Balise reviewed Rule 34 by Charles Stross
Review of 'Rule 34' on 'Goodreads'
1 star
I decided that I would not finish Charles Stross' Rule 34. I bought that one on title only, because it made me laugh (Rule 34 of the Internet states: "if you can imagine it, there is porn of it", +/- local variants).
I was first taken aback by the use of the second person, leaving a feeling of Choose Your Own Adventure book; it gets better after a few pages.
Then, there is the fact that "you" change from chapter to chapter. Again, it needs some adaptation, but oh well.
Last blow was the over use of... I suppose scottish accent transcription, possibly "as it would be in 2023" (no opinion on this, I'm definitely not an expert on accents ;) ). My English level is not ridiculous, but if you make me subvocalize a word or more per paragraph, trying to understand what it means from the approximate pronunciation that I can guess, and maintaining a brain cache of what I've figured out, I'm going to be very annoyed very fast. As in, after 2 chapters fast. Well, after two annoying chapters and the first page of the 3rd one that was definitely getting worse in that regard.