sleepey's reviews
74 reviews

This book is infamous among Metal Gear fans for being a terrible adaptation, & it often comes up alongside the same handful of really bizarre quotes (like the one where Snake randomly says Merry Christmas to a couple of guys he's knocking out), so I was curious to see how unhinged it would get. Unfortunately (?) it turned out to just be... kind of good actually?

The worst lines all come out in the first few chapters & then the rest is just a super readable retelling of the story. Maybe a little campier than the original script but you soon settle into it. There are some minor changes here & there, mainly to fit the format better or to foreshadow the later games, all pretty positive honestly.

I don't think a person who's never heard of MGS would really get much out of this. But if you've played the game & it's been a while & you want to relive the story (but as a book for some reason) I'd say it does the job pretty well.

I was really pleasantly surprised by "The Aliens' Mate" so I went back to pick up some more from the same author. I don't think "The Minotaur's Mate" quite reaches the same level of quality (the protag is a little annoying & the story gets kind of muddled & I feel like they didn't actually explore the love interest being a minotaur very much beyond him being kind of big & heavy)... but it's still got more heart & care put into it than the next 50 "weird erotica" Amazon ebooks combined, so if you're into this sort of thing at all I'd still say it's worth a read.

I've been reading the Disco novels out of order & I've enjoyed all the others so far but this one was kind of a slog, frankly.

Nothing against Georgiou as a character but her half of the story felt totally aimless. Lots of little distractions putting out fires around the colony, lots of time spent introducing side characters who disappear after a chapter or two. I appreciate that the author was probably going for scale & detail here - it's a big place with a lot going on at once - but I just didn't find it very compelling. At times it was downright repetitive, like with one character pontificating on what was happening, then handing off to another character who had basically the same thoughts on the same thing.

As much as I'm complaining here, it's not like a total disaster of a book or anything. There are some good moments scattered throughout, it wraps up pretty well. But overall, compared to the rest of the series, it was a miss for me.

Came for the weird alien smut, stayed for the fun & heartwarming adventure through a perilous & genuinely imaginative alien world.