Reviews and Comments

Not sure how much I liked it, the plot wasn't great, but the writing was good so I finished it - it definitely should have been shorter.

First off, this book was very engaging throughout. The author clearly mentions the references he has used and what their credibility is, so you know when you should take things with a grain of salt. The time period described in the book is right in the middle of the industrial revolution, and it is really fascinating. This is a time period that I feel has been the setting of much media, but maybe just as a backdrop, imagine England with sooty skies, cold winter, poverty, child labor, factories, etc. think a typical Dickensian novel. It's a common setting for a lot of fiction (because it's a period of much change and also quite an easy setting for pain and tragedy?), yet a new perspective about , and all the negatives that were really innovated in this era (child labor, factories, factory towns, anti-unionization laws, collusion, etc.). This period is not the only thing that the book talks about though; throughout the book, the author is engaging with the reader to think about how modern tech giants are doing the same things still, and to a much greater scale.

full review at: ntavish.in/blog/book_luddite/

I usually don't mind when books start in the thick of things, but an audiobook was the wrong medium for this one. It's not a very standard fantasy and maybe I'd have liked it better if I had read it.

I liked it. Coming from his other books, it's a space opera, and it's very different from the 'Children of time' books, which fall under Hard sci-fi.