Category: packetcat reads 2022

Pages: 411
Purchased from: Kobo

The word I would describe this book would be…anticlimactic. After reading the first book of the series last year I was looking forward to reading this second book so I had it preordered. I don’t think I disliked the experience of reading this book but my high expectations coming in left me mildly disappointed.

The book’s plot felt like it was meandering until the last quarter of the book or so. Most of it felt like setting up events for the next book in the series. Some of that set up was important character development but a lot of it felt extraneous.

Pages: 318
Purchased from: Kobo

This is the first time I’ve read a book by John Scalzi and I gotta say I’m a fan of his style already. Fast paced space opera that doesn’t meander with interesting characters had left me thirsting for more by the end of it. Also I gotta mention this, Scalzi has the highest amount of characters swearing in a book that I’ve seen in a good while. It never feels overdone however so it only serves to make the characters feel more human.

Definitely placed the sequel in the wishlist for later!

Pages: 432
Purchased from: Kobo

This book feels like a spiritual predecessor to A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine which is quite possibly one of my most favourite sci-fi books of all time. This book deals with the themes of colonialism/imperialism, identity and empire just like Martine’s book does. The books are obviously not 1-to-1 copies but if you liked Martine’s book you really should check this one out.

I found the way the book deal with the concept of split personalities particularly interesting. I am very curious how the concept is further developed in the sequels to this which I have added to my wishlist.

Pages: 556
Purchased from: Kobo

Meandering and confusing, this one is filled with way too many threads spanning multiple timelines leading to a tangled mess that doesn’t entirely get untangled by the time the end approached.

The book needed some more editing to make the narrative a bit tighter because there is an interesting story underneath, there’s just a lot of extraneous stuff on top of it.

Pages: 603
Purchased from: Kobo

A perfectly average sci-fi novel. I don’t have anything particularly strong to say about this one. The premise of the novel is the most interesting bit of it and all of that doesn’t come fully into play until the very end of the book which leaves me primed for the sequel.

I did add the sequel to the wishlist but I don’t see myself getting to it anytime soon.