Reviews and Comments

It's fine. I still love the story, the world, and the characters. I felt it lacked the momentum of the previous books.


We're just stuck in Urithiru for the whole book. Kaladin gets the usual treatment: suffer physically and mentally, then BOOM becomes a superhero at the end. While this kind of happened before, it's almost comical here.

Shallan was okay, and Shadesmar felt more interesting than last time. Though why disavow the Ghostbloods instead of double-crossing them?

Adolin's story was super awesome! Twists, fights, heroism, compassion, and huge plot progress! The best.

Navani and Raboniel were a good pair. The fabrial trickery was great and I would not have minded more of it. There was a lot of exposition along this storyline, but it's a bit dry. I care about tones of Roshar and hybrid lights, but not "edge of my seat"-care.

Venli's backstory was okay and revealed a few things. I still love how Gavilar's assassination is coming together. The conflicting motivations and all that. I didn't feel like the story had any strong moments, but I still appreciate the character development. How ambition drives her to betrayal then to the realization that she was used and as a result she is now disillusioned in ambition itself.

Dalinar wants to train as a bondsmith, but then doesn't. That resonates with my life experiences! Still it's not the best story. The revelation from Ishar is mind bending, but it would have been so much better to put it at the start and then investigate throughout the book!

Taravangian is super cool as always.


In the end I felt like the "Sanderson Avalanche" did not happen in this book. When Venli says "I know someone who could help" and goes to free Lift, I thought that was it! We're on! But then Kaladin just wakes up and goes, "what should we do? give up maybe? or just think this through a bit more?"

It's still a good book, but I liked Fall of Giants better in many ways:

I felt like Fall of Giants explained what caused the war. Those evil aristocrats! I mean a world war is surely never down to one cause, but Fall of Giants felt like a solid criticism of aristocracy. From 13-year-old miners to knocking up 17-year-old maids to hanging peasants to sending people to their deaths on the battlefield, it becomes 100% clear that aristocracy was a bad idea and had to be stamped out.

Fall of Giants also explained fairly well why the ideal of communism could not become reality. The infighting between communist factions is a good (tragic) story.

This thread continues in Winter of the World, and I liked the Spanish theater. What happens with Stalin is made less clear, but still okay I think.

But I felt like the story in Germany did not dig deep enough. The evil nazis just appeared out of nowhere! They spring up without explanation in London too, but in the (awesome) Battle of Cable Street they are beaten for good.

There is a bit of implication of capitalists betting on nazism as defense against communism. But while I got the impression from Fall of Giants that aristocracy was 90% responsible, in Winter of the World I felt like capitalists were maybe 10% responsible. But it doesn't offer an explanation for the other 90%.

In all I felt like Fall of Giants was fine with condemning aristocrats, since they are gone now. But Winter of the World pulls its punches when it comes to Americans or capitalism, since they are still here. No mention of internment camps for Japanese. No mention of fire bombing of Japan. The Wikipedia article on the Manhattan Project focuses more on the interesting parts than Winter of the World.

In general I feel like the book could have visited more interesting parts of the war. Millions starved in India. Japanese troops committed atrocities in China. Why not take a look. The book doesn't even visit nazi death camps. I feel like I read through a thousand pages and still missed all the vital organs of WW2.

What a unique book! The structure is so strange. Stuff happens, then more stuff and more stuff, but I had no idea where we were going basically up to the very end. Between the "stuff" happening, sometimes months pass and the characters settle into a new normal. They make decisions then end up doing the opposite.

Somehow all this adds up to a very life-like story. You may shout "WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT", but you shout at the character, not the writer. The characters are fantastic, with juicy inner lives. The way they work together is perfect.

Bianca is attractive and loves Sophie in her own aristocratic way. She appreciates Sophie's loyalty and kindness. So we can understand why Sophie is in love with her. But Sophie's love is more romantic and passionate. The kind of crazy young love. But she ignores the parts of Bianca that are outside of their room. She wants those to not exist.

Sophie wants Bianca. Bianca wants power. Mouth wants a purpose. Alyssa wants to "make it" maybe?

Even as a stage play it would be interesting. But all these characters are dropped on a tidally locked alien planet. Humanity can only live in the thin twilight zone between the boiling sun and freezing night. While the 21st century reader is used to living on the upward trajectory of human civilization, these folks are on the downward side. They've lost contact with the mothership that brought them here hundreds of years ago. They are losing technologies bit by bit.

And then there are the aliens. I really don't want to give away anything here, but it's very original and just great.

The ending is unique too. It's not a full closure. I can't say I know the fate of the world. Everything is up in the air. A lot of characters have died, but the world is still too small for those that are alive. I would have gladly read more. But it works. The book has told the story it wanted to tell.

This was a great read! It's kind of long and for some reason I read three other books while reading it. That sounds like it failed to keep my attention, but it's the opposite. After finishing some more "urgent" readings I came back to Fall of Giants without fail.

It has excellent pacing. Makes it feel like these years (1911-1925) never had a moment without drama. The story focuses on half a dozen viewpoint characters and a cast of recurring characters around them. We visit Wales, London, the Western Front, Germany, the Eastern Front, Petersburg, Buffalo, and more.

The character plots are excellent. They would stand up just as well in a fantasy universe. Many of them are lovable. But even the negative characters have charisma, and by the end at least we understand their point of view, even if we don't sympathize with them.

What takes the book from good to great, though, is its historical setting. I know very little about history, and I'm willing to believe everything I read. It all looks super well researched, and I'm sure the book would not be so popular if it had glaring inaccuracies. I love the depictions of everyday life and economic differences between countries. How incredible German (Polish?) peasant houses looked to Russian soldiers, how even aristocrats in Germany went starving during the war, how children were put to work at 13 or earlier.

But what will stick with me the most is the condemnation of the aristocracy for everything that was wrong with the world. Fall of Giants smashed all romantic notions I may have had from watching Downton Abbey and showed how inherently evil this system of society was. The world has changed a lot in the hundred years since then and Fall of Giants has left me with a fresh perspective on these changes.

I haven't read much historic fiction but I can now certainly see it's appeal! It's just like a good fantasy novel. (Albeit in a very very low magic setting.) But when I rant about its world and its history my family is willing to hear me out!

I'm sure to read the other two books in the trilogy.

It's a devious crime setup! It's upsetting trying to imagine being in such a scenario. It's a great basis for a plot.

I felt like the delivery was maybe a bit formulaic. I liked that it was anchored hard in 2019 with Bitcoin, Instagram, Tor, Uber making appearances and using iPhones as flashlights with guns in the other hand. But other than that I don't think there are any surprises.

There is one plot twist (Marty's girlfriend being the mastermind) but its delivery felt botched to me. The reader learns it way before the characters, so some scenes (looking up Kylie's GPS trace) feel somewhat impotent. Also it's a bit random. The mastermind hooked up with Marty because he's just so handsome???

The characters obviously go through severe hardships and there is a good amount of writing devoted to examining their anguish and how they try to process the events. This has good potential, but I don't think I got much new out of it. They just grit their teeth, suffer, etc. But it's a bit flat I think. It doesn't manage to give real life to the characters. The main character is a professor of philosophy which is another opportunity that is a bit wasted. (There are no musings on philosophy.) She is also a woman. I think the (male) author did an okay job of writing women, but perhaps a female writer would have been able to make them more real.

But this is basically an action movie in a book form, so I'm not sure all this criticism is warranted. It has an awesome setup, a decent plot, and exciting action scenes. It's a quick read and entertaining. I'm not really complaining! If they make a movie out of it, I'll watch that too.

I wish I had this book in college! There was room to improve my bread, spam & pickles diet! It's so good for beginners. Let me show a few snippets from one of the recipes:

Cover the potatoes with water in a large pot with a lid. Bring the water to a boil over medium-high heat, then turn the heat down to medium and set the lid askew so that steam can escape.

To the point, but detailed.

If the fork pierces the potato easily, it’s fully cooked. If not, boil for 5 more minutes. It’s fine if they’re a little overcooked, but undercooked potatoes are awful.

That's always my question when I'm doing something new! I'm not going to be 100% accurate. Is it better to be wrong this way or that? What are the consequences? How important is this?

Add a generous amount of salt as you stir. Potatoes are very bland without salt!

Highlights pitfalls that are obvious to experienced chefs. Until you start cooking, you're used to using the salt shaker on your plate. You've never tasted unsalted potatoes!

These are from a simple (but novel) potato salad recipe. While the recipes are really practical and cover the basics, they are surprisingly creative and varied! "Chocolate Zucchini Muffins", "Filipino Chicken Adobo", "Deconstructed Cabbage Rolls", and so on. I'm no longer a beginner cook and don't have to eat super cheap, but I still plan to try some of these!

Ann Leckie is back! I loved [b:Ancillary Justice|17333324|Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch #1)|Ann Leckie|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1397215917l/17333324.SY75.jpg|24064628] for its unique perspective (an AI on a spaceship that controls a company of brain-implanted soldiers) and quietly unfolding politics.

The Raven Tower is exactly the same thing! The narrator is a billion-years-old god. We have politics with several human and godly factions. It's all made up of personal connections. And it's all laid out in quiet conversation.

These conversations are fantastic. Everyone is quite reluctant to give anything away. But as they probe each other, you see what they are interested in, what they know and what they do not know. Eolo, the main human character, is especially good at polite conversation where he conceals everything he knows.

The political plot is quite tricky. I understand most of it, but still have some questions. (Why did the Strength and Patience of the Hill promise to fulfill petitions at all?) As it should be!

But one more word about the writing. Just the prose is somehow so calming. The two main characters are both extremely patient. It seems that even the words are somehow made more patient by their presence. There are some action scenes, but even that is somehow made stoic. I read it while I was sick and found this especially resting.

Such an uplifting read! It managed to scratch my space opera itch.

We're in space. Lots of aliens in a galactic alliance. Everyone breathes the same atmosphere and is roughly the same size. Artificial gravity, faster-than-light travel. Your normal "let's not get creative here" setting.

Where the creative part comes in is the cast and the plot. We're on the Wayfarer, a spaceship for digging "sublayer" tunnels, through which FTL traffic can flow from one star system to another. The crew of nine includes five humans, three aliens and an AI.

With a few exceptions everyone is super nice. The captain is a pacifist. They carry no weapons. They story is mainly a road trip to a "small, angry planet". They run into conflicts at times, but these are never settled with force. They don't outwit or otherwise defeat the enemy either. They just come to an agreement or find a legal solution.

I love this book for this. I mean how many times in your life have you been in a conflict? How often was it resolved by force or cunning? Way less often than in novels or films. So this is a nice change of pace.

The story is a bit like a collection of short stories about these characters. You could probably swap around some chapters without anyone noticing. It's not a bad thing. There is not a strong overarching plot or big twists. But still it was a satisfying read. The stories are interesting enough.

I was in the mood for some space opera, and Bradley Horner rated The Outside very highly. I didn't like it.

The book is set in an interesting future. Powerful AI "gods" rule over humanity in the role of omnipotent benefactors. Computers are forbidden technology for humans. The AIs seems to have invented all the sci-fi staples, like artificial gravity and faster-than-light travel. Brain implants, cybernetic limbs, an FTL communication network, portals, gene-manipulated shapeshifters.

It's curious that they did this, because they seem not very intelligent at all. I'm not even convinced they exist. They have an extensive hierarchy of human representatives ("angels"). Every angel has a boss and is afraid of their performance review. The boss can be petty or take undue credit.

This duality of a superintelligence that discovers artificial gravity but relies on bickering middle-managers is quite interesting. A possible explanation is the horrifying idea that an AI would become just intelligent enough to enslave humanity, but would have no motivation to go any further. We would be stuck on a level of technology not because further progress is hard or unfeasible, but because the damn AI doesn't share our desire for progress.

But I think this duality is accidental in this book. It's just a pile of sci-fi ideas. Some are original and some are interesting, but none of it seems to be there for a good reason. None of them are expanded and investigated deeply. They are all just set pieces. I mean we have a living fish that can fly through space, land on a planet, and take off from the planet. It has a room inside for passengers and a door on the side.

Unfortunately the titular Outside gets no more of an in-depth treatment. Throughout the book it remains a boogieman. Chaotic, otherworldly energies, geometries that the human mind cannot comprehend. I mean that's an okay description in a short story. But here we have the main character research this Outside throughout the book. She is a physicist. A physicist would not feel paralyzing dread when faced with incomprehensible phenomena. She would be overjoyed! Finally something outside of the standard model!

In the end I think the book is just a fun romp in a crazy colorful sci-fi setting. Flying fish, cybernetic angels, cosmic horror. Everything is just one more color in this space adventure.

I think I could be on board with that. But the plot! Everything is so silly. I've got to tell you one example!


They are looking for an extremely dangerous person responsible for destroying entire colonies with Outside energies and monsters. They have found her and put a plan in place. Two people, an angel and the reluctant main character fly there. This takes months, but still fortunately the terrorist's spaceship is right there.

The angel boards the ship and has a conversation with the terrorist. He's worried about Outside portals through which the terrorist could escape, but he doesn't see any. He has an implant to block out Outside things, so that they don't drive him crazy. He sees a big blocked-out thing on a wall, but decides it's surely not a portal. Spoiler: it is a portal.

Anyway, he's just distracting the terrorist. The main character in the meanwhile climbs on the outside of the spaceship and places a lot of anti-matter bombs. She gets busted and the anti-matter bombs presumably removed. But this was all part of the plan! The real attack is in her footprints. Her boots were coated in a substance that stuck to the spaceship's outside. It can be remotely detonated for a huge explosion.

But before they would do that, the terrorist of course goes for the portal. The angel is prepared though! He activates the self destruct on his tablet and throws it at the terrorist. Alas, too late.

I mean why didn't they just blow up the whole ship right at the start? Just throw one of those boots at it! Or bring a space fighter instead of a shuttle with two people and no guns. It's just wild, isn't it? Why was this the plan?

Wow, I really didn't like this book.

The premise is great. The world is overrun by zombies. Has been for decades. People live in high-security cities. Everyone is paranoid about outbreaks. Our heroes are not soldiers or secret agents or detectives or scientists. They are bloggers. They are not uncovering the big secret behind the zombie plague or how it can be reversed or an alien invasion or anything "usual" like that. They are covering an election. So cool!

I especially like the scientific explanation and mechanics for the zombies. A protection for the common cold and a cure for cancer combined in unforeseen ways. Everyone is infected! Nobody gets cancer or the common cold. But when anyone dies, the virus activates and they become a zombie. You don't need to be bitten. Have a heart attack and come back a zombie! Of course any contact with the activated virus also activates your infection. If you get bitten, you become a zombie without needing to die first. This is fantastic!

Great ideas. But the execution really fell flat for me.

I think we don't usually get SFF books about bloggers and political campaigns because it's hard to find what makes these people and events exciting. I'm sure they are as exciting for the people living it as debugging a fascinating bug is for me (a programmer). But someone on the outside would have a hard time relaying that excitement. Unfortunately the book felt like someone who has never been close to a newsroom or a campaign trying to do this. "Quick, we have to publish this article!" "Look at the reader numbers!" "We are polling 1% higher now!" This layperson's impression of the world of news and politics is absolutely not enough to sustain a book even if you throw in zombies.

Due to this the book is boring. I read it very slowly. I'm okay with leaving books unfinished, but a zombie book two-thirds through? How could that be boring? I powered through, but it was boring.

The writing is just bad. "Poke/prod a zombie with a stick" is found on pages 9, 10, 108, 183, 280, 300, 324, and 452. I'm not counting the cases where someone actually prods a zombie with a stick. It's just the times when the recklessness/bravery of someone (Shaun) is light-heartedly described. I had too much of this joke on page 10. By page 452 I cannot imagine any reader chuckling along.

Another extremely repetitive scene is the blood test. You get tested when you enter an elevator. You get tested when you leave the elevator. There are very expensive single-use test units. But why?! The virus acts in a few minutes. The tests take a few minutes. A zombie cannot blend in with humans. It seems like you could just hold people up for a few minutes without a test and just see if they turn. I should have counted the number of blood tests described in the book. Maybe a hundred? None of them reveal anything unexpected!

The character interactions are nonsensical. Most importantly the interview with Tate, a presidential candidate. Georgia (the hero) acts a bit silly arriving intentionally 10 minutes late, because she thinks the chief of staff would make her wait 30 minutes otherwise. There is no chief of staff though, she just enters Tate's office directly. Tate doesn't make a big deal out of her being late, but she feels pretty smug about how her plan worked. (?) Then they discuss some policy questions like whether or not you can breed horses. (All large mammals are infected and become zombies on death.)

After that interview, they hate each other. It seems like the author wanted to write a scene where Georgia outsmarts Tate and produces an embarrassing interview. Tate holds a grudge for this. But there was nothing embarrassing in the interview. I've re-read it now. Seriously there's nothing.
Tate's unexplained grudge holds throughout the story and he is revealed at the end to be a cartoon villain serial killer.

Another example. Our heroes have just found a data stick hidden by a dead character.

"The plot thickes," I said. "Shaun, Becks used to be a Newsie. How's she with computers?"
"Not as good as Buffy-"
"No one's as good as Buffy."
"But she's good."
"Good enough?"
"One one way to find out." He held out his hand. I gave him the data stick without a moment's hesitation. The day I couldn't trust Shaun, it was over. Simple as that.

They are talking about whether someone is "good enough" to stick a USB stick in a computer and look at the files. But it's page 512. Georgia (the narrator) and Shaun are siblings and super (super) close. We have seen them do everything together and ready to give their lives for each other. Why would you not trust him to hand over a USB stick to another person?! I mean, she trusts him "without a moment's hesitation". But why write this down? I trust my wife without a moment's hesitation when she hands me a pen. Should I make note of that...?

These weird character interactions led me to grow to hate each character. They all think so very very differently from me. Or they are just badly written. This is a debut novel. So maybe that's okay, and later novels from Mira Grant are great? She's got awesome ideas and writing can improve with experience.

Super awesome! The best book I read this year.

I think it's best if you go in knowing nothing. It's a sci-fi about soldiers. I used a notebook to track the plot but it's not really necessary. And it's really good. That should be enough.

Anyway, I'll write down why I love it. I won't spoil any twists, but I will necessarily tell more of what the book is about.


It's a time-travel story. It probably says so on the back cover, so this is not much of a spoiler. But still I think it's best if you don't know. The main character doesn't know. She just sees weird stuff and people think she's weird. It takes a while for her to realize what's happening. She's making random jumps in time. This is why I used a notebook to track where we were on the world's timeline. It's weird and it's a fantastic plot device.

What I didn't expect was the excellent critique of capitalism. I've read a lot of cyberpunk that go "oh, those greedy corporations!" and "look at the poor people in the slums eating trash!". I'm okay with that setting, but they never really explained what's wrong with capitalism. You could have pollution and inequality and discrimination and poverty in any other social structure just as well.

The Light Brigade is also set in a capitalist dystopia. But Kameron Hurley does explain what's wrong with capitalism. It's so good. It had a real effect on how I view capitalism.

Cool! So it's a book full of time travel and a take down of capitalism, right? No, actually it's not. All the characters are foot soldiers. The book is full of shooting at an enemy you cannot see, running to cover, carrying your bleeding friends around, and shouting for medics. They are not even your friends because of shared interests, a common understanding, or a moral alignment. They are idiots who you would not agree with on anything. But you've been through bootcamp together. And they are the only ones still alive. So they are your friends and you carry them when they bleed.

Time travel, capitalism is bad, war is bad. I don't think the recipe is that simple. Would you get a fantastic book each time you mix those ingredients? There is surely more to what makes The Light Brigade so good, but I can't say what it is. Read it and tell me!