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7/10

I don't have a lot of experience with history books so I'm not sure what qualities to look for in one nor the standards. I thus can only write about how I personally found it and my time with it. Byzantium, written as it is for the public (rather than historians), does a good job of laying out all the interesting bits of it's subject on the canvas; sometimes in broad strokes and sometimes in intimate details. The mostly self contained chapters, each around a single feature of the society make it very approachable each pages never failing to contain something interesting.

The Byzantines themselves make for an interesting tale, them having previously been mostly a mystery to me. The history of the Churches and how they came to take the shape they have today. How the familiar court and royal traditions of Europe came about from their Roman and, surprisingly, Persian roots. The exact shape of the world during the appearance of the Islam and it's empires and how it shaped it's history. A lot of the cultural heritage of the entire eastern Europe, these are but a few topics that the long lived Byzantines played a big role in and even if I can't say I had much interest in a lot of these topics before I picked up this book, it manged to capture my imagination and interest all the way through. What more can one ask?

Gobsmackingly funny but bleak beyond repair. I enjoyed every page but it's just too goddamn bleak.

So, the book's about a bunch of dead men walking. I didn't really care for the social commentary that's supposed to be there if you squint your eyes. Past the premise, past the setup, the author didn't care either. Death men don't care.

It's also about a bunch of kids dying. Kids who don't know any better. They get to learn though. Not much. But they wizen up to how wrong they were about everything. Disabused of their convictions about their bodies, strength. Their minds, their fancy plans. A long, strung out, emphasized, capitalized but pointless lesson. Divine enlightenment during bad trip that doesn't seem to end. Raw reality received and processed but soon to be forgotten, too absurd to be any useful. You drop when you drop. Till then, maybe you get to shoot the shit with a bunch of other unlucky bastards. But that's it.

It's also about a bunch of people dying in a very horrific way. Public, absurd, without dignity. Unrealistically twisted but all too recognizable. A merciless and hopeless gauntlet without any winners. It's a competition but not really. The only game, a game of chance versus their bodies. Against their minds.

All in all, it's all a decent metaphor, a good one even. And King can tell a good yarn. But I don't like it. Just too damn bleak. There are sunnier metaphors out there and fuck it if they're not just as true. I want to forget about this book.

It's always incredibly frustrating to watch characters take the obviously wrong turn, trip into the obvious trap, tumble down obvious stairs. It has been used to charming effect in some horror titles but it's never failed to be frustrating for me. This book, for the most part, alternates between a chapter of the villain scheming, all but documenting, their evil plans is followed by a chapter of the victim failing for it. And it's not even like the victim's being unrealistically stupid or anything. It's just that the author had to rely on explaining the oh-so-wicked scheme beforehand as an attempt to make them interesting because their drab prose would have failed to make it any kind of engaging otherwise.

Also, the oh-so-big twist was made so damned obvious half a dozen chapters before it's revealed. It's obvious from the get go that the book was relying on it's one pony trick to sell, all things contrived and bent around it, which's not always a terrible idea but it's almost as if the author gave up after having the major plot points in place cause the characters are so fucking cardboard and the prose so fucking beige. (So much so that halfway through, I was suspecting that Louise and Dan were some figments of Adele's psychotic imagination, character a twisted mind came up with to deal and escape or whatever idk)

Edit: I think what makes this book's take on "Schmuck Bait" (according to TvTropes) frustrating might be because it's ever present robbing the book of any appreciable conflict. We're never made to guess if the victim could possibly overcome anything because no...they wont. There's like a chapter or two in there where the villain's monologue isn't dictating how the book goes that made me hope that the final twist might actually be a twist but it was futile by that point. Maybe one could use oppressive amounts of "Schmuck Bait" to interesting effects but I'm afraid this's not it.

7/10

Postman wrote this polemic on Television in 1984. The World Wide Web was incepted in 1989. We'd have to wait until 2006 till Twitter launches and the 2010s until it takes over public discourse but the obsolescence of the all-might Television since then lends the book a certain retro-futuristic aspect...for a lack of words. That's not to say it's rendered irrelevant because its core arguments still resounds strongly as ever if not stronger.

- Cultures are defined by their medium of communication.
- Mediums have their own latent biases.
- No medium is fit for all discourse.

I think the average informed citizen of today's world, with their temporal proximity to Facebook genocides and The Culture War, has an intuition if not a deep understanding of what Postman was furiously gesturing at then, especially the last point. Sure, the specific form of the dangers warned of herein don't apply anymore but I think there's something to be gained from his appeals and attitude to just how critical the subject matter. To use his own words:

For no medium is excessively dangerous if its users understand what its dangers are.

...only through a deep and unfailing awareness of the structure and effects of information, through a demystification of media, is there any hope of our gaining some measure of control over television, or the computer, or any other medium.

This statement in particular and the few solutions he proposes to that effect lead me to raise different questions like:

- What comes after understanding?
- Has any historical civilization ever manged to master it's prime mediums instead of being controlled by it?
- Any great attempts?
- How many of those attempts involved on thought cops, dogma, censorship?

His few solutions don't try to address these and in part because this is a short book but in part, I imagine...no, I sense from his words he understands the enormity of the challenge. I do share his belief that there's hope, slim as it is but at the end of this book, all I'm able to is wring my hands wait until someone comes up with something better than "boycott Meta" .

Having already watched all Jackson movies, it's hard to make a fair assessment of the book. Would I have found the worldbuilding and so and so silly if I hadn't? Would I be unimpressed if I had no knowledge of the greatness in it's future? I don't know. I like to think not so. Cause I'll say this, I had incredible fun. And little of that came from the richness of Middle-earth or the little clues here and there of this and that and what not. It was the prose and storytelling bringing most things leaping alive. It was the characters, Bilbo and Thorin and Gollum and Smaug, and what characters they are. It was the incredibly successful humor. It was the songs I'd heard so much about and was not expecting to like. Well, the last third is not like the first two. It's not perfect by any means. But it's a down right engaging good time and that will always be enough.

I enjoyed this one. Its a chosen one. Its a farm boys. Its a dark lord. Its witches and prophecies. Noble noblefolk and surprising-not-really back stories. Secret ancestry and stuff. There's Mary Sues. There's plot armor. It's the end of the world, mister! It's all things, it's everything you'd expect from the generic epic fantasy in your head. Well, all that's true. But it's more true about the series than it is about this book. This book's all about running. Running away from the bad guys. Running across a whole damn continent. Country bumpkins at that. This sets a tension, setting and pace for a solid and enjoyable introduction to a big world and conflict.

Now, do I like what was on display? Will I be sampling more? Was it worth my time? I was definitely scratching for something like this, let's just say that. Haven't decided if I'd be venturing forth. I just know that I've...enjoyed this one and how it goes about it.

7/10


These characters are amazing. What they managed to do with Jedao on this one not only was super clever, it worked really well. The world-building's fantastic as always though I did not find the new addition to be as inspirational. Gate-space is no Calendar. Moths are no Hafn geese. Good book, good series. But fuck, allow me to lament, we never return to the heights of Book 1 Chapter1. Kel Infantry shit.

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I think the series could have used a few world-upending changes. Change of scenery at least. Read the books back to back and it feels like a sci-fi show from 90ies. Shot on the same high-end but repetitive set. Describe to me the Ashawk tapestries once again.

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All of my criticisms feel unfair to me. I really liked and enjoyed the book. I really liked how it turned out. I really like the intimate, intrigue, political happenings. I really do. But I suppose I was hoping for something grander in scale. More dramatic.

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Did I say how great the cast is? The new additions in book three are just as excellent. Maybe too early too say but I have a feeling they'll all be very memorable.

I write these words, a reader far from what this account was intended for. One from 300 years in the past for one. A gender addict (though I could have sworn I wasn't one before some twists and turns present in this volume showed me otherwise). A nobody with no accomplishment to speak of. I've never shook hands with anyone that haunts any halls of any kind of measurable power let alone walk them myself. I don't read philosophy or history. I like to think I'm good and kind but I'm yet to find hard evidence for it. I don't care that much for my nation strat. The magnitude of "oppositude" I feel would make this list endless (though not to imply that I believe one has to relate with anything to enjoy it) and I'm not fit to in anyway to critic this book but it...set forth a lot of...wavefronts in my mind and I wanted to put down some words. I'm unversed in writing reviews and writing in general so this willll only be a list of things I found remarkable, not a piece driven towards or in with any composition. I also write this with some final 15% of the book left. I doubt any thing is hereafter would make me rescind these words and I thought it best to put these down now while the magic had me in it's throes for I find when the last page closes, everything disperse faster than I can say "future fetish".

### A. The Ninth Anonymous

What the author did with this character leaves my gaping. You see, for some reason, I was waiting for them to get...properly introduced (for the lack of words) to them but next thing I know they were whisked away and I was left rubbing at eye at what transpired and nursing a minor heartache. Idk why I kept waiting for they were "properly introduced". Everything was laid out. The how, why, when, where and most of all, the who. No, in fact they were center stage for most of this affair. But details were sparse, by design, and the mantle of Mycroft's temporary replacement was always in the air and I guess I was waiting for them to be...best I can manage is "properly introduced". To take the traditional sidekick role? I don't know what I was waiting for but then they were gone and oh, the shock. A character that I didn't even know to have made a deep connection with, gone, just like that. A character, while framed "sidekick" had all the writing and attention of the lead. A beautiful character. And what's more, on what I might well be the page before they disappear, we found out they're assigned female at birth which, gender addict that I am, despite my best attempts, had be double take everything and make them dearer. Right before they took them....

I thought the character was an excellent execution of the idea. A "no one" that's a lead. A lead that dies. Do I really need names to? Do I really need gender to make sense of people? I guess not because even if I was only aware of it in retrospect, I was truly attached to the character. But maybe I rely on these contracts too much.

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Not the first time I'm encountering where all the role of villains is given to characters that make sense and are trying to do good but I thought this was excellently done. When Mycroft's hate for Felix bubled through in that once scene, I was right with them as I was well with them when they understood and sympathized with Felx's reasoning a page later. I usually have a hard time choosing the antagonist over the hero no matter their stances (too loyal the the mc, a mire that bothers me) but Sniper was I was ready to give the love and worship all in the story give them. In fact, the author succeed in making me love and respect all the characters save Perry-Croucher-Kray and Madame D'Aruoet. And I thought this was remarkable. Perry Kray's remarkable because as a reader from the past, he's the most recognizable politician in the whole shebang. And Madame, Madame I found most fascinating because I found myself struggling to separate the symbol from the character. Whore, manipulator, cruel, for some reason (the author's intent?), I found myself throwing these accusation on the costume-of womanhood? idk what word to use here-she wore and, considering all the other, lovable, antagonists the cast features, I had to take a pause. I'd have railed against the symbol on any-man or woman-symbol-leaning villain of course but this one was gender, a very powerful symbol in our world. I not only revealed myself an addict, I thought that maybe, I rely on these symbols too much.

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I'd recommend this book to any that'd give me their ear, of course, but I fear it won't do for a lot of my friends. That some of them would find the long paragraphs too much to bear. And I write this, wondering if I should retract the word "bear" from the previous sentence for I'd not cut one sentence from the book. Words, words, and more words are the only tool an author has to help us step into their beautiful minds and alas, the best way to gurantee accuracy and detail is more words. A barrage of words on each page that allows this one to build up and acheive some of the mind shatteringly beautiful chapters contained within. Favorite scenes that bring me to the edge of a "Microft-esqe waterworks" session just at the thought of them. I don't think these later and surprisingly plain words would have had the incredible power they wield over me if not for those that came previous to it that put in beautiful and well thought out choices the mind state necessary to make it all work.

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I did not expect to be God to be the reason the J.E.D.D. chooses the Utopia. I was hoping a beautiful plea of reason, an indomitable argument that'd dispel and destroy the great doubt and thinking the Gordian argument that's worked well sowing mine and the all characters mind. Am I disappointed? I guess you can technically use that word but only about my mind. My heart? One "microft-esque waterwork" for the scene of how and why God convinces his pal Other God to choose Utopia please. And I suppose the whole series is the beautiful plea of reason. Enough to untangle the Goridan knot? As someone working in the computer industry and who expects computers to be the first answer to my prayer for immortality, no. But my, what a plea.

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I loved this series from the first book, of course. I even read the original twice and even if I was a bit let down by the sequel, the third fixed everything in a sense, the series would have been a treasured entry on my shelf no matter. I was not prepared how incredible the Perhaps The Stars would be to.

Making use of digital medium, I did not notice how many pages the thing was when I picked it up. Imagine my immense joy after indulging for 5 hours straight but then only to find out I've only read 1/5th. It's then that dawned on me what the author's trying to achieve, an explanation for why book 4 took long, and filled me with anticipation for what laid forth. And I was more than satisfied! In the previous books, it was my "future fetish" that enjoyed this treat the most. The enjoyable utopian mirror for what we can be, vague but enough details, with enough pretty words, philosophy and gender and other mighty ideas to left. Book 4 (and 3 too, in a way), in a lot of ways, left that behind. The war, mainly futuristic in how kind it was. Gender and sex barely mentioned. Very different from the first two but I think the series's much better for it. The characters that were built up came to full force in this one giving almost everyone a great resolution (Did you deserve something equal Ganymede, Ando?). Bridger and J.E.D.D and the whole Homeric affair, cheff's kiss. Utopia vs. Gordian and how it was treated gave more than my fetish could ever ask for and done so well that I don't even feel guilty. They even introduced and pulled off 9A, oh my god. Effing beautiful.

I haven't read enough science fiction to be making such claims but this labor of love and product of genius is surely an achievement of the genre? I can't see how but if any well-read fellow readers (who found this series to their fancy) disagree and can illuminate on good reasons why it's not an achievement, I'd like to know.

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At the end, I find myself wanting to use a superlative for this book/series. I'll update this review if I find one.