threads tie up neatly at the end of the book which I really appreciated.

Kiva is the best though, she's completely absurd and definitely who I want to be when I grow up and become the rich nymphomaniac noble lady I'm meant to be.

If you're looking for a well written and fun raunchy and rompy space opera, the Collapsing Empire is definitely a good one of those.

I'm curious to see how this series continues and I'm interested to see if it can deliver on the story threads it sets up here.

In fair puzzles there should always be a way out. But I saw no doorways in the sand, and try as I might I could not make the puzzle fall fair.

Doorways in the Sand tells the story of Fred Cassidy the "Eternal Student", a man who's spent 13 years of his life as an undergrad.

He does everything he can to avoid getting a degree so he can continue benefiting from his uncle's generous will, predicated on him being in school (once he graduates he'll be cut off).

Fred's idyllic existence is disrupted by the theft of a priceless alien artifact, the star-stone. He's a person of interest for reasons outside of his control and so he is pursued by humans and aliens alike who think he can help them find the stone (can he?).

"You are a living example of the absurdity of things."

Hijinks ensue.

I loved Doorways in the Sand. Fred, as a lovable rogue, is great and reading about him dealing with the many absurd and surreal situations he found himself in brought me a lot of joy.

The text has aged remarkably well. If you told me that it was written yesterday (and not almost 50 years ago), I would believe you.

The text is funny and had me smirking and laughing my way through quite a bit of it.

Turning, I saw Rick Liddy, an English major with an answer for everything except what to do with his degree come June.

Also, Fred reminded me a lot of Moist von Lipwig from Terry Pratchett's novel Going Postal which might explain why I loved Doorways in the Sand so much.

KOOB EHT DEAR! KOOB EHT DEAR! KOOB EHT DEAR!

It would be a lot simpler [...] if this was a story. A sword is pulled out of a stone or a magic ring is flung into the depths of the sea, and with general rejoicing the world turns.

But this was real life. The world didn't turn, it just went into a spin.

Thud! by Terry Pratchett tells the story of Sam Vimes, head of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch, and his fellow coppers trying to solve a dwarf's murder. The upcoming anniversary of the thousands years old Battle of Koom Valley is keeping tension high between the dwarves and the trolls; making it harder for the constables of the Watch to keep the peace and solve the crime.

Thud! is a Terry Pratchett novel through and through. There's ample comedy interlaced with impactful action scenes with just a little bit of drama sprinkled in. This time around, it's a little grittier and darker than usual.

Thud! is about prejudice. The main plot as well as every sub plot has something to say about prejudice, how it can cloud our judgement and prevent us from doing the right thing and treating everyone with the respect they deserve.

The choice to have the protagonist be a prototypical white man in a position of power is great because I would have had a hard time taking the novel seriously if Terry Pratchett, a very white man, had chosen to tell this story from the perspective of a minority.

Sam Vimes is an honest man doing the best he can but sometimes that's just not good enough. So, for me, throughout the novel, he flip-flopped between being the hero I was rooting for and the antihero I loved to hate.

Minor story spoilers

An example of this is when Sam Vimes suffers a particularly heinous attack from a few deep dwarves. He feels extremely angry and frustrated about this (rightfully so) but unfortunately he expresses that anger by mistreating other dwarves who had nothing to do with the attack.

This hits home for me because it's something we see time and time again in our own world.

For example, post-911, Muslims around the world suffered from an increase in hate crimes against them. This is a tragedy because the actions of a few extremists (completely divorced from Islam) led to all this hate being directed towards the wrong people. Another more recent example of this was post-COVID, there was a similar increase in hate crimes towards Asian people who, obviously, had nothing to do with COVID, other than suffering because of it like everyone else.

So when Vimes starts getting pissed at dwarves in the same way, it felt real.

Thud! is filled with situations like this; touching on issues like discrimination in the workplace, police brutality, racism, etc. that lend a weight to the story that isn't usually present in other Discworld novels. I'm really into it!

Thud! was published right after Going Postal (which is my favorite Discworld novel I've read so far) and they seem to share quite a bit of DNA. With Going Postal dealing with capitalism, toxic corporate culture, bureaucracy (and more!) instead of the topics covered in Thud!.

If you like Going Postal, you might like Thud! (and vice-versa). I love both tremendously.

As of right now, Thud! has taken my second favorite Terry Pratchett novel slot; bumping Thief of Time down to a respectable third place.

You can't go wrong with Terry Pratchett. He's just so consistently good at what he does, and I love his work because of it.

SPOILER ALERT

It's got a twist.

Yayyyyyyyyyyyyy

I loooooOooOoove twists.

Especially when the foreshadowing of the twist is indistinguishable from terrible writing (absurd internal monologues, nonsensical dialogue between characters) on your first, and probably last, reading of the text.

SPOILER ALERT

SPOILER ALERT

SPOILER ALERT

Canonically, the book you're reading, except for the flashforward interstitials between most chapters, was written by an autistic man who kills himself by the end of the book (a truly inspirational tale, thank you so much for your service Iain).

Iain could have made an attempt at portraying this autistic character with dignity throughout pivotal moments of his life (the ups and downs). Instead he chose to write a book about a delusional and clinically depressed autistic man who kills himself because he is crippled by regret (relatable) and has nothing to live for.

I hesitate to say that this book is bad. For me, the way the story is told combined with how depressing it is made it hard for me to appreciate the text for what it is. If I squint real hard, I can see another version of myself enjoying this book.

I think that "I'm thinking of ending things" is a good piece of art because of how confused and angry it makes me.

Overall though, it's not for me.

All Systems Red is a novella written by Martha Wells, the first in her Murderbot Diaries series.

The titular Murderbot is a sentient robot-human hybrid, a slave to a mega corporation, tasked with protecting the humans it's told to protect.

Unbeknownst to anyone, Murderbot has hacked its governor module, granting it the ability to refuse any orders given by its corporate overlords.

Once again, Murderbot finds itself protecting humans, prospectors surveying a planet, when things start going wrong.

Hijinks ensue.

What impressed me most with All Systems Red was how Martha Wells was able to make Murderbot so believable and so easy to emphasize with.

Firstly, here's a quote:

"""So, I'm awkward with actual humans. It's not paranoia about my hacked governor module, and it's not them; it's me. I know I'm a horrifying murderbot, and they know it, and it makes us both nervous, which makes me even more nervous."""

I don't know about you but I'm not a horrifying murderbot. I am autistic though and if you replace "horrifying murderbot" with "autist" in the quote above, that's a pretty accurate description of what it feels like at times.

Murderbot's struggle with social anxiety throughout the novella was depicted very well and it really resonated with me.

Secondly, in a sense, we're all Murderbot.

Terry is dedicated to the bit. More than anything he is committed to creating absurd worlds that feel real. His work has aged beautifully because the world we live in is as absurd as it's ever been and it's only getting more absurd from here on out.

Small Gods is about an autistic savant (pour a drink every time Terry Pratchett includes an autistic character in one of his Discworld books) named Brutha who is a lowly priest/monk in the church of Om.

It turns out that Brutha is the only true believer of Om (everyone else only believes in the rules, the hierarchy, the organisation of the church, everything except the actual deity). And so, when Om finds himself reincarnated as a turtle (because only one person believes in him), he can only communicate with Brutha and no one else.

The unlikely pair form a bond and travel together as Brutha, using his eidetic memory, helps Vorbis, the head of the Quisition, with his plan to conquer the blasphemous Ephebians (Greek-esque philosophers).

Along the way, Brutha and Om meet a bunch of wacky characters with whom they discuss religion and philosophy giving Terry Pratchett ample opportunity to poke fun at both.

I enjoyed Small Gods quite a bit. After reading about half a dozen of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, I can say that they feel consistently well written and familiar to me but manage to avoid being formulaic.

There's something about the way he writes that leaves me with a constant smile on my face. Small Gods is not my favorite of his books (Going Postal is really really good y'all) but it comes pretty close.