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Alice Grove
speculative fiction
206 pages, ebook
Published July 20, 2017
2 people are currently reading
13 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
January 4, 2018
Started out good, had an interesting middle premise, and the ending did not so much fall flat as horribly implode.
January 10, 2018
Started out good with an intriguing premise, but the ending was horribly rushed and abrupt. Maybe the author got bored with it?
January 5, 2018
I’d willingly give this a 3.5 if possible.
The story wasn’t bad, but the pacing was an absolute mess. It starts off well enough, building up a world and some characters fairly nicely. The adventure starts and proceeds well enough...
And then suddenly you’re at the climax? Or at least damned near it. What I thought was maybe going to be 40% of the way through the story turned out to be 80% and the ending is rushed, with not enough time or love really given to the conclusion, with some of the mysteries left rather unanswered.
To be fair, I didn’t have an issue with the pseudoscience. It’s his world, he can science it however he wants, and I don’t expect it to read like it should follow our world logic. But on the flipside, I did have to google a few concepts the story talked about. Seems like the average person like myself doesn’t know what some of the stuff is (and it’s not explained, so you have to do the work yourself - and this isn’t the type of story you should need to google things to understand), and those who do scorned him for not getting them right. I seem to have been on the winning side, I guess.
Overall though, I did think it an interesting story and concept... I just wish it had played out better.
The story wasn’t bad, but the pacing was an absolute mess. It starts off well enough, building up a world and some characters fairly nicely. The adventure starts and proceeds well enough...
And then suddenly you’re at the climax? Or at least damned near it. What I thought was maybe going to be 40% of the way through the story turned out to be 80% and the ending is rushed, with not enough time or love really given to the conclusion, with some of the mysteries left rather unanswered.
To be fair, I didn’t have an issue with the pseudoscience. It’s his world, he can science it however he wants, and I don’t expect it to read like it should follow our world logic. But on the flipside, I did have to google a few concepts the story talked about. Seems like the average person like myself doesn’t know what some of the stuff is (and it’s not explained, so you have to do the work yourself - and this isn’t the type of story you should need to google things to understand), and those who do scorned him for not getting them right. I seem to have been on the winning side, I guess.
Overall though, I did think it an interesting story and concept... I just wish it had played out better.
December 26, 2017
Why not 5 stars?
I've followed Jeph Jacques' comics since he started his main comic, the brilliant Questionable Content. His plots are excellent and his artwork is excellent. So when the link for Alice Grove first arrived on his website in September 2014 I was very keen to click on it. Alice Grove is also well written and well drawn. Dystopia, sentient orbital trees, cyborgs (both good guys and bad guys), mysteries, nanotech, oatmeal, it had the lot and it looked like a more-than-decent comic to follow until it reached its doubtless amazing conclusion.
So why only 4 stars? Because the tale doesn't exactly end. It sort of stops after a, to me, excessive amount of exposition. "I have a theory" said Alice.
Oh, God. Deus ex machina.
I've reread Alice Grove several times on a tablet and I still love the tale. I just wish it could have been longer and ended a bit better.
I've followed Jeph Jacques' comics since he started his main comic, the brilliant Questionable Content. His plots are excellent and his artwork is excellent. So when the link for Alice Grove first arrived on his website in September 2014 I was very keen to click on it. Alice Grove is also well written and well drawn. Dystopia, sentient orbital trees, cyborgs (both good guys and bad guys), mysteries, nanotech, oatmeal, it had the lot and it looked like a more-than-decent comic to follow until it reached its doubtless amazing conclusion.
So why only 4 stars? Because the tale doesn't exactly end. It sort of stops after a, to me, excessive amount of exposition. "I have a theory" said Alice.
Oh, God. Deus ex machina.
I've reread Alice Grove several times on a tablet and I still love the tale. I just wish it could have been longer and ended a bit better.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 3, 2018
Fascinating set-up, but left too many threads dangling.
December 22, 2019
Every once in a while I go back and reread Alice Grove from start to finish. It's extremely weird scifi, but in a good way. Like the best novellas, it leaves you wondering.
March 1, 2020
I wish it had been longer. It seemed that there was much more going on beneath the surface that could have been expanded on. The ending was very abrupt and very deus ex machine. Almost literally.
December 27, 2017
Overall, an interesting take on a very specific concept of man meets machines. Perhaps a bit too much deus ex machina, but the story holds together well, the characters are about as developed as one could expect, and the action ramps up nicely to a satisfying conclusion.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews