Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Whalefall has an exciting premise and combThank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Whalefall has an exciting premise and combined with some interesting backstory and character building makes for a solid story overall. I think unfortunately for me when you read the comparison to books like "The Martian" you get an unrealistic expectation of what this book is. Sure, there is quite a lot of scientific information here but the pace is considerably slower and you do not get those constant "MacGyver" moments. This is not a fun story either. It's sad and stark and brutal.
I did really like how the story gives a sense of scale inside the whale and you feel the claustrophobia and helplessness of the situation weighing heavy on Jay throughout. It feels like very real desperation and you experience the conflicting emotions of the instinctual fight for survival and the willingness to just lay down, close your eyes, and let it all be over. While the confluence of events that lead to Jay ending up in the belly of a whale seem pretty unrealistic, once you accept it has happened the struggle inside feels authentic. There is nowhere to go and the cramped confines and limited resources as Jay's disposal fuel the despair.
As far as the structure of the book goes, I think the constant flashbacks to Jay's life, mostly concerned with the complicated relationship he has with his father, really bog down the pace and take you out of the action and drama unfolding. These interludes often serve to setup the next escape attempt, but ultimately I think it takes the foot off the gas a little too much for a story like this. It feels less like a pulse-pounding countdown from 60 minutes of air than I think it should.
In the end there is lots to like here and while I wish the pace were ramped up a little bit, it still moves quick and has lots of action and surprises in store. For a story about someone swallowed by a whale and fighting for his life to escape, there is surprisingly deep character development and while that was not what I expected and hoped for necessarily based on the premise, it works pretty well....more
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Children of Memory is the 3rd in a series Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Children of Memory is the 3rd in a series of truly wild speculative fiction. The creativity, scientific principles, multi-species points of view, and expansive timelines offer a very unique world building canvas and Tchaikovsky takes full advantage. Though each book in the series exists in the same universe and has a lot of characters carryover, the major themes and story feel very different. Children of Memory focuses on the human (little h) explorers from one of the arkships that fled a dying earth and their hardscrabble lives on their new planet. We see a major divergence from the previous two books in the series because no uplift virus is applied here and the motley crew of explorers studying the planet appear more interested in preserving the culture than imprinting their own. It ultimately leads to a story about agency, sense of self, and sentience. There is still plenty of hard science to be found but far more than the previous books in the series this story veers into the soft sciences. While it is a nice twist on the formula and feels like it avoids resting on the laurels of the first two books in the series, I think this one strayed a little too far from the path for me. It may be my own knowledge and curiosity holding me back but the book gradually became more and more confusing and hard to follow. Though rapt throughout the early portion of the book by the end I was going through the motions more often than not. Rather than re-reading certain passages trying to understand what I was reading I would just move on and hope enough was absorbed to keep things on the rails. I love this series and eagerly look forward to reading another if it is written, but this one felt like the weakest of the bunch so far....more
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
It has been six long years since Hugh HoweThank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
It has been six long years since Hugh Howey released a new novel and the wait has been a long one for me who considered him among my favorite authors in the early-mid 2010s. The first novel in this series, Sand, was released way back in 2014 so this has been a long-time coming to say the least. Across the Sand picks up right where Sand left off with its agonizing cliffhanger. Across the Sand follows the same family as Sand but introduces some new characters and whole new perspective with the addition of Anya - a child from the other side of No Man's Land.
While Sand felt like a family drama set within a post-apocalyptic treasure hunt, Across the Sand finds Howey exploring the limits of the sand shifting technology and really leaning into the sci-fi aspects more. I actually feel this serves the book very well because it breathes new life into the excellent world building of Sand and avoids the sequel feeling like a retread of the original. The drama, action, and social commentary from the first are still found here but the stakes are raised and the new perspective added by Anya provides additional depth and understanding of how things came to be.
If you were a fan of Sand I strongly encourage you to strap on your suit and visor and dive back in to this world. One final word of advice though is to brush up on the events from Sand because there is not much in the way of a recap woven into Across the Sand....more
There is a lot to love about this book. The writing is very solid, the story well-plotted out, the characters are well realized, and the central conceThere is a lot to love about this book. The writing is very solid, the story well-plotted out, the characters are well realized, and the central concept is just plain fun. Nell feels like a real person with actual faults and hangups to go along with the good qualities that many authors heap on their protagonists to the point of caricature.
Where the story lost my interest a bit is that it is fairly predictable and so there are several parts where most readers will be 10 steps ahead of the characters waiting impatiently for them to catch up. Additionally, the motivations of the main antagonist still feels kind of murky. Without giving anything away, I still don't fully understand their end goal and why it could not have been thwarted earlier and easier.
Overall this is a fun book and worth a read (or listen)....more
I am fascinated by Franny as a character. She is so well written and has such a complex set of conflicting traits and emotions she feels very unique aI am fascinated by Franny as a character. She is so well written and has such a complex set of conflicting traits and emotions she feels very unique and your heart breaks for her. If I could only use one word to describe this book I would choose "bleak" so go in expecting a rough journey and to look desperately for a light amongst all of the dark....more
Preston and Child books are always fun treads and this one is no exception. They always find a way to squirrel a historical treasure away in some placPreston and Child books are always fun treads and this one is no exception. They always find a way to squirrel a historical treasure away in some place that makes enough sense to suspend belief without it being ridiculous. I like Nora well enough as a main character and think she's the most well-developed of all the characters here. She's driven but not obsessive, tough but not a superhero, and has some stubbornness and other flaws like all humans have. Agent Swanson on the other hand is a disaster of a character and nearly ruins this book for me since she has to bring along her equally bad FBI friends. She's a rookie agent who one again falls ass-backwards into a career defining case in the middle of New Mexico. She's petulant, impulsive, reckless, short-tempered, lacks confidence, subversive, and basically everything an FBI agent shouldn't be. She's the victim of sexism and ageism from literally everyone she ever meets as an excuse to fly off the handle and sermonize. I get it, it's 2021 and some people are still somehow awful about that kind of thing but only one character in this entire book treats her as a normal person doing her job without making some snide comment. It just feels forced and gets super old with every new person she meets.
Anyways, that rant aside, there is still the hallmark adventure, thrills, and twists you expect from the authors here even without the Pendergast lead. It's fun, just don't expect depth here....more
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