sagareads's reviews
132 reviews

I didn't actually have high expectations going into this one, since I had to bail from The Ruin of Kings because I couldn't keep all the fantasy names and politics straight (and I usually have quite a high tolerance for name-dropping). But I really enjoyed Sky on Fire!

The fact that the first 50+ percent of the book is a linear narrative from a single perspective definitely prevented the kind of disorientation that pushed me from The Ruin of Kings -- I actually found the way the author gradually introduced lore that would become important later quite skillful. I liked the characters -- especially Anarhod, who made a great narrator -- and found the world-building intriguing, plus the prose was snappy.

The pacing was a little uneven in places; I was never bored, necessarily, but the book did feel much longer than 450 pages. I did wish a few characters had gotten more meaningful arcs, and a few loose ends went unresolved, though I didn't really mind that some elements remained mysteries. However, while the book ended rather abruptly after its climactic action scenes, I did find its conclusion satisfying, especially given that the book already felt long and I didn't really have much interest in reading more nitty-gritty details about how the world developed after the resolution.

Also, some of the reveals about the hidden truths of this world felt a little rushed or otherwise poorly executed, especially when a character suddenly discovered an entire realm of magical theory previously kept strictly hidden -- since this happened in the middle of a high-stakes chase, it felt like this discovery didn't get the space it deserved.

Despite these flaws, though, I would definitely recommend The Sky on Fire -- it was a fun read, well worth my time.

I would have enjoyed this space opera plus lesbian romance about unwanted outcasts struggling to locate a dangerous extradimensional creature when their superiors fail anyway, but one element really elevated it to greater meaning for me: the treatment of a lead character's neurodivergence.

Autistic-coded Việt Nhi has spent her life ostracized because she's too honest, sees people too clearly, and doesn't conform to social standards. She's given up on bonding with others; her bluntness eventually drives away even those who are initially friendly. And yet, in a passage that stood out, Hạc Cúc's point of view emphasizes that the same neurodivergent traits that have made Nhi an outcast are the qualities that attract Hạc Cúc to her, describing Nhi as the peak of desire because she is perceptive but blunt and nonconforming. To have a love interest not only accept a character's neurodivergent traits but actively praise them meant a lot to me.

Really sad to give up on this one, as I love the premise, but by the end of the first chapter, it was a slog; by chapter 3, I gave up completely. The characterization and lore-building was rather clumsy, but I would have stuck with it longer if the prose weren't so poorly-crafted at the paragraph level. The author used the same structure for what felt like 90% of their sentences, so the prose had no rhythm or flow to it whatsoever.

Barely made it through the first two chapters because the science part of this sci fi felt really implausible; the character interactions early in the third chapter were the last straw, convincing me not to waste more of my time.

I'm overall not super stringent about sci fi needing to be scientifically accurate, but I'd rather have an author just hand-wave away how things work and make up some jargon rather than name-drop real scientific concepts in a way that only makes their understanding look ridiculously shallow.

For example, at one point the characters were explicitly told that they'd switch to traveling at near-lightspeed once they left the Oort Cloud. But the far edge of the Oort Cloud is 3.2 lightyears from the Sun -- and their destination, Proxima Centauri, is only 4.6 lightyears from the Sun. So the characters were going to travel the first 70% of their journey at sublight speed (fun side note: we estimate that it'll take one of our Voyager probes 30,000 years to exit the Oort Cloud at its current speed), then switch to the fast speed for the final 1.4 lightyears.

Also, as other reviews have mentioned, the characters are supposedly late 20's/early 30's STEM majors -- at least three of whom either have doctorates or are working on them -- but they speak and act like YA protagonists. And, except for the abandoned spaceship, the characters seem to live in a world that's socially and even technologically identical to our 2024 -- they even mention watching TikTok -- despite the fact that it's supposedly 2061.

Didn't like the writing style. Plus, the frequent point of view changes made it difficult to get invested in any of the characters, since I rarely got to spend more than a chapter at a time with them.