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A review by justabean_reads
Serengeti by J.B. Rockwell
Did not finish book.
2.0
DNF about four and a half hours into a ten-hour audiobook.
I really want to like this book, but it just keeps being poorly thought out and it's bringing me down, man. The first three hours of the audiobook (excellently read, by the way) are a space battle, and it's a fine space battle, and it makes sense, but it could be a naval battle with space weapons. At no point to get a feeling of three dimensions. Also the concept of combined fleet tactics only shows up occasionally. They finally get out of the naval battle and have to evacuate the ship, and it's like no one has ever heard of this before. The captain starts looking for each person individually. There doesn't seem to be any kind of muster point. No one has ever drilled this. The escape pod (singular!) has massive design flaws that seem super obvious to me, but everyone else is surprised to run into.
I mean, all of this could be a sign of a decadent empire so wrapped up in its certainty of victory that they're utterly incompetent in the face of defeat, but the book doesn't have any vibe that that's text. The AI who runs the warship, our main character and a great narrative voice, has been through six ship bodies in 50 years. They do get blown up!
Anyway, I love the ship's point of view, and her interactions with the crew are great, but the logistics are killing me on this one. I keep going, "Wow, that's really dumb!" and it might be too much for me to finish. You know what, actually, I can't deal with these design flaws. These people deserve to die in space.
I really want to like this book, but it just keeps being poorly thought out and it's bringing me down, man. The first three hours of the audiobook (excellently read, by the way) are a space battle, and it's a fine space battle, and it makes sense, but it could be a naval battle with space weapons. At no point to get a feeling of three dimensions. Also the concept of combined fleet tactics only shows up occasionally. They finally get out of the naval battle and have to evacuate the ship, and it's like no one has ever heard of this before. The captain starts looking for each person individually. There doesn't seem to be any kind of muster point. No one has ever drilled this. The escape pod (singular!) has massive design flaws that seem super obvious to me, but everyone else is surprised to run into.
I mean, all of this could be a sign of a decadent empire so wrapped up in its certainty of victory that they're utterly incompetent in the face of defeat, but the book doesn't have any vibe that that's text. The AI who runs the warship, our main character and a great narrative voice, has been through six ship bodies in 50 years. They do get blown up!
Anyway, I love the ship's point of view, and her interactions with the crew are great, but the logistics are killing me on this one. I keep going, "Wow, that's really dumb!" and it might be too much for me to finish. You know what, actually, I can't deal with these design flaws. These people deserve to die in space.