My Favorite Books

The Walking Drum
Ender's Game
Dune
Jhereg
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Curse of Chalion
The Name of the Wind
Chronicles of the Black Company
The Faded Sun Trilogy
The Tar-Aiym Krang

Tuesday, January 31, 2023

Review: The Infinite

The Infinite The Infinite by Ada Hoffmann
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the conclusion to The Outside trilogy after The Fallen. Returning to the Planet Jai and the Chaos Zone introduced with “The Seven” in the second book and where the story seemed to get lost and drift in confusion with a rebellion that goes nowhere (IMHO you can skip that book without losing that much). Here the story gets back on track and jumps into action with the pending attack of Keres … an apparent rogue AI god perpetually at war with humanity and the rule of their AI gods. The situation looks very dire for our Hero and her broken companions (aka The Seven).

The [lovecraftian] world building here was some of the best I have seen in SciFi, and the character development of her flawed protagonists was solid and interesting. The best part to me are the answers to the many questions left after book one (1): How did the AI gods evolve? Who/What is the Keres? Who are the Morlocks? Stir in a few aliens and the world just keeps getting more interesting as the story unfolds with a few unexpected twists toward a satisfying conclusion.

I was given this free advance reader copy (ARC) ebook at my request and have voluntarily left this review.

#TheInfinite #TheOutside #NetGalley.

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My Ratings Explained ...

  • [ ***** ] Amazing Read - Perfect story, exciting, engrossing, well developed complex characters, solid plot with few to no holes, descriptive environments and place settings, great mystery elements, realistic dialogue, believable reactions and behaviors; a favorite that I can re-read many times.
  • [ **** ] Great Read - Highly entertaining and enjoyable, exciting storyline, well developed characters and settings, a few discrepancies but nothing that can’t be overlooked. Some aspect of the story was new/refreshing to me and/or intriguing. Recommended for everyone.
  • [ *** ] Good Read - Solid story with a 'good' ending, or has some other redeeming feature. Limited character development and/or over reliance on tropes. Noticeable discrepancies in world building and/or dialog/behavior that were distracting. I connected enough with the characters/world to read the entire series. Most of the books I read for fun are here. Recommended for fans of the genre.
  • [ ** ] Okay Read - Suitable for a brief, afternoon escape … flat or shallow characters with little to no development. Over the top character dialog and/or behavior. Poor world building with significant issues and/or mistakes indicating poor research. Excessive use of trivial detail, info dumps and/or pontification. Any issues with the story/characters are offset by some other aspect that I enjoyed. Not very memorable. May only appeal to a niche group of readers. Recommended for some (YMMV).
  • [ * ] Bad Read - Awkward and/or confusing writing style. Poor world building and/or unbelievable (or unlikeable) characters. Victimization, gaslighting, blatant abuse, unnecessary violence, child endangerment, or any other highly objectionable behaviors by Main characters. I didn't connect with the story at all; significant aspects of this story irritated me enough that I struggled to finished it. Series was abandoned. Not recommended.