Reviews and Comments

I had lots of fun reading this. And the audiobook is read by Will Wheaton who brings his wry humor into it.

While I'd read FUZZY NATION (also masterfully read by Will), there was a lot more humor in VILLAIN and KAIJU PRESERVATION SOCIETY. It seems I need to start going through John's other novels like the OLD MAN'S WAR stuff.

I read this in high school in 10th grade while I was taking Biology. The social structure of the future society didn't touch me as much as the description of embryologic development. Now 50 years later, it seems like it was almost prescient in it's prediction of the stratification and polarization of society. I'm still debating internally if the MAGAidots are Betas or Gammas.

An interesting view into what it was like to live and work in PRC during Mao's reign of terror. Switching back and forth between the two cultures (alien and earth) was interesting. I didn't have as much of a problem with the "gimmick" used by the alien culture to communicate with earth but boy did my friends who were physicists. They categorically reject the book. I liked it enough but not enough to watch the series being made of it or read the the rest of the books in the series. YMMV.