Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
Finished up Arrows of the Queen. This is one of my comfort books, i.e. one of those books that I've read a large number of times and that I re-read when I'm in one of those moods. The new narrator did a very good job, definitely recommended.
Next up, Armada by Ernest Cline, narrated by Wil Wheaton. When Armada first came out, it didn't get very good reviews but the first 15 minutes or so has been pretty good. Some of that is Wil Wheaton, one of the better voice actors around. I also suspect that some of that is simply that it's pretty hard to top Ready Player One. We shall see.
|
Just finished Armada. The good - Cline is an excellent word smith who is easy to read and Wil Wheaton is one of the best readers around. The bad - if Cline wasn't such a good word smith and Wheaton wasn't such a good reader, I wouldn't have lasted an hour into the book.
Cline not only telegraphs the story line and ending, he slaps you in the face with it, like he were hitting you in the face with a dead fish. He also manages to invoke every liberal stereotype out there - from evil conservative military conspiracy to (spoiler alert) Nixon starting a interstellar war for no apparent reason. There are numerous plot holes and continuity errors. All in all, it was a book in sad need of a stern editor telling Cline "you can do better than this". The sad part is that with just a little bit of effort, this could have been a really good book. It just seemed lazy to me. It's too bad, because Cline does have talent. It's hard not to compare Cline's second book with Weir's second book. Artemis was a much, much better story. Not nearly as good as the Martian, of course, but much better than Cline's Armada.
Well, next up is Arrow's Flight, book 2 of Mercedes Lackey's Heralds of Valdemar series. Then Monster Hunter Memoirs: Saint, John Ringo's third book from Larry Correia's Monster Hunter universe.