Ancillary Justice Impressions

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After slogging through The Three Body problem I thought I would try to find a sci-fi book that would grab my attention.  I looked at my list of books to check out and saw that Ancillary Justice was super highly rated on Amazon so I got it.

I could not get into Ancillary Justice at all.

The book starts with disconnected events, none of which are interesting, and a main character that doesn't actually have personality because it's a computer in host bodies.

I really tried to get into it.  I even did my typical second attempt at a highly rated book I'm having trouble getting into... I listened to the audiobook instead.  Generally this will give me a better sense of characters once I hear them voiced and it lets me get through parts of books that are a slog since I can have the audiobook playing while I'm doing other things too (like playing a game).

But since the main character is a computer the narrator speaks very monotone and very computer-like.  I understand why they choose that as the direction for the audible version but it made it even more boring than when I was reading it.

So I gave up on Ancillary Justice.

I've had a bad run of not-so-great books lately.  Maybe I need to check out something outside my typical tastes just to shake things up.

Comments

  1. MagsonApril 13, 2016 at 11:25 AM

    Have you read anything by Brandon Sanderson? If you're worried about something long, perhaps try "The Emperor's Soul" -- it's a novella, so it's short, and if you like it then maybe look into Elantris (standalone) or Warbreaker (also standalone) or Mistborn: The Final Empire (1st in a trilogy).

    Jack McDevitt's "Alex Benedict" series is fascinating. They're more of "mysteries that happen to be in a sci-fi setting" but they work. For me, anyway. "A Talent for War" is the 1st of those if you want to give them a try.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. VoidApril 13, 2016 at 6:28 PM

      I love Sanderson! He's one of my favorite authors right now.

      I should check out Jack McDevitt though, I haven't.

      Delete

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