The Chronie Book Club

,
41

I apologize for the late post, but I’ve been a little busier lately.
But regardless, I’ve read Rogue Protocol, and have my thoughts on it below.

Summary

For the most part, I enjoyed this book, more so than the second one, and perhaps as equally as the first. I thought the introduced characters were interesting, especially the more emotional bot, and Murderbot’s reaction to it.
Honestly, I can’t say I have any strong opinions on this series as a whole, I find them, in general, to just be short little flicks of interesting characters, situations, and action. The problem I have is that the writing style isn’t my cup of tea, the books seem to be conforming to a kind of formula, and the plot isn’t super memorable.
I feel indifferent about reading further into this series, though I do recognize that it’s possible the books will begin to fit my taste better with the slowly evolving plot, though I doubt it.

Since it’s been some time already, I plan on having the new lineup of books posted by the end of the week or hopefully sooner.

4 Likes
42

We had a “Covid scare” which turned out for the best and still getting the headaches so…YES, this is late.

Summary

I really liked the little bot and it crushed me when she was killed. I had dreams of them becoming best friends or more …with little bots running around…etc… Alas, not to be. I didn’t understand why he would felt sick when he saw the friendship between the little bot and her owner. Was it jealousy or fear?

I went ahead and finished the book and I didn’t care for the ending. I wanted him to keep in contact with the others he had meet like ART(ART was cool) and help them to make their life better. I don’t know it just left me empty.

5 Likes
43

So only a day late, here’s the poll for the 4th book.

An important note, as far as I can tell all of these books can be gotten for free on either the website Bookbub or Tor.com / asking @delenn13 very nicely. That is with the exception of The Prince of Milk, which as far as I can see, costs 4$. To be completely honest it’s just here because it has a really nice cover :wink:
I will be posting the results in a couple of days.

4 Likes
44 
                            Chrono Book Club: Book 4

Book 4 has been decided, and it is “Exit Strategy”

Exit Strategy
image

As usual, the reading time will be pretty long, a couple of weeks, or even possibly longer, so read at your own pace. Feel free to join in the reading whenever.
Once you’ve finished the book, feel free to post your thoughts and predictions on it, I always love to read them. Though make sure to mark for any spoilers
I’ll be posting my own thoughts soon, just gotta finish The Hobbit first.

6 Likes
45

Great choice.

Are you really reading The Hobbit? I’m asking because I don’t know you well enough to know if you’re being sarcastic.

I’m listening to a podcast that I recently discovered:

Kingslingers

which I am woefully behind on. I am listening on Audible which lists 133 episodes, each about 2 hours long and I am on episode 29.

The podcast is a deep discussion of Stephen King’s 8 otherworldly Dark Tower book series which is my favorite of his books. One of the hosts, Matt is a huge Lord of the Rings fan and compares the Tower to Lord of the Rings and vice versa all the time in very favorable ways.

I own all of the Lord of the Rings books and have read them years ago, enjoyed them, and have thought of reading them again. Maybe someday.

I will see if I can come up with a copy of Exit Strategy.

Happy Reading everyone.

Ila in Maine

5 Likes
46

Yes, I am, it’s something I’ve pushed off for some time because I heard the LOTR books aren’t exactly easy reads. But if the main trilogy is anything like The Hobbit, I think I will quite enjoy them, as The Hobbit has been an enjoyable read.
Also, that Kingslinger podcast looks interesting, I might listen to it when I read the Dark Tower, though that’s some years out.

5 Likes
47

OK. I reread the ending AGAIN.

Summary

And it still rubbed me the wrong way. He/It has feelings about things, people, ideas and a logical brain. I just can’t see Murderbot being content to just sit, become a couch potato and watch his vids I would think he would get bored. There HAS to be a sequel in the works. It is like watching a movie, and at the end, you know the tale isn’t finished. That’s how I felt about this book.

2 Likes
48

My thoughts on Murderbot so far

Summary

For the most part, I have the same problems with this installment as I do the others before. I find the writing style isn’t my taste. And like @delenn13 said, I find all the book’s endings feel kind of anti-climatic as if the story should go on for another 50 pages or so, but just cuts off.
I also find action scenes within many of the books to be a little overdone, going into in-depth detail about technologies, and the exact circumstances of the action, such as exact positions of opponents, speeds, times, and confusing settings. It might just be my poor reading comprehension, but I feel they could be dumbed down a bit to make for a more coherent reading experience.
I could go on a while about the little things I dislike, so I’ll just get to some more of what I consider to be good/interesting about the books.

I think Murderbots character, who was in the first books a pretty simple character, has evolved to be a little more complex, where you kind of have to read in between the lines to pick up everything. For example, Murderbot claims to not like humans or their company, yet all he watches is human shows, full of human interactions and such. Along with that, in the previous book, the little bot that was close friends with one of the humans, Murderbot seemed to detest its relationship with the woman, yet in the end, I felt like Murderbot began to envy the relationship a little, which helps explains why in this book Murderbot went through so much effort to save his supposed “master”.

In conclusion, I would say I get the appeal of the books, but there are too many little things I dislike about them to say I truly enjoy them.

Responses

I do agree with some of your dislikes, such as I do believe that Murderbot being able to hack everything that moves was a little annoying, and kind of invalidated a lot of problems that were faced.
I also agree that at some points the emotional talk could be a little heavy-handed, but overall I think it was subtle enough to be interesting.
One thing I disagree with though is with disliking the fact that Murderbot becomes less anxious. I think it added necessary character development to a character that would have otherwise become stale over a period of 4 books. Also, while I am not at all qualified to say so, I do believe that practicing talking to people can help with anxiety at least a little bit, but you can correct me on that if you know something I don’t.

Along with that, I agree with all of your likes of the books. Many of them were high points or just simply relieving when they didn’t go with the alternative plot options.

It seems I interpreted the ending a little differently, as I came away with the feeling that Murderbot, while claiming to only wish to watch media, everyone in the story knew, along with Murderbot, that if he did do that, he would secretly miss human interactions and all the adventures. It’s kind of like how a normal socially anxious person thinks, when they’re out at a party for too long they wish to be home, but when they’re home for too long they wish to be out and about, even if it’s only a secret desire.
I do however agree with you that the story did feel a little unfinished, as did many of the previous books.

I also just want to say what doesn’t need to be said, but this is all my opinion, I do see both of your guy’s points of view, and don’t want to appear as if I’m attempting to invalidate your opinion, just bringing up my own interpretation of the story.

3 Likes
49

Thanks for the views, @Nateninja21 :heavy_heart_exclamation: :heavy_heart_exclamation: :heavy_heart_exclamation:

It’s always amazing to have read the same thing but different people see it in different ways. I am not sure if you will hear from @Glider. I haven’t heard from @joxter or @Glider in over 3 weeks. :cry:

3 Likes
50

@delenn13
Nah, I’m still here. I’m mostly lurking at the best of times and with additional stress… it seems I tend to withdraw from interaction a bit more than usual, sorry :no_mouth:

On the topic of Murderbot

About anxiety: I don’t have any first-hand experience with anxiety but I do dislike the trope of “being exposed to anxiety source will help you get over it”. I suppose sometimes it may be the case but pretty often it’s not. I don’t have any concrete sources I can cite, it’s just an impression I got from listening to some podcasts, vlogs, stuff like this.

About the ending: My interpretation is way closer to Nate’s. I don’t see any “murderbot turns into a couch potato” there at all. As I saw it, it was fairly open-ended - there was a bunch of options to consider (like taking another security-consultant type job or helping with the documentary) and there was no pressure to chose right now. And I did not even feel like continuation is needed -
But yeah, the story goes on after the 4th book, here’s full series on goodreads: link

3 Likes
51

A post was merged into an existing topic: Chrono Book Reviews, Recommendations, and Deals

52

Poll number 5, and the one I think has the strongest selection. Make sure to vote if you plan on joining, though it isn’t technically a requirement.

As usual, I would like to give disclaimers to some of the books above.
Firstly, all of the books are/were free on the Tor.com newsletter, except for Network Effect, which is/was not free there at any point, as far as I can tell.
Secondly, I normally try to keep the books on these lists short, but that’s very difficult to do, so here is the list of books whose page count ranges from 300 to 500: Witchmark, A History of What Comes Next, Middlegame, and Network Effect. Everything else ranges from 70 to 150 pages.

I will be posting the results in more or less a week.

4 Likes
53

so the odd ones are longer and the even ones are shorter:) at least there is a pattern

4 Likes
54

May be we should replace When Tiger Came Down the Mountain with The Empress of Salt and Fortune? It makes more sense IMO to start with the 1st book of the cycle :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

4 Likes
55 
                            Chrono Book Club: Book 5

Book 5 has been decided, and it is “Silver in the Wood”

This is where I would usually follow up with time frames etc. However, now I must say that I believe the Book Club has come to a tidy end with finishing up the first 4 books of the Murderbot Diaries. So, this book will be the final one.
Honestly, this thing has gone on for longer than I thought it would, it also has taken up more of my time than I thought it would. So I don’t really think of this as a sad thing, as I knew from the start this gaming community forum wasn’t the most fertile place for a book club, I just intended it to be a quick fun little thing to try out, and in that regard it was flawless.
Of course, this thread is still open if people want to read Silver in the Wood and talk about it. Or even create their own polls for books.
Happy Reading.

5 Likes
56

Aha! I have KU so I could check out reflux books - they were no help - But~ I can read this book with you guys.

Edit: much love for free trails. I don’t know how much it costs otherwise.

Embarrassed. I’m done. Not saying anything more yet

3 Likes
57

Me too. I was very surprised. And with these headaches I know I haven’t been ANY help. Sorry. You did an awesome job and I appreciate it. :hugs:

Now I need to find the book…LOL :crazy_face:

5 Likes
58

Getting these headaches every 2 or 3 days makes reading hard. I can hardly finish my emails and such.

So News Flash. I still haven’t read the book; however, I did find this about Murderbot. I tend to agree with it.

4 Likes
59

Ok, first thing’s first: I’m sorry it took me waaay long to reply.
Second (probably should’ve been first, but oh well). I want to express gratitude to @Nateninja21 . This whole thing worked really wonderfully for me and I really wanted something like this. It was really fun, thanks. :blush:

About the last book though… I’m not a fan.

I guess I'll still hide it under the spoiler I expected to like it since I do have a soft spot for this "supernatural is just around the corner" idea usually found in urban fantasy. Calling it rural, while fitting, does not sound right :blush: But most tropes I encountered while reading rubbed me the wrong way:
  • One of the characters was strong silent type who’s bad at communicating
  • Serious issues were fixed by the virtue of a character being rich
  • There was a small bossy competent old lady

And Silver was such a prick… Which got even worse when I went through the second book :expressionless:

Overall it was not a bad read but I’m a bit sad book club went out with this whimper :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:

Oh, and thanks to all participants as well, that was pretty fun :blush:

3 Likes
60

Edit: the author can flex her prose and such. She’s v. readable and perhaps has better stories to her credit.

Yip. Wanted to comment earlier on this too, but I read the book in like one day, so had to give time for people to catch up, lol.

The second book starts out annoying, so I didn’t even bother. What was the point of the ‘resolution’ in the first, if you’re gonna put all of that to waste in the sequel?

The villain of Silver in the Wood was actually the most interesting character to me. I would have preferred a delve into that guy’s history, instead of the Silver story. The lore just seemed deeper.

Don’t mind the strong, silent trope, but that guy was too dense. Tobias’ origin story didn’t do much to back up his personality either.

Truly this story had a lot of elements that are missed opportunities. It could have been a really interesting world with unique rules and magic.

Sadly, the supporting characters had more complexity, Tobias’ dryad friend, for example, and even Silver’s annoying mother. (She’s a rich brat and product of her time; wasn’t fond of her, but at least she made sense to me).

Disappointing that the follow up story, seems to go the “manufactured conflict” route for dramatic effect, instead of continuing where the last story arc left off. It could have teased out more of the world, its malevolent creatures and the relationship of the MCs. It could have also answered a lot of not too subtle plot holes left in Silver in the Wood. shrug

Never thought I’d say this, but even the Harry Potter series did a better job of making (somewhat) sense in the end (read a lot of wiki stuff, not just the books).

Good premise, inconsistent handling - too many really awesome worlds and storylines are let down this way.

4 Likes