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Nothing to do with the actual book, but one of my favorite things about Cibola Burn is that they couldn't get the usual guy to do the audio book reading. As a result, the Belters had weird Australian accents. The reader was just terrible in general. It was so bad, they re-did the audio book once the previous reader's schedule permitted and I think gave the new version free to those that bought the garbage one.
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Feb 14, 2019 03:02
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Yeah, I don't know how other places handled it, but Audible just swapped the versions one day. The original was rough enough that I started looking more critically at the whole series.
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Feb 14, 2019 03:17
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Toast Museum posted:Yeah, I don't know how other places handled it, but Audible just swapped the versions one day. The original was rough enough that I started looking more critically at the whole series. I like the idea that every big fan of the Expanse novel series eventually has a "Wait a second..." moment, which seems to be true from what I've seen anecdotally.
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Feb 14, 2019 07:18
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It's cool that they did that, as the narrator of the 4th book was definitely... different. It reminds me of the multi-cast version of Dune that for some reason is still main version being sold after like being released in 2007. It's a full cast except for maybe a fourth of the book where they ran out of money and just re-released the previous version with a single narrator? Suddenly the Baron goes from sounding like a big deep voice to Scottish for an entire chapter and then switches back after.
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Feb 14, 2019 08:41
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Did anyone read the preview chapters Amazon posted by mistake? I read the prologue but not the rest of them. They also posted the epilogue for some strange reason.
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Feb 22, 2019 00:14
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Uterine Lineup posted:They also posted the epilogue for some strange reason. Was it spoilerific?
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Feb 22, 2019 00:18
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Collateral posted:Was it spoilerific? I'd assume so but reading the prologue and the epilogue for a book seems like a really dumb way to go about things. Prologue certainly starts off strong though.
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Feb 22, 2019 00:27
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Collateral posted:Was it spoilerific? I saw alleged claims of deaths. Could have been trolling, though.
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Feb 22, 2019 00:44
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From looking at a thread on reddit, it seems even worse than that. Some people got about 12 chapters (probably 1/4 of the book); some got seemingly random slabs of pages from throughout the book. Total mess.
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Feb 22, 2019 01:10
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This shits out this week. At least, I'm being charged for it.
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Mar 25, 2019 04:18
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I'm 3/4 done with PR and I intend on finishing it tonight and I think its important to remember that the authors intend the Expanse to essentially be 3 separate trilogies. Books 1,2,3 then 4,5,6 and now 7,8, 9. A lot of complaints as per not giving us enough kind of ring hollow since book 7 is just, basically, the first book out of 3. This is the beginning of the end. Even book 8 will leave things unfinished, we still have 1 to go after tomorrow (and 3 novellas/short stories left too). I think Elvie grew a lot during book 4. People mark that she was horny for Holden and that's it, but her whole thing was growing out of being boy crazy I guess. I really liked her POV's in CB, they were the primary means by which we explored the precursor's technology. It is only natural that we return to Elvie now that the precursors/precursor killers are coming to the forefront. I think we will not only see a lot more PM craziness but we'll get some satisfying revelations out of it. I think it might be kind of an obvious prediction but I think we are gonna see either a return of the lovecraftian cosmic horrors that killed the PM creators, or Laconia is gonna get hosed super hard in a doom-of-valyria style mystery cataclysm. Finally I don't think the 30 year jump was bad. I liked it.
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Mar 26, 2019 01:34
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Oh poo poo I forgot this book was coming out now. When does the download go live? I want to read!
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Mar 26, 2019 05:14
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Do we know how much time has passed between the 7th and other books? Seems like a couple months but could be a year or so...
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Mar 26, 2019 13:07
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Chamberk posted:Do we know how much time has passed between the 7th and other books? Seems like a couple months but could be a year or so... Another 30 years
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Mar 26, 2019 15:36
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It’s at least several months. The first line death took an unknown time to occur, then it’s four months after that in the prologue. Edit: Pretty sure an important character has been missing two years at the start, so a bit longer than that? Edit 2: Duerte mentions at one point Holden has been his prisoner for a few years. Drone Jett fucked around with this message at 18:37 on Mar 26, 2019 |
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Mar 26, 2019 18:16
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Chamberk posted:Do we know how much time has passed between the 7th and other books? Seems like a couple months but could be a year or so... Four years. Teresa Duarte is ten in the epilogue of book 7, she's 14 now.
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Mar 26, 2019 20:31
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I finished it and (no spoilers) I liked it more than I thought I would. I thought it was put together well and very consistent with everything they've explored in the earlier books. As they get nearer the end, the whole series seems very thematically coherent. That sounds like faint praise, but plenty of other authors never managed that much. All the alien stuff was sufficiently eerie for me, although I haven't read that much sci-fi so maybe I'm easy to please in that way. I have my pet theories about book 9, but I'll save them until more people are done and spoilers aren't as much of a concern.
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Mar 26, 2019 20:41
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I read through the first 7 books over the summer after getting hooked on the TV show and I think I'd rank this one up there as one of the better ones. Like Sarern I also don't read a lot of sci-fi and enjoyed all of the stuff about the protomolecule creators/whatever it was that killed them.
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Mar 27, 2019 15:41
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I question Laconia’s logistics capabilities if it took four years to resupply their most important ship after it was damaged and used up ammo for it’s big gun.
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Mar 27, 2019 18:35
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Drone Jett posted:I question Laconia’s logistics capabilities if it took four years to resupply their most important ship after it was damaged and used up ammo for it’s big gun. I did really like the difference between how Laconia appeared to its victims in the previous book and how ineffective parts of it were in this book. Book 8 vague spoilers: a large organization wrote checks it couldn't cash by not appropriately planning for maintenance of their project after implementation. Which, having worked in large organizations, I found very realistic. Everyone talks about the exciting beginning, no one plans for the risks and problems of keeping everything working four years later. I have no trouble picturing the captain of the ship begging for more ammo and HQ saying "sorry, we need the antimatter for this new project you have to wait".
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Mar 27, 2019 19:04
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I just got book 8 (TW) because I pre-ordered it but by the time I was done reading 7 (PR) I kinda feel like checking out. The thirty year time skip was seriously jarring even if I get they did that to give Laconia time to become a threat and Earth to recover from almost certain annihilation because it simply put the main cast in stasis in the interim until PR started. Since I have the book I'll read it but it's going to have to do a lot to regain my interest. So... The series has a definite end in mind? I might slog through to the end just for maybe closure with whatever it was that killed the gate builders, but before diving into 8 (TW) it sort of feels like they're leaving things as open as possible so my hopes aren't high for closure. frogge fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Mar 27, 2019 |
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Mar 27, 2019 19:22
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Sarern posted:I did really like the difference between how Laconia appeared to its victims in the previous book and how ineffective parts of it were in this book. Book 8 vague spoilers: a large organization wrote checks it couldn't cash by not appropriately planning for maintenance of their project after implementation. Which, having worked in large organizations, I found very realistic. Everyone talks about the exciting beginning, no one plans for the risks and problems of keeping everything working four years later. I have no trouble picturing the captain of the ship begging for more ammo and HQ saying "sorry, we need the antimatter for this new project you have to wait". I assumed that after wiping out most of the UN/MCRN fleet that they weren't in a rush to send over the antimatter when they needed it for building the 3rd ship. It took them 30 years to build almost 3 ships so maybe antimatter production is a very slow process even accounting for the time spent initially learning how to use the platforms. The only reason Bobbie's plan worked was because they had a stolen ship with advanced tech and an antimatter bomb otherwise it was essentially unbeatable. My only disappointment was I really wanted to know what would happen to the bullet on board if it tried to go through the gate.
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Mar 27, 2019 19:53
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Uterine Lineup posted:. My only disappointment was I really wanted to know what would happen to the bullet on board if it tried to go through the gate. I didn't even think of that. I don't remember the bullet being described as surviving after the ship blows up, but I guess how would you find it randomly in space
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Mar 28, 2019 02:43
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Amos and the repair kids should be interesting next book. The slow zone getting wiped clean except for the station (has no one been in it since Holden?) and the aftermath was cool. Big smart dictator being not being so smart after all was kinda annoying in that it didn't feel like anything he did was smart as a reader was frustrating. Grandiose maybe, but for the decisions regarding the mystery dudes...I dunno about that. Also him murking that dude was cool. Holdens long game I could've done without I guess but he's the main guy kinda so I suppose that'll happen.
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Mar 28, 2019 03:34
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Wow, that was really good! I liked this one a lot better than the previous book, I think having gone through the previous book and having had a year between the shock of the time skip was gone and the characters felt normal again. I'm very excited to see how we wrap it all up in the last book. Spooky.
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Mar 28, 2019 04:00
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Drone Jett posted:I question Laconia’s logistics capabilities if it took four years to resupply their most important ship after it was damaged and used up ammo for it’s big gun. Given the unexpected consequences of using that big gun in realspace, and the other projects that they needed the ammo for, I can understand why it wasn't the first priority. Not like it wasn't capable of taking care of any Sol based resistance without it. Just finished it and really enjoyed how they're pulling the pieces together, a hell of a lot happened in this book and I'm here for the conclusion. Also Goddamn Amos, last man standing indeed.
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Mar 28, 2019 04:49
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I really enjoyed that the "goths" are apparently some form of intelligence and not just the builder aliens tech running up against the laws of the universe, was afraid they'd take the easy way out Also, "Like a fuckin' Valkyrie" 
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Mar 28, 2019 05:05
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I need to preface this by saying that I read the last 5/6ths of the book straight through yesterday during basically all of my free time, so I thoroughly enjoyed it and was seriously invested in the story. But man, the authors are just so weirdly inconsistent in their talent. The writing is...just not that good at times. The prose itself is pretty simple, there's a lot of clunky exposition, and the viewpoint chapters mean that we're constantly swapping plots (although that might just be my own personal annoyance.) The first chapter with Teresa was strange, and initially made me think she was kind of an idiot. Stuff like saying she had a lot of math equations up on her walls, even though she didn't understand what they all meant, because she liked being reminded of her intelligence, immediately made me think exactly the opposite. And then there's another line about how her head felt thick and it meant she was thinking hard about something, and it was a simple explanation of the prisoner's dilemma. It wasn't until I read another few of her chapters that I realized they were just clumsily trying to get across being in a distracted, isolated teenager's head. And even after I got my head around the idea of her being a reasonably smart kid, I still felt like they hadn't really laid any groundwork for her to go all Imperial Highness on the battleship's captain, or be haughty and mean to everyone on board the Roci. And yet the setting is compellingly realized, the story is fantastic, and they get across the kind of elegant symmetry in the plot that George Lucas could only ever dream about. The most fascinating thing to me is the Goths, who predictably took a backseat in the latter half of the book to humans making bad decisions as always. I don't know if I've ever read about an alien species that's quite so otherworldly, like (to borrow a metaphor from the book) humanity in our universe is just water to them, and they're just swiping their hands through the river and tearing out a random puddle that happens to include Elvi's leg, Sagale's head, and random bits and pieces of their ship. And maybe overloading the gates with travelling ships makes the water too hot and provokes a response? I also thought Duarte getting lobotomized was going to feel like a cop-out, but it ended up being pretty logical the way it all played out. Of course the Goths weapons are going to be more effective against him, he's half protomolecule now, and that's what their weapons are targeted to kill. I also felt like he'd earned his transition into magic disintegration wizard, too. Sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable from magic, and all that. I thought it was necessary but annoying to have all the characters so scattered after the events of Persepolis Rising, so I'm definitely stoked for the next book now that they've gathered the crew together on the Roci again. Just Holden, Naomi, Alex, and Zombie Amos.
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Mar 28, 2019 15:46
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I just found this thread, absentmindedly looked at some spoilers, saw character names I hadn't heard before and so I found out book 8 is out.  Good timing, I could use some less pretentious prose after marathoning John C Wright's Golden Oecumene.
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Mar 28, 2019 18:50
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One thing that's kinda odd about the past two books is that Filip I guess just went back to his home planet and isn't going to matter in the rest of the narrative?
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Mar 28, 2019 23:09
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ATP_Power posted:One thing that's kinda odd about the past two books is that Filip I guess just went back to his home planet and isn't going to matter in the rest of the narrative? I wonder the same thing. They are pretty consistent about bringing characters back, like Prax in prior books. As far as I know, in addition to his son Kit, Alex has another kid he doesn't know about. It's mentioned in earlier books as part of Earth's background on him. So what I mean by bringing that up is that it wouldn't surprise me if Filip was gone the same way Alex's oldest kid is. Part of that is wishful thinking, because I don't want them to bring him back.
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Mar 28, 2019 23:26
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Phenotype posted:I need to preface this by saying that I read the last 5/6ths of the book straight through yesterday during basically all of my free time, so I thoroughly enjoyed it and was seriously invested in the story. I think it's because the books have a lot of cruft in them. Like, Leviathan Wakes is 180k long but I think you could slim it down to somewhere between 100-150 without much loss. They do like their exposition and lots of details that I'm not sure add much to the story. I really noticed this in Chapter 11 of Tiamat's Wrath (and I think one of the earlier Naomi chapter), but it's something in all of the series. They write well enough that when we hit, like, 600 words of what one character did for eight days to pass the time, it doesn't really make me sigh and think they should just get on with the story, but it feels like it's unnecessary. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Mar 29, 2019 |
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Mar 29, 2019 01:31
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This book definitely felt more tight than the last few which I appreciated, even with it still at 500 pages. Hopefully they are able to do as well with the final book.
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Mar 29, 2019 01:41
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I have a suspicion that one or both of the authors read Dune recemtly because there are 2 explicit references (Holden says "spacing guild" in book 6/ mentions burrowing worms the size of starships in book 8) Also the Singh plot in book 7 is eerile similar to how Baron Harkonnen was planning on using beast rabban
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Mar 29, 2019 04:11
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Phi230 posted:I have a suspicion that one or both of the authors read Dune recemtly because there are 2 explicit references (Holden says "spacing guild" in book 6/ mentions burrowing worms the size of starships in book 8) Not too surprising given that their next series sounds like it's going to be a Dune-esque space opera.
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Mar 29, 2019 05:44
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Phi230 posted:I have a suspicion that one or both of the authors read Dune recemtly because there are 2 explicit references (Holden says "spacing guild" in book 6/ mentions burrowing worms the size of starships in book 8) I think they're a little different. Singh was the useful idiot who illustrated that Laconian law was absolute, Feyd and Rabban was less about proving an abstract concept and more just good cop/bad cop on a planetary scale. The method is kinda similar, but the point wasn't the same. If the goal was to have Major Overstreet be embraced by the people of Medina as a principled hero who saved them from the vicious Singh, it would line up more. Defiance Industries fucked around with this message at 07:42 on Mar 29, 2019 |
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Mar 29, 2019 07:39
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I really enjoyed TW but I can't help feeling like it was another rehash of the same plot from every other book. I guess I keep expecting the other shoe to drop with the Goths, changing the landscape entirely again like it did in AG. It still feels like we need another two books to resolve all the PM/Goth stuff. I'm going to be real sad when the series is over though. It's such a fun series and I love all the ways the authors have come up with to kill people with science. I really hope the show makes a full run.
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Mar 29, 2019 07:48
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Started rereading PR after finishing TW, and there’s an early scene of a science pitch to Drummer looking for a Rosetta Stone out there capable of translating protomolecule stuff. Foreshadowing the key Macguffin of the final trilogy, it seems.
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Mar 29, 2019 15:56
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Speculation about book 9’s title: I note that Marduk killed Tiamat using the winds, and Laconia’s ships all have wind/storm themed names. Weird if Duerte has some redemptive role in it.
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Mar 30, 2019 00:51
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Don't watch the Stimutacs episode of Sealab or else you'll be spoiled
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Mar 30, 2019 04:29
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