Reviews

For a book about giant alien fighting robots, this was actually a surprisingly human story. Pretty well developed characters and well paced plot, but I thought the back half of the book started to lose some intrigue.

I loved the format, how it was entirely dialogue with no narration, that made this story work extremely well as an audiobook. And I very much appreciated that they used different voice actors for each character.

moon_daisy's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.25

You should know, going in to this book, that it takes a sort of "found footage" approach in that the whole story is presented in a series of "documents". Most of these are interviews between an unnamed character and various others.

This is definitely an interesting way to do it. However, I would have liked to see more diary entries, of which there are very few, or even more first-person passages like at the very beginning. The interview format means most of the book is entirely dialogue, which makes it very hard to see the characters introspections or private opinions, or feelings, and feels a little "tell and don't show". (Mostly) everything we hear about has already happened. Anticipated events come and go without all that much build up. It's hard to build attachment to characters in this way, and it's even hard to be compelled by the mysterious discoveries/developments in the story.

I originally picked up the book because I really love this kind of story - sci-fi mixed with global conspiracy and making discoveries that may change the way we think about things. And this does deliver on that, even if I did wish there was more build up sometimes. There's a lot of interesting questions and ideas in here that make you think about them. And I'm aware there is a sequel which I need to check out, which may change how I see this book, I'm not sure.

lightiron's review against another edition

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.0

egavett's review against another edition

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adventurous reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

vodzak's review against another edition

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Holy shit, this book sucks, and it is not for me at all. Characters are laughable, plot is beyond boring. I don't like how the story is told through interviews because it feels like nothing is happening. The interviewer of said interviews is basically an edgelord ("you don't need to know my name", "I have more power than you will ever know", etc.)-- I'm constantly rolling my eyes reading this book.

I usually like to read to halfway in before not finishing a book, but if I'm skimming pages, it's time to move on.

meagan_young's review against another edition

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4.0

This was a fun introduction to this SciFi trilogy. Overall, not a ton happened with the plot. It was mostly meeting the characters, discovering the robot parts, doing research. BUT the audio production is fantastic. It's like listening to a radio series. The book is set up in "files" of interviews, personal journal entries, communications, news reports, etc. so when it's read aloud with a full cast, it really comes to life.

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