Book Reviews

very good book, but I can’t help but feel like I should have read this in 2013, not 2023

it is clear twas born from the post-9/11 era, the dust of ground zero still clings unmistakably to it, for good or for ill

wikipedia

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Prince of Thorns quite good, *very* edgy

if it was YA (Lawrence says its not) it’d be, meh still can’t decide if the edgy is condemned or not

worldbuilding is *mwah*, excited to read more

Addendum 2023.03.21: it's an extremely average book at best

beautiful, sobering, poignant
haunting, stunningly relevant

the hardest sci-fi i’ve read in a long time, meticulous and delicate
may be one of my favourite books of the year, maybe of all time
if you like sci fi, read it immediately

a significant improvement over the 1st book (and the first wasn’t bad, mind you)

the lack of edge makes it a lot more enjoyable

worldbuilding still shines through like a gem

just, better imo

Addendum 2023.03.21: the first was bad

goodreads

eldritch, esoteric horror(?) for the 21st century
genuinely a page turner
I dont think calling it horror would be right tbh
not supernatural, preternatural perhaps

excellent

Add 03.21: man, i prefer the other cover a lot more like look at how pretty this is, im torn between buying book 2 and 3 either in that cover style or this cover, with the X

wikip

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on retrospect, the series is not very good
the whole trilogy feels like a first draft, and it really, really has SO much potential especially with the worldbuilding and themes but holistically the plot is unfocused, tonally inconsistent, and so, loose, with pacing all over

the plot of this one DRAGS too, like, there's two simultaneoeus storylines going on, and the 'present' storyline literally is the protag riding a cart halfway across a continent with very little actually interesting
REEDEEMING FEATURE!! there's countless amazing lines that are metal as fuck and it's great; even if occasionally in the goal of making sick quotes some quotes trip up into tangled incomprehensibility
imo book 3 is the best of the three as well

nevertheless i have heard many assurances that Lawrence's work gets exponetially better and the world has so much left unexplored, so, i will read Red Queen's war eventually but, i need a break

goodreads

Morgan does Morgan things
comprehensive and full, Morgan is clearly not stupid and has lots of big ideas to articulate but how much of that comes through? so-so
plot lies just on the edge of needlessly complex; it's very much in the same vein of Altered Carbon

i know, whats the point of writing postreadmusings if you're just gonna post someone else's review? i know, but Martin Petto (@nine_below) has written an EXCELLENT summary of how i feel about certain things in Thirteen here
Petto notes the two starkly contradicting worlds in Thirteen, one intent on serious social commentary, wont to sprout philosophical genetics; nature v nurture; and Islam in the mid-late 21st Century, the other a dirty, grim gumshoe work with violence and a compelling mystery to solve. Not that no book exists which seamlessly marries the two, but Thirteen struggles and fails to be that book.
to steal verbatim from Petto to conclude, "Morgan's approach is problematic but at the same time it is so utterly different to anything else out there that it is almost impossible not to admire it."

There's a sequel, or another fiction set in the same world at least, "Thin Air." will be read soon

wikip

goodreads