Hardcover, 400 pages
English language
Published Oct. 31, 2006 by Tor Books.
I love the cheeky writing style of Scalzi. This story has all the great necessities to be interesting, with a few plot twists, nice protagonists, a conspiracy and real full fletched AI.
I've mixed feelings on this. On the one hand, I like the clever twists. On the other hand, somehow I hate, hate, hate the way violence is handled in this book, it felt really jarring to have a book start with jokes and silly aliens and an absolutely unpleasant character, setting up this lighthearted fun book, to then have there be bloody fights and wounds, only to have them have hardly any impact on the people who suffered them... I'm not sure. Somehow it didn't sit well with me. Also, it's read by Wil Wheaton who I find annoying. Basically this book left me wondering why sad events and violence works in some comedy books and why I felt it didn't in this one, and I've no clue.
When is a sheep not a sheep? What constitutes a person? What constitutes a species? What does it mean to be alive? What if a fart could trigger a galactic war?
Fun and light interplanetary intrigue.
I absolutely loved The Android's Dream. Wil Wheaton did a great job reading it, and though it clearly wasn't written to be an audiobook (lots of "Creek said...Robin said...Creek said") Scalzi did a fantastic job weaving a unique and entertaining story. Definitely recommend to all.
Pretty quick and fun read. I think this has a lot in common with Scalzi's Old Man's War series in that the version of the future feels very much "just like now", but with specific differences. In Old Man's War, the feeling makes sense (or is written off) because the earth has been intentionally kept a technological backwater. In this book, I never got a specific impression of how long the earth had been in contact with alien species, (at least 80 years), but most of the novel could have been set in a near future only a few years away.
I think some of what I liked the most was the version of his old friend the main character brings back as a computer "agent". And this is never really treated as though it is as important as the other stuff in the book, though it seems like maybe …
Pretty quick and fun read. I think this has a lot in common with Scalzi's Old Man's War series in that the version of the future feels very much "just like now", but with specific differences. In Old Man's War, the feeling makes sense (or is written off) because the earth has been intentionally kept a technological backwater. In this book, I never got a specific impression of how long the earth had been in contact with alien species, (at least 80 years), but most of the novel could have been set in a near future only a few years away.
I think some of what I liked the most was the version of his old friend the main character brings back as a computer "agent". And this is never really treated as though it is as important as the other stuff in the book, though it seems like maybe it should be, since apparently in all the (600-some?) sentient species, none have ever created a truly sentient AI before?!? (Also, apparently none have created a hybrid or genetically engineered person, which seems equally unlikely.)
Anyway, I enjoyed it.
This book starts of a little slow, but by the end it's amazing (slow start lost it a star). There's a bit of action, politics, sci-fi-ness, everything. Really enjoyed this once I broke the hump of the beginning.
I haven't had this much fun with a book in quite a while. :)
The Android's Dream is wacky, fun sci-fi that is also smart and deep in the middle of it all. It felt like reading Douglas Adams for the first time!
The story is weird and unlikely, but also very relatable. It is hard to talk about this book without spoiling its many surprises but I can't recommend it enough!
This was really great, Scalzi really pulls all the stops, and makes the whole puzzle fit together in the end with no deus ex machina. I look forward to more.
I like Scalzis humor.
While this book also deals with war the humor comes off much better than in Old Man's War.
Somehow laughing about diplomacy comes off better than laughing about war, though both deal with life and death.
The Android's Dream is more of a satire while Old Man's War has humor but is basically taking itself seriously. Perhaps that is the difference.
Scalzi had a nice little jab at my region of the world. Keeping Mideast peace talks still going forever with no actual peace is site and actually causing: The obligatory suicide bombing during the talks.
While reading the book we had a visit from the general secretary of the UN, with: The Obligatory eight rockets landing around my girlfriends Kibbutz. The more things change the more they stay the same.
Pretty decent.
You would have thought I would have known better than to judge a Sic Fi book by the title or cover. Classic well written with many twist and turns. Looking forward to the next book.
I did not finish the book after the first few pages... It is disgusting from the start and a waste of my attention. The part that I got through is filled with gratuitous obscenities and unnecessary sophomoric humor, which detract from what looked to be a very promising story.
This book was amazing fun.
I quite enjoyed reading this book, the writing is fast-paced and a lot of fun, with an undercurrent of humor throughout. Scalzi doesn't allow the humor to overwhelm the book however, and keeps the story tightly focused on the political intrigue and the action.
Perhaps it is only because I started this right after finishing Abercrombie's The First Law trilogy, but I felt Scalzi could have spent more time developing his characters, and providing more description in his scenes. While the story moves quickly and it is a lot of fun watching situations escalate in the novel, there are really only one or two characters that undergo anything resembling a true character arc, and one of those is only a minor character. It seems strange that the primary characters would go through so much and still remain pretty much the same as when they started.
Regardless, this is a fun …
I quite enjoyed reading this book, the writing is fast-paced and a lot of fun, with an undercurrent of humor throughout. Scalzi doesn't allow the humor to overwhelm the book however, and keeps the story tightly focused on the political intrigue and the action.
Perhaps it is only because I started this right after finishing Abercrombie's The First Law trilogy, but I felt Scalzi could have spent more time developing his characters, and providing more description in his scenes. While the story moves quickly and it is a lot of fun watching situations escalate in the novel, there are really only one or two characters that undergo anything resembling a true character arc, and one of those is only a minor character. It seems strange that the primary characters would go through so much and still remain pretty much the same as when they started.
Regardless, this is a fun book and quite enjoyable.
