cavalary's reviews
269 reviews

Let's say that the author's heart was in the right place, and he did make some excellent points and put a few other interesting issues up for debate, but he mixed that with a bunch of truisms and plenty of other ideas that are just plain wrong, and then buried it all under an entire heap of horseshit... And using the term may be insulting to the digestive system of horses.
If you roll up your sleeves and get digging, you can get some good things out of this book, but it'll take wading through an attempt to challenge a myth, taken to ludicrous extremes that may unfortunately be believed by many but which are probably recognized as laughable by anyone who'd ever willingly read something like this, by using another that's just as wrong. Add the hypocrisy of those included rants about prophets and lawmakers while obviously striving to become one and the pathetic attempt at a story and I'll say you have much better things to do with your time, whether you want to save the world or not.

I still like Brunner's ideas... At least what I know so far, being only the second book by him that I read.
The problem here is that he didn't get into the interesting part! I'd have been much more interested in a story told by a character addicted to "happy dreams", to see the progression. As it was, I only got glimpses of its effects, the start and the end, nothing in between. Also, it seems like it's just the beginning of a story... Is there a follow-up or he really stopped just where it was getting interesting?

Decent as structure and overall action, ok ending, but not much more.
It is actually made up of three short stories, about 50 pages each, which do end up forming a longer story when put together, but it's still not the same thing.
Also, from a visionary like Brunner, I'd have expected a bit more... vision. So the Spanish Armada defeated the English in 1588 and now Spain rules Western Europe, except the north, and the Americas. But, besides the invention of time travel, the Spanish society of 1988 looks very much unchanged from that of 1588. Misses the technological developments that really happened until then but, with the exception of time travel, adds nothing new to replace them.

Saying that Dawn Cook has a talent for completely ruining a book at the end is an understatement! Did that for the third one in the series as well, but this tops it!
Not that it'd be so good otherwise either. Well written, things make sense, but not much overall.
Again, I won't even comment; left me too bitter.

I like books, but it's really rare that I'm awed by one, yet this managed that. Authors that try to create original fantasy worlds, with new or at least highly uncommon creatures and systems, also tend to make me raise my eyebrows and think twice, because all too often people struggle to just make something different and forget about making it actually good, but this one is once again an exception, creating a rather unusual world and being brilliant at the same time. And the names of the good characters can still make me snicker when I remember them, long after finishing the book.
There is something to be said about the ending, which features unnecessary scenes but remains forced even with them, and those who are bothered by "perfect" characters will find reasons to complain throughout, yet there's simply too much done exactly right in here for a few perhaps questionable decisions the author made about a few elements to mar the overall impression. So just read it, all right?

I'm quite sure this is the first maximum score I give a book in more than two years, but it's completely deserved. Pity I was quite rushed to finish it...
Don't ask exactly why I think it's so good. It's nothing specific and everything combined, that's all I'll say.

Read it through clenched teeth, as every single character annoyed me terribly, seeming like complete morons. But at least I finished it in two days, believe it or not.