This review is just a plot synopsis. There are no quotes from the book to give me a sense of the quality of the writing. The review feels targeted at somebody who is already bought into the premise, not somebody from the outside who wants to know if "There Is No Antimemetics Division" is a good book or not. In that sense, it totally fails as a book review.
I have never read a review and got a true notion of whether the prose is good or not. Is that really why you read reviews? I thought this was a great review because it very concisely described what is an unorthodox book. If you want to see if the prose is any good, read the book. It is a good book by the way.
Yes, I read reviews to learn if a book is good or not. Quotes from the book that are carefully selected often help to showcase what the author is capable of, on top of a clear description of their writing style. I want the reviewer to sell me on what moved them about the book.
This is different than whether or not the reviewer was compelled by the ideas in the book. If the reviewer is a good writer, then I've learned something. Then, I know that somebody who is a good writer thought the ideas in a book were interesting, which by the transitive property, implies the author being reviewed is also a good writer. In this case, I don't think the reviewer is a very interesting writer, so I'm not convinced that they are a good judge of interesting writing.
It sounds like you're describing a summary (which does not deal with quality$ rather than a review (which necessarily deals with quality). The posted writing seems to fall somewhere in between.
I tried making this joke to the author when the book was released ("I purchased the book, but the link just took me to an empty page") and, unfortunately, they didn't get it and tried to give me customer support
Why would you disagree with the parent post and then fail to provide the title of the book in your own response? Just give the name of the book, please.
I dislike the ending, at least of v2. In it, the author basically gives a fleshed out (christian, neoplatonist) metaphysics to the world he's created which basically amounts to: heaven exists, humans win against the devil, etc. And the ending itself is a self-conscious version of an ascension narrative. It's a very 90deg turn ending to a book otherwise more interested in a world in which heaven is never accessible.
It's the strongest possible memetic weapon humans would have - I think it's entirely consistent with the meta-nature of the book, especially the self-conscious part.
If the take is religion is itself the weapon and the depiction given is mere evidence of that, OK, that's at least avoids the ending being totally awful. HOWEVER
The book spends much of its time saying the transcendent cannot even be represented, to people, to us the read -- then just represents it, and in a tawdry christian way.
I think the violation of that norm, as well as the ending being played straight -- with literally a long paragraph explaining with ideaspace is... that's a fourth-wall break into christianity imv
Which makes the whole book read as, "the issue with humans is our physical bodies in a fallen world which are limited. just die, go to heaven, then you can know/represent/understand everything. Yay! Death!"
OK. Just kinda naff.
It reads as a religious person who accidentally wrote a good sci-fi book then hurridly, at the end, reminds us all that its really a parable with a Noble Message that in Death all things are trascended.
I read the book and at no time did I think "Christianity". It seems like motivated reasoning on your part. At no time did the book ever preach, or was even moralistic.
It's surely not a great book and if you are someone who reads a book every few months i wouldn't recommend it. It's very weird and different and fun, though. I suggest it for people who read a lot of sci-fi and are looking for something that doesn't feel the same as 10 other books they've already read.
I'm smack dab in that "reads a book every few months" demographic, and also in that "people who work with formal systems for a living" demographic mentioned in this book review.
I would absolutely recommend it for people in the vicinity of these two demographics. It's worth it for the originality. Both the plot and the storytelling format are very weird and very original.
Yeah my take is the exact opposite. It's such a page turner that the book has become one of my default recommendations for people looking to get back into reading. Of course you have to be a certain type of nerd to appreciate it.
The book was good but I struggled to finish it. You as a reader are encouraged to read because the ideas are so good but then it becomes hard to endure through to whatever resolution was waiting. For those unfamiliar, it will feel something like Momento - you start to feel yourself changing as you work through it. Worth a go for anyone looking for something different.
I wonder if this is for the rewrite or the first version.
I read the first version and thought the first half was good and that the second half felt clunky. To the point where i don’t recommend it to anyone (not a huge negative, there’s just better books out there).
The author’s other stories like Ra and Fine Structure have the same issue, in my opinion. He has interesting ideas, but cannot seem to write an ending.
This review appears to be of the first version despite the recent date. (The rewrite filed the serial numbers off the SCP references and changed character names both for copyright reasons and to provide a degree of separation from the original.)
I read both versions and agree that the second half of the first version was very abstract and difficult to follow. While I would consider the first half of the new version more edited than rewritten, the second half got a significant overhaul which fixed almost all of my issues with it and made for (in my opinion) a much more satisfying ending. I would recommend giving the new version another chance, though those who read the first version may find the new character names distracting. (Most didn't bother me, but Marion Wheeler -> Marie Quinn never felt quite right.)
Same!
I just finished the book a few days ago. The first half is really good, a cool premise and interesting story. The second half just got a bit too weird for me and by the final chapter I was happy it was finished lol.
The first few chapters of that book are some of the coolest I've ever read. I agree it really drops off in the second half, but would still recommend it to people.
The core conceit lent itself so well to a (subverted) introductory "As you know" chapter that I didn't even notice it until I'd read it. Bravo for that alone.
That said, from the review: "open source maintainership as cosmic horror." Genuine laugh.
I think the dynamic pricing algo is on to us - I see $13.99 at Amazon and clicked on a Google Play Books link for $1.99 that then became $13.99 magically, same for Apple Books.
Please don't 'buy' digital items from Amazon, because you won't actually own them. Pay extra, support your local bookshop and get a physical copy which you will actually own.
I really appreciate that sentiment, but on the other hand 98% of the books I buy I won’t read a second time (because reading a new book will almost always trump rereading an old one), so I’m actually fine with not owning most of them, especially at $1.99 prices. The few that I deeply care about I buy a physical copy of.
It's a trade-off. I love the convenience of ebooks, but not owning my books is just categorically unacceptable to me. I want my daughter and anyone else coming after me to have free access to them, not to have to jump through Amazon's hoops (if such hoops even exist) for access.
I have a Kobo that I use to read the non-DRM ebooks I'm able to acquire. One such source is downloads from the Kobo store, when publishers make the non-DRM file available.
I use a kindle but I have never bought a book on the kindle store ever (been using it for 10 years). Totally doable and not hard to avoid... especially since the smaller stores not only have better sales but the author typically gets more money too.
They used to allow downloads of all books, which you could then rip the DRM from, but they got rid of that last year. Huge disappointment, and is why I don't buy books on Kindle anymore.
It's an enjoyable read, hopefully it's the start of a whole new arc in the series with more to come. My only real complaint is it's short and I want more. If you never read his other Interdependency series, it's also great.
TBH, the ending of Ra was a big letdown for me and though I like the small stories, I have the feeling that the author has issue building larger arcs. Still curious about this one and might read it just for the premise.
It's got some provocative ideas, which Stephen foregrounds.
It's got a great hook, and like most writing incubated under circumstances like this, it leans hard into polished sharp introduction into a well-considered world with a very specific flavor.
It's also—no better way to put it—crappy as a novel.
It's not because the author can't string sentences together.
It's because that's not what makes a novel function as a novel.
Epic opening and premise establishment: 10/10
Nice "plot twist", predictable in its inevitability if not its specifics; conforms to genre: 7/10
Narrative arc: 2/10
Ability to sustain meaningful tension and interest while working through the de rigeur mechanics of filling hundreds of pages: 1/10
I get that there is a new readership with different expectations and styles of reading. (Looking at you tiktok; looking at you Dungeon Crawler Carl; looking at most successful YA fiction especially that which gets SPICEY and is released in 8-book series with a new volume every 11 months)
If you're silverback and relish long-form fiction as previously conceived: set expectations accordingly.
I am a "silverback" and have read all of the classics of the SciFi genre and I loved this novel. An unconventional topic like this isn't going to fit all of the norms of writing. I thought it was well written and I love his dialog. I'm looking forward to future work.
This is different than whether or not the reviewer was compelled by the ideas in the book. If the reviewer is a good writer, then I've learned something. Then, I know that somebody who is a good writer thought the ideas in a book were interesting, which by the transitive property, implies the author being reviewed is also a good writer. In this case, I don't think the reviewer is a very interesting writer, so I'm not convinced that they are a good judge of interesting writing.
:)
The book spends much of its time saying the transcendent cannot even be represented, to people, to us the read -- then just represents it, and in a tawdry christian way.
I think the violation of that norm, as well as the ending being played straight -- with literally a long paragraph explaining with ideaspace is... that's a fourth-wall break into christianity imv
Which makes the whole book read as, "the issue with humans is our physical bodies in a fallen world which are limited. just die, go to heaven, then you can know/represent/understand everything. Yay! Death!"
OK. Just kinda naff.
It reads as a religious person who accidentally wrote a good sci-fi book then hurridly, at the end, reminds us all that its really a parable with a Noble Message that in Death all things are trascended.
If you don't like weird fiction, odds are you'll bounce off it.
There is also the rough draft. I've only read the wiki and the first draft of book
Oddly I gifted the actual book away before reading it (I can buy it again, I thought)
I would absolutely recommend it for people in the vicinity of these two demographics. It's worth it for the originality. Both the plot and the storytelling format are very weird and very original.
I read the first version and thought the first half was good and that the second half felt clunky. To the point where i don’t recommend it to anyone (not a huge negative, there’s just better books out there).
The rewrite definitely improves on the ending and its delivery, but it's still largely the same plot, so it may not address all of your issues.
I read both versions and agree that the second half of the first version was very abstract and difficult to follow. While I would consider the first half of the new version more edited than rewritten, the second half got a significant overhaul which fixed almost all of my issues with it and made for (in my opinion) a much more satisfying ending. I would recommend giving the new version another chance, though those who read the first version may find the new character names distracting. (Most didn't bother me, but Marion Wheeler -> Marie Quinn never felt quite right.)
"And at the top of the food chain sits SCP-3125 (renamed in the published edition, but the designation is so perfect I am using it anyway) ..."
Later I read the first version of the book and it was okay, but the vibes were a bit lost.
The new version of the book I didn't even finish.
> The second half was garbage, but the first half was so good
so you had the same reaction?
> but the first half was so good and original I'd recommend it just for that
Attension span so short you couldn't even make it to the second half of the sentence before dismissing it
To anyone confused (like me), the commenters above had opposite recommendations despite having similar opinions of the book.
I haven't seen the short film, so cannot compare.
That said, from the review: "open source maintainership as cosmic horror." Genuine laugh.
Support your local library!
I have a Kobo that I use to read the non-DRM ebooks I'm able to acquire. One such source is downloads from the Kobo store, when publishers make the non-DRM file available.
> At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Not sure how universal that is, but I've seen similar language on several other books.
Wait, OMW book 7? Wtf? Thank you even more! That'll be up next after my Hyperion re-read (RIP Dan)
I liked Ra, but I liked Fine Structures more.
It's got some provocative ideas, which Stephen foregrounds.
It's got a great hook, and like most writing incubated under circumstances like this, it leans hard into polished sharp introduction into a well-considered world with a very specific flavor.
It's also—no better way to put it—crappy as a novel.
It's not because the author can't string sentences together.
It's because that's not what makes a novel function as a novel.
Epic opening and premise establishment: 10/10
Nice "plot twist", predictable in its inevitability if not its specifics; conforms to genre: 7/10
Narrative arc: 2/10
Ability to sustain meaningful tension and interest while working through the de rigeur mechanics of filling hundreds of pages: 1/10
I get that there is a new readership with different expectations and styles of reading. (Looking at you tiktok; looking at you Dungeon Crawler Carl; looking at most successful YA fiction especially that which gets SPICEY and is released in 8-book series with a new volume every 11 months)
If you're silverback and relish long-form fiction as previously conceived: set expectations accordingly.