Review of Hollow World by Michael Sullivan

Hollow World by Michael J. Sullivan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Writing 4/5
Imagination 4/5
Plot 4/5
Setting 3.5/5
Characters 4/5

My Overall Enjoyment 4/5

Goodreads description-

The future is coming...for some, sooner than others. 

Ellis Rogers is an ordinary man who is about to embark on an extraordinary journey. All his life he has played it safe and done the right thing, but when faced with a terminal illness, he’s willing to take an insane gamble. He’s built a time machine in his garage, and if it works, he’ll face a world that challenges his understanding of what it means to be human, what it takes to love, and the cost of paradise. He could find more than a cure for his illness; he might find what everyone has been searching for since time began…but only if he can survive Hollow World.

Welcome to the future and a new sci-fantasy thriller from the bestselling author of The Riyria Revelations.

This has received a lot of hype and praise, which it largely lives up to. While not my primary genre, this is a strong science fiction book, complete with time travel 2000 years into the future and a type of hybrid human. Loaded with great pop culture references, the same consistent, solid writing that made The Crown Conspiracy and other Riyria books a pleasure to read, and great characters, science fiction fans can not complain about anything in this book. I have read quite a few science fiction books in the past and this definitely ranks in the upper echelon in terms of quality and fun.

Highly recommended for science fiction fans. Also recommended if you are new to science fiction or even if you don't necessarily consider yourself a fan of the genre, still try this because in terms of story enjoyment and literary value, this is a great book!

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A Review of Hard to Be a God-Arkady Strugatsky

Hard to Be a God by Arkady Strugatsky
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Writing 5/5
Imagination 5/5
Plot 3.5/5
Setting 4/5
Characters 3/5

My Overall Enjoyment 3.5/5

This is primarily a science fiction book although it isn't "heavy" science fiction; it is fantasy too. The last half is filled with lots of action, violence, torture, and bleak scenes. As far as the writing, it's beautiful. It's an achievement in literature and translation as this was originally written in Russian. Just for that alone it it was fun to read. The story is about an agent sent from an advanced Earth to an alien planet of humans living in a middle ages setting to monitor and advance it's culture. There are many philosophical themes in this book; the nature of man, the use of religion to slow progress, how a society evolves and many others. There are little gems like this throughout;"He listened to the profanity outside the window. What a powerful language! It has incredible entropy!" I freely admit I didn't spend near enough time studying these themes because I read this quickly.

I felt there was a lot of dialogue and I strongly prefer narration so this took away a little of my enjoyment. That being said there are tons of great little conversations. One of my favorites went like this: "Don't abuse terminology, Anton! Terminological confusion brings about dangerous consequences." How true is that! I didn't love this book but it was pretty easy to get through and it was fun and made me think. It can be read in a few hours at most if you are a decent reader. I would like to reread this one day.

I highly recommend this book to science fiction as well as philosophy fans. Recommended for fantasy fans and grimdark fans as I think this will be something they would enjoy.


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