It took me a while to get into this book but once I got halfway through the book, I was hooked. Unfortunately, there a few unrealistic ideas that prevent me from fully immersing myself into the story. And here's the obligatory spoiler warning, read on at your own risk:
1 - I can't accept that the panzers, a sophisticated form of tank/hovercraft hybrid, are able to cross the USA from coast to coast in what seems to be about 2 days. Having read it while on a road trip, I can't see how these vehicles can go across obstacles such as forests, mountains and buildings at such a fast speed.
2 - On the last page, we learn that Reno overwrites Roon's consciousness. To me it would seem unbearable for the emotionally weakest and vulnerable character to take over the consciousness of the most horrible character especially considering that he's a unapologetic pedophile!
3- I don't understand why there's a division between east and west coast. It seems to be just an elaborate way of manipulating supply and demand but simply selling to everyone seems like the easiest solution. I do believe that in the end, this is the final outcome and makes the world a better place.
Other than that, I loved both of the main characters and how their relationship grew through time. The main plot was fairly solid. The body enhancement concepts were interesting. The control of IT was well done considering the age of the book. Mostly because the author thankfully didn't try to either over explain it or try to show more pass it along as some kind of metaphor.
I liked this book way more than Necromancer because I understood what was going on! It didn't feel like a dark and gritty cyberpunk novel. Somehow, I always imagined beautiful the characters action taking place on nice sunny days. I even had to read the definition of Cyberpunk just to be sure. But it did portray a brutal and dangerous world that I enjoyed learning about.
I'm definitely going to read this one again later on and add its two sequels on my list. A solid recommendation on my part. show less
1 - I can't accept that the panzers, a sophisticated form of tank/hovercraft hybrid, are able to cross the USA from coast to coast in what seems to be about 2 days. Having read it while on a road trip, I can't see how these vehicles can go across obstacles such as forests, mountains and buildings at such a fast speed.
2 - On the last page, we learn that Reno overwrites Roon's consciousness. To me it would seem unbearable for the emotionally weakest and vulnerable character to take over the consciousness of the most horrible character especially considering that he's a unapologetic pedophile!
3- I don't understand why there's a division between east and west coast. It seems to be just an elaborate way of manipulating supply and demand but simply selling to everyone seems like the easiest solution. I do believe that in the end, this is the final outcome and makes the world a better place.
Other than that, I loved both of the main characters and how their relationship grew through time. The main plot was fairly solid. The body enhancement concepts were interesting. The control of IT was well done considering the age of the book. Mostly because the author thankfully didn't try to either over explain it or try to show more pass it along as some kind of metaphor.
I liked this book way more than Necromancer because I understood what was going on! It didn't feel like a dark and gritty cyberpunk novel. Somehow, I always imagined beautiful the characters action taking place on nice sunny days. I even had to read the definition of Cyberpunk just to be sure. But it did portray a brutal and dangerous world that I enjoyed learning about.
I'm definitely going to read this one again later on and add its two sequels on my list. A solid recommendation on my part. show less
I read this book as part of my project to read all of the books listed in the D&D Appendix N. I wanted a change of pace from another book I was reading. I picked it because the cover art is cool (but in the end not really relevant) and the fact that it wasn't part of a series of books.
The final result is that I'm not really sure if I enjoyed this book or not. Some parts were great while others I struggled with. The rest of my review will deal with spoilers so maybe skip to the end of my review.
As it often happens in early Fantasy novels, the pacing varied tremendously from one part of the story to another. For example, the search for the entrance to the underground world takes a full 10 chapters while an encounter with a huge 100' Dragon Worm taking less than 2 pages.
In regards to the elaborate prose, as beautiful and well written as it was, the descriptions were in actuality so vague that I often had trouble picturing the scenes in my mind. For some stories, (like [b: Empire of the East|42972023|The Anarchy The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire|William Dalrymple|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1565769891l/42972023._SY75_.jpg|66799833] by [a: Fred Saberhagen|10082|Fred Saberhagen|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1207594469p2/10082.jpg]) this works because the situations are easy to relate to. But in this case, it's difficult to get a clear picture of certain protagonists and locations. This often show more prevented me from focusing on the story. I would find myself struggling to figure out what I should be imagining.
My first is example is Rador, the characters described as "the green dwarf". Was his skin green? Was it his hair? Nowhere is this clarified. So, as you can guess, I kept imagining an Oompa Loompa! How distracting is that?
My second example is the Dweller, also known as the Shinning One. It's always described as some ray of light with 7 magical orbs of varying colors. It was just so confusing. Often I would just imagine these stories were something spawned by an LSD induced bad trip. And since this is the main antagonist, it really feels like you're missing out on an important part of the story.
Also, some of the mesmerizing locations (like the Amphitheatre of Jet and the Crimson Sea) would have benefited so much from an extra few paragraphs of description just to set the stage. I eventually realized much too late that if I re-read this novel, I would just let my imagination run wild and fill in the gaps. I'm sure this strategy would allow me to fully appreciate this incredible adventure.
And finally, I'll just skip the recurring annoying theme of justifying everything scientifically vs. being superstitious. It was just laughable.
Would I recommend this book? I would but not to everyone.
Readers who want to learn more about the origins of the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre would find this book quite interesting.
Also, fans of fantasy RPGs might find lots of inspiration here. I just might pick it up again to use as a background for an awesome dungeon crawl campaign with my group.
But I think most modern fantasy genre readers would have to work their way "up" to this novel. show less
The final result is that I'm not really sure if I enjoyed this book or not. Some parts were great while others I struggled with. The rest of my review will deal with spoilers so maybe skip to the end of my review.
In regards to the elaborate prose, as beautiful and well written as it was, the descriptions were in actuality so vague that I often had trouble picturing the scenes in my mind. For some stories, (like [b: Empire of the East|42972023|The Anarchy The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire|William Dalrymple|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1565769891l/42972023._SY75_.jpg|66799833] by [a: Fred Saberhagen|10082|Fred Saberhagen|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1207594469p2/10082.jpg]) this works because the situations are easy to relate to. But in this case, it's difficult to get a clear picture of certain protagonists and locations. This often
My first is example is Rador, the characters described as "the green dwarf". Was his skin green? Was it his hair? Nowhere is this clarified. So, as you can guess, I kept imagining an Oompa Loompa! How distracting is that?
My second example is the Dweller, also known as the Shinning One. It's always described as some ray of light with 7 magical orbs of varying colors. It was just so confusing. Often I would just imagine these stories were something spawned by an LSD induced bad trip. And since this is the main antagonist, it really feels like you're missing out on an important part of the story.
Also, some of the mesmerizing locations (like the Amphitheatre of Jet and the Crimson Sea) would have benefited so much from an extra few paragraphs of description just to set the stage. I eventually realized much too late that if I re-read this novel, I would just let my imagination run wild and fill in the gaps. I'm sure this strategy would allow me to fully appreciate this incredible adventure.
And finally, I'll just skip the recurring annoying theme of justifying everything scientifically vs. being superstitious. It was just laughable.
Would I recommend this book? I would but not to everyone.
Readers who want to learn more about the origins of the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre would find this book quite interesting.
Also, fans of fantasy RPGs might find lots of inspiration here. I just might pick it up again to use as a background for an awesome dungeon crawl campaign with my group.
But I think most modern fantasy genre readers would have to work their way "up" to this novel. show less
I read this book as part of my project to read all of the books listed in the D&D Appendix N. I wanted a change of pace from another book I was reading. I picked it because the cover art is cool (but in the end not really relevant) and the fact that it wasn't part of a series of books.
The final result is that I'm not really sure if I enjoyed this book or not. Some parts were great while others I struggled with. The rest of my review will deal with spoilers so maybe skip to the end of my review.
As it often happens in early Fantasy novels, the pacing varied tremendously from one part of the story to another. For example, the search for the entrance to the underground world takes a full 10 chapters while an encounter with a huge 100' Dragon Worm taking less than 2 pages.
In regards to the elaborate prose, as beautiful and well written as it was, the descriptions were in actuality so vague that I often had trouble picturing the scenes in my mind. For some stories, (like [b: Empire of the East|42972023|The Anarchy The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire|William Dalrymple|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1565769891l/42972023._SY75_.jpg|66799833] by [a: Fred Saberhagen|10082|Fred Saberhagen|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1207594469p2/10082.jpg]) this works because the situations are easy to relate to. But in this case, it's difficult to get a clear picture of certain protagonists and locations. This often show more prevented me from focusing on the story. I would find myself struggling to figure out what I should be imagining.
My first is example is Rador, the characters described as "the green dwarf". Was his skin green? Was it his hair? Nowhere is this clarified. So, as you can guess, I kept imagining an Oompa Loompa! How distracting is that?
My second example is the Dweller, also known as the Shinning One. It's always described as some ray of light with 7 magical orbs of varying colors. It was just so confusing. Often I would just imagine these stories were something spawned by an LSD induced bad trip. And since this is the main antagonist, it really feels like you're missing out on an important part of the story.
Also, some of the mesmerizing locations (like the Amphitheatre of Jet and the Crimson Sea) would have benefited so much from an extra few paragraphs of description just to set the stage. I eventually realized much too late that if I re-read this novel, I would just let my imagination run wild and fill in the gaps. I'm sure this strategy would allow me to fully appreciate this incredible adventure.
And finally, I'll just skip the recurring annoying theme of justifying everything scientifically vs. being superstitious. It was just laughable.
Would I recommend this book? I would but not to everyone.
Readers who want to learn more about the origins of the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre would find this book quite interesting.
Also, fans of fantasy RPGs might find lots of inspiration here. I just might pick it up again to use as a background for an awesome dungeon crawl campaign with my group.
But I think most modern fantasy genre readers would have to work their way "up" to this novel. show less
The final result is that I'm not really sure if I enjoyed this book or not. Some parts were great while others I struggled with. The rest of my review will deal with spoilers so maybe skip to the end of my review.
In regards to the elaborate prose, as beautiful and well written as it was, the descriptions were in actuality so vague that I often had trouble picturing the scenes in my mind. For some stories, (like [b: Empire of the East|42972023|The Anarchy The East India Company, Corporate Violence, and the Pillage of an Empire|William Dalrymple|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1565769891l/42972023._SY75_.jpg|66799833] by [a: Fred Saberhagen|10082|Fred Saberhagen|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1207594469p2/10082.jpg]) this works because the situations are easy to relate to. But in this case, it's difficult to get a clear picture of certain protagonists and locations. This often
My first is example is Rador, the characters described as "the green dwarf". Was his skin green? Was it his hair? Nowhere is this clarified. So, as you can guess, I kept imagining an Oompa Loompa! How distracting is that?
My second example is the Dweller, also known as the Shinning One. It's always described as some ray of light with 7 magical orbs of varying colors. It was just so confusing. Often I would just imagine these stories were something spawned by an LSD induced bad trip. And since this is the main antagonist, it really feels like you're missing out on an important part of the story.
Also, some of the mesmerizing locations (like the Amphitheatre of Jet and the Crimson Sea) would have benefited so much from an extra few paragraphs of description just to set the stage. I eventually realized much too late that if I re-read this novel, I would just let my imagination run wild and fill in the gaps. I'm sure this strategy would allow me to fully appreciate this incredible adventure.
And finally, I'll just skip the recurring annoying theme of justifying everything scientifically vs. being superstitious. It was just laughable.
Would I recommend this book? I would but not to everyone.
Readers who want to learn more about the origins of the Sci-Fi/Fantasy genre would find this book quite interesting.
Also, fans of fantasy RPGs might find lots of inspiration here. I just might pick it up again to use as a background for an awesome dungeon crawl campaign with my group.
But I think most modern fantasy genre readers would have to work their way "up" to this novel. show less