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Philosophy is not interested in being reassuring, and it is not interested in making you comfortable. It’s interested in discovering the truth, and that means being open to the possibility that the truth is horrible.

A lovely book to have on your nightstand and read in every now and then.
The Philosophical questions the book raises are interesting as is the historical context and philosophers that have pondered the answers.
I only wish that the format of the book gave more room for contemplation and to first come up with your own answers. But maybe that was on me and my lack of discipline as I always immediately read the "answer"

just because life amounts to nothing does not mean it isn’t worth living.

What happens when a worker drone suddenly slowly wakes up and becomes sentient? Questioning his existence in the world and his role in the corporate machine. The drone in the book is Derek, the drone in the real world is you. When do you wake up?

"His solitude had mass, and shifted Derek’s personal gravity toward it, pulling him down into a spiral of despair."

"the purpose of a map is to bring people together."

Very, very disappointing.

I love maps, I didn't love this book.
Although the premise is interesting, the story itself is slow and boring.
I only managed to finish the book because I hoped there was going to be an explanation for the weird magic system that was introduced. There was not.

Two stars because of maps, but don't bother and go read another book instead.

I loved the first book and was excited to dive into the follow up as I loved the setting with the living ships and weird nuns. Only this book was sloooooooowwwwwww, nothing really happened besides all these nuns where complaining about what to do with their lives.

Luckily it ended with some space opera shit to make up for it, but geezz, get your act together sisters!

"It was what it was."

And now the unrealized futures of millions were scorched out of existence, like a sky full of stars suddenly darkened.

This is an exciting but dark book.
Gory details of atrocities and human suffering makes this not a fun book to read.
But it's compelling and it takes you into its grip.
The Chinese background/vibe in the story was also very interesting and not something I've read before.
I highly recommend the book, although I'm not going further in the series.
For me, this one book was enough.

I love the products that Tony helped design. I really didn't love this book.
It tries to be a practical guide on how to build products, but it ends up being an experiment on how many feathers Tony can stick up his own butthole.

I guess the book is useful as a guide if you happen to walk the same career path as Tony did, which is of course not possible. So yeah, go read a different book.

"Goddammit Donut!"

This pulpy book feels a bit like a money grab with it's Ready Player One kinda pop-references and Hitchhikers Guide's bizarreness of universal scale. But it works and makes for a fun read.
It's not a hack-and-slash kinda story, but the characters are strangely intelligent, which makes you always curious how they are creatively going to save themselves out of the next situation.

So if you are in to gaming or Dungeons and Dragons and stuff, and don't have anything better to read, pick up this book :)

Tsja, beetje een boek over niks.
Aardig geschreven hoor, daar niet van.
Maar het hoofdpersoon dat we volgen, tjsa ...
hoewel er behoorlijk wat gebeurt in het boek, weet niks echt te pakken.
Zelfs die slag om de blauwbrug niet, daar waar ik het boek eigenlijk voor opgepakt had.

"You're a thinking bag of meat standing on an organic spaceship. And that doesn't seem to bother you. Why should a talking cat make the situation any worse?”

I love when books take you on a journey to the weird.
This book for certainly does.
It starts a bit slow and confusing, but once you get used to that, the universe opens to you.

Highly recommended!

Also: Peaceful is a relative concept.

Lief verhaal over een familie die de nalatenschap van hun moeder moeten verdelen.
Daarnaast wordt er ook wat inhoudelijker in de psychologie van het alles ingegaan.

Het voelde wel heel erg boomer aan.
De kinderen die het moesten verdelen waren allemaal rond pensioengerechtigde leeftijd aangezien moeder 91 jaar was geworden. Dat is toch echt een heel andere generatie dan de mijne.
Ook een gezin met 7 kinderen zie je tegenwoordig niet veel meer.

Maar het rouwproces dat met zo'n nalatenschap gepaard gaat zal wel hetzelfde blijven.
Gaf toch wat inzicht in wat de toekomst zou kunnen brengen nu mijn ouders ook ouder worden.

What a lovely lovely book.
And it's also so British.
Reading it made me smile a lot.
Just lovely.

~ "Change comes when people want it enough" ~

"I didn’t think I would ever get to see the Amazon—mostly because I imagined none of it would be left by the time some zero-emissions flying technology could get me there."

I might have hoped to find some answers for my own eco anxiety in this book, but I mostly got to read a lot of female insecurities and looping thoughts. Not really something I'm a fan of.
But maybe my hopes where too high, as of course we're all doomed and the world is going to shit. We might as well try to not feel to guilty about our hedonistic splurges ... you still need to live, right?
At least that's what the book ended up suggesting.
disappointing

At least I now have a nice slur for mindless consumers:
"professional [] drone[s] for the fiat currency racket."

I always hate it when I start a book and then discover it's part of a series ...

But it was a fun read, although it started out as a boring adventure/dungeon crawl story, the pace and depth picked up in the second half. I truly love Adrian's world building skills and he created some very intriguing things in this book. Only, no spiders ...

‘My children, let us not do that again. I, for one, am too old for shit even vaguely related to that.’

Will is truly an entertainer and I love that he produced and narrated his own autobiography.
I grew up with Will, watching the Fresh Prince and all his movies and I loved hearing the stories around them.
Will tries to be reflective on his life, it feels a bit fake.
He is more honest about his earlier mistakes, but the closer the story comes to the present, the more hollow his reflections feel. His ego is a bit t0o big I guess.
Entertaining listen nonetheless! I give it a 3.5 and would still recommend it.