Posts
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The Vital Abyss
Short background story of a character I had seen in the TV series but never appeared in a book before.
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Cibola Burn
The gates are open, humanity begins to colonize other solar systems.
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Abaddon's Gate
The third expanse book, still going strong without losing its spirit or retreading old paths.
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Drive
A short story about the breakthrough in ship drive technology that allowed humanity to explore the outer solar system and its inventor, Solomon Epstein.
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The Butcher of Anderson Station
A short story about one of the more important side characters from the first book. Quick and neat, didn’t like the frequent switching between flashback and present though.
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Caliban's War
A well executed successor to the first Expanse book. It further expanded (heh) on things I liked about the first book such as the world building and the relationship between Holden and Naomi. The two new protagonists, Avarasala and Bobbie I had a hard time relating to initially but they grew on me as the story developed. Especially Avarasala, she reminded me of Stratt from Project Hail Mary, a renegade within the bureaucracy working to save the world on her own principles against seemingly everyone else.
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Leviathan Wakes
The Expanse is one of those series (both, books and TV) which have been recommended to me often by many different people. Having read the first entry now, I can see why.
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Project Hail Mary
Having read this right after the other two novels, I think Project Hail Mary is peak Weir.
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Artemis
Initially a bit boring, but the story picked up a lot around chapter 7 and I couldn’t wait to continue every time I put it down. I liked the banter and problem solving, similar to The Martian. Many of the characters felt well motivated and their relationships interesting. I could have done without the constant mentions of the protagonist’s past relationship drama, but it wasn’t too egregious. The world building was solid, a lot of thought was put into how society, economy, and technology might work on a frontier town on the moon.
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The Martian
Log Entry: Sol 9000-something
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Short Fiction (Lovecraft)
A collection of short stories which I found to be of varying enjoyment.
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The Dunwich Horror
Having read so many shorter stories recently there were multiple points in the story when I expected it to be the end. It was nice becoming invested in a slightly longer story again, I particularly enjoyed the part about cryptography. The titular horror was very interesting while the story developed, but slightly disappointing in the end.
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The Shadow over Innsmouth
The longest Lovecraft I have read so far.
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The Return of the King
Loved it, though a bit melancholic at the end. The penultimate chapter felt like a stylistic return to the hobbit book in a nice roundabout way.
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The Art of War
By far the oldest book I’ve read so far. I didn’t get much from its contents, but was a curious glimpse into past interpretation of battlefields.
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Alien: Romulus
Generally, the Alien franchise has declined over time as is sadly quite common. Sequels often fail to live up to fan expectations and continue to get worse.
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The Two Towers
Good continuation of the series, liked the first film more though.
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The Two Towers
The first half was awesome, but the second one felt a bit too drawn out.
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The Fellowship of the Ring
I couldn’t have asked for a better adaptation.
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The Fellowship of the Ring
I began reading this book immediately after finishing The Hobbit and the was taken aback by the difference in writing style.
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The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Although shorter than the previous two films, the neverending action was quite exhausting.
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The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
2/3 of the hobbit films. Didn’t like nearly as much as the first one.
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The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Even though this film is over a decade old, with the CGI looking a bit dated and the colors being quite garish at times, I still thought it still looked incredible.
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The Hobbit
A jolly little story of a hobbit turned adventurer, thief, and savior.
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Dune: Part Two
I must not hype.
Hype is the fun-killer.
Hype is the little-death that brings total disappointment.
I will face my hype.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the hype has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. -
Death's End
This book is again translated by Ken Liu who had already translated the first book of the trilogy. It features the same eloquent language as well as the linguistic and cultural translation footnotes I had already praised then.
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The Dark Forest
First, if you don’t know already, I would recommend not to look up the titular concept before reading. While I had heard of it before, I didn’t remember any details and enjoyed discovering it along with the characters.
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The Three-Body Problem
Never would I have thought mixing hard-scifi with some cosmic horror could work so well. I haven’t been this captivated by a book since the original Dune.
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Kangaroo Manifesto
More well rounded than the first book.
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Kangaroo Chronicles
Amusing satire about a communist kangaroo living together with the self-insert character of the author.
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First Post
idk, first post or something
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The Hydrogen Sonata
The final Culture novel, since Banks died half a year after publication. Story and characters are solid but what makes this one really stick out main focus being on a species that is about to sublime.
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Surface Detail
Another really good but sadly the penultimate entry of the Culture series. Felt quite short, even though it’s one of the longer books. Time really flies when doing something one enjoys…
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Matter
Pretty mixed overall. The first 80% of the book are merely set-up and certainly feel that way. The ending is good… but not great and too short to justify the long wait.
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Look to Windward
The seventh entry in the Culture series and a story about the consequences of war, revenge, grief and identity.
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Inversions
Maybe something regarding the narrative structure first: The book consists of two almost unconnected stories and the chapters take turns telling one or the other.
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Excession
Pretty cool but somewhat convoluted story.
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The State of the Art
An anthology comprising eight short stories of varying length with the titular story taking up more than half the book. I found the stories themselves to be of wildly different taste too.
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Windows Search Is Terrible
Windows start menu search is terrible. I cannot think of a time where the Smart-AI-ntellisearch Customized-Experience™ gave me better results than a simple substring search would have. Even worse, often it simply does not return any result that I would have wanted.
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Dark Theme in Outlook
What would be reasonable locations to find a dark mode toggle? Well, it turns out that the setting is under File -> Office Account -> Office Theme. -
Use of Weapons
The weirdest book I’ve read so far in terms of narrative style. There are two interleaved and converging story lines, one going forward and one in reverse chronological order. The story in general and the parts going backwards especially - since they contain nested flashbacks - are a bit confusing, but it falls neatly into place towards the end. Somewhat reminiscent of the film Tenet.
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The Player of Games
The second book in the Culture series, yet unrelated to the first book. Most of the story takes place outside the space actually controlled by the Culture but it still offers more insights into the society than it’s predecessor.
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Consider Phlebas
An action packed and witty space adventure about a changer (shape shifter) caught in a war between a post-scarcity civilisation - The Culture - and the Idirans - a zealous group opposing the Culture’s hedonism on religious grounds. The first book of Banks’ Culture series.
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Sandworms of Dune
The final (eighth) book of the main Dune septology. Set directly after Hunters of Dune, this book covers the conclusion of a war between humanity and the thinking machines that began over fifteen thousand years ago.
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Hunters of Dune
Either Dune 6.5 or 7. This book and its successor are based upon a two-page outline for Dune 7 by Frank Herbert, which he never got around to write before his death.
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The Last Command
The new republic is at risk of being overrun by Thrawn’s clone army produced by his reactivated and enhanced cloning facility. Luke, Leia, Han and Mara have to find and destroy it and the dark jedi master C’baoth before the army grows too large.
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Dark Force Rising
Second book in the Thrawn Trilogy. Less setup than the first one but more action. Yet it ends with sufficient tension to pull you right into the third one. Loved it.
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Heir to the Empire
Once canon, now banished to “Star Wars Legends” non-canon territory. Features some interesting characters and plot points even though it’s missing the sense of grandeur and depth that I got from Dune.
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Chapterhouse Dune
The sixth and final entry in Frank Herbert’s Dune series. Certainly not my favorite Dune book but it does provide a decent conclusion to the things set up in prior books.
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Heretics of Dune
I actually finished this one about a week ago and have since started reading the final Dune book by Frank Herbert: Chapterhouse Dune
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God Emperor of Dune
By far the most unusual entry in the series so far. There’s a lot more commentary on social issues, statecraft, and psychology than in the previous ones, although they had quite a bit of that too.
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Children of Dune
A bit slow in the middle, but the end made it well worth the read. Lots of characters with their own goals and ideals often not knowing each others’ intentions. The resulting amount of intrigue and power dynamics are something I quite enjoyed in the previous books as well.
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Dune Messiah
I wrote the Dune series because I had this idea that charismatic leaders ought to come with a warning label on the forehead “May be dangerous to your health.”
~ Frank Herbert
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Dune
There is just something about the attention to detail that truly makes this book feel like a work of love. It is a coming-of-age story and a hero’s journey, filled to the brim with little nuances, quotes, and intrigues.