Obsidio [Apr 5, 2018]

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Tammie wrote: "Siobhan wrote: "Page 310. These 'Surveillance Footage Summaries' are getting ridiculously subjective. Might as well just call it narrative... The person watching the footage doesn't know what peopl..."

Makes me wonder if I just blocked out these stupidities in my read... I DID think it was weird when they changed analysts randomly for 1-2 videos...

[Siobhan]

Yeah Tammie I think they must have been a bit more professionally done in the first two books or else surely we would have noticed it more.

[Tammie]

Iain wrote: "I DID think it was weird when they changed analysts randomly for 1-2 videos... "

I was wondering what was up with that. Does that not amount to anything?

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

There's a small reference in the epilogue, but that's about it...

[Veronica]

Tammie wrote: "I don't remember the video summaries being this ridiculous in the first two books, but maybe I was so into the story I just didn't notice as much."

I remember thinking there were more of them in the second book than in the first.

[Siobhan]

Veronica wrote: "Tammie wrote: "I don't remember the video summaries being this ridiculous in the first two books, but maybe I was so into the story I just didn't notice as much."

I remember thinking there were mo..."

Hmm yeah you're right there too.

[Tammie]

Victor *we were on a break!* wrote: "Fifty-two percent. My hands are literally shaking.

[spoilers removed]"


Yeah that was kind of surprising.

[Sha]

only at about 27% and trying to avoid all spoilers~

[RuinEleint]

Hmm 89% in

Book really picked up midway

(view spoiler)[ The whole Garver mutiny and the death of Boll, Aidan's brutal massacre, the violence on Kerenza, this book really upped the ante.

I am going to be seriously disappointed if we don't lose some protagonists. Come on. Someone needs to die. (hide spoiler)]

[Siobhan]

Sha wrote: "only at about 27% and trying to avoid all spoilers~"

Hope you're enjoying it, Sha :)

[Sha]

Oh yes. :D I liked Gemina less than Illuminae (although Hanna remains my favorite of the protagonists), and I definitely like Obsidio better than Gemina so far. All books are good though.

Reached (view spoiler)[AIDAN'S second massacre and honestly I was expecting this ever since it (he?) promised it/he would not let Kady die.

This is actually an interesting choice the authors made- you have an AI with a different morality making the hard decisions rather than a human. Because both these decisions (killing Copernicus, and this one) not being made would likely have resulted in everyone dying. I wonder what the repercussions would have been if a human made the decision.

I have to say I was VERY PLEASANTLY surprised to see Ben Graver's point of view after he first looked like a random asshole jackass who was there to simply throw a wrench in the functionality of the ship. I'm still thinking he'll be a liability somewhere down the line, but I appreciate this development. ANTAGONISTS HAVE LOVED ONES TOO.

Also, the moral choices of the occupying force in Kerenza. I would have been all "that's ridiculous how would so many soldiers justify so much killing" a few days ago, but I just did a project about military occupied zone so yeah. It's not really that far off from actual world examples. I'm still a bit confused about the information granted tot he ground soldiers though. (hide spoiler)]

[RuinEleint]

Finished it.

Overall decent book with a good-ish ending.

I just think that these books could have been so much better if all the protagonists had not been lovestruck teenagers.

Also regarding AIDAN(view spoiler)[ in a book where none of the main characters ever die, I knew he would survive. I just wish his ending was not so tame. I was really hoping that the Beitech woman would still try to dispute things, and the AIDAN would speak from all the PA systems "you live in my world now!" and everyone would freak out. (hide spoiler)]

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Arkadeb wrote: "Finished it.

Overall decent book with a good-ish ending.

I just think that these books could have been so much better if all the protagonists had not been lovestruck teenagers.

Also regarding..."

NEXT UP: Murderbot Diaries: All Systems Red Buddy Read on Friday :D

[Tammie]

I finally finished this last night. I can't believe it took me a week to read this. I thought it would go a lot faster. It was my least favorite book of the series, but it had some good moments. (view spoiler)[ We find out why the transcripts were written in such an immature way. It makes sense now. They got me with the fake out with Asha and Rhys, and then again with Garver and McCall. You think I'd see that coming by now. I did guess that Ezra and Nik were not dead and had bailed out. I also was not really surprised when AIDAN came back both times. I think it would have been better if the book had just ended with that line "SoME pLacE FiNe aND FaR FRoM hERE." and left us wondering if that really was AIDAN. Because I was all, AIDAN? Is that you? But then they went and ruined it with the next part about AIDAN. This book was pretty dark with the mass killings and the child killing and I find it interesting that a book that dark still had a happy, sunny ending with all the main characters surviving. I liked that the main characters all survived, but I did feel like everything wrapped up a little too neatly. One big complaint I have about this series is the blacked out curse words. I would rather the curse words have just been eliminated altogether because the black boxes really interrupted the flow of the text while I was reading. It annoyed me to have to read around those. (hide spoiler)]

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Tammie wrote: "I finally finished this last night. I can't believe it took me a week to read this. I thought it would go a lot faster. It was my least favorite book of the series, but it had some good moments. [s..."

The bleeped swears were annoying on audio as well... it's like... why hide them if everybody knows exactly what you're saying anyway... either have them or don't have them... the in-between is a joke...

[Tammie]

Iain wrote: "Tammie wrote: "I finally finished this last night. I can't believe it took me a week to read this. I thought it would go a lot faster. It was my least favorite book of the series, but it had some g..."

I think it was a way for them to sneak that much swearing into a YA book. I'm just not impressed by swearing in the first place.

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Kurtherian Gambit is an indie series that's chock full of uncensored swearing... and it gets a bit much after awhile...

[Sha]

The AI and the plot surrounding it is getting on my nerves and it's the one thing I'm mildly unhappy about.

AIDAN was a good character in Book 1 and an okay afterthought with way too much screentime in book 2. In book 3, it's really getting to be a bit repetitive.

I'm actually pretty fine with all the romance stuff, mostly because it never felt to me like the romance overshadowed the plot. It's usually not easy to fine a decent balance of romance/plot in plotty (as opposed to romance-y) books, and I feel like all three books in this trilogy managed to have their romance protags have their own lives which were as important to them as the romance. This should be an obvious narrative choice, I know. but there are so many times when it is not.

4 stars, because I can't help but compare this to Becky Chambers' AI humanization and it falls flat there.

[Timelord Iain, Tech Support]

Sha wrote: "The AI and the plot surrounding it is getting on my nerves and it's the one thing I'm mildly unhappy about.

AIDAN was a good character in Book 1 and an okay afterthought with way too much screent..."

I had to pull up your rating for Wayfarers to figure out which you thought was better... no worries... we agree :D

[Sha]

I know the narrative lampshades the whole "dramatic philosopher AI" thingy, but that's only Ella. Kady, in particular, takes AIDAN far too seriously.

Also, Kady's emotions and actions concerning AIDAN were all over the place and didn't always make sense. There was quite a bit of tsundere-ness going on towards the end- I guess it was to highlight the romantic tension? Didn't really work for me.

And anyway, I can't understand (view spoiler)[AIDAN'S actions towards the end being rooted in his Kady-love. The crush in book 1 was interesting. The total acceptance of "love" by an entity who has a hard time thinking beyond solid numbers is not. AIDAN becomes more human towards the end- and not in a good way, if that makes sense. (hide spoiler)]

[Miche]

It is interesting how the same book can bring different reactions from each one of us. :)

While some complain that there was too much Aidan, for me that was what made the book good. I didn't care for any of the couples and I wouldn't have even continued the series if it hadn't been for Aidan's pov.

[Sha]

Yeah, the different reactions thing never stops being weird. You'd think I'd get used to it by now. XD