SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion
This topic is about
A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe
Group Reads Discussions 2019
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"A Big Ship at the Edge of the Universe" First Impressions *No Spoilers*
^^' I need a second start with this. In chapter 1 I already skimmed through pages. That's never happened with a book so far.
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Yeah I had to read chapter one twice, it was boring as heck. I read chapter three this morning, it was starting to resemble a book :D But I’m completely baffled by all the magic, I thought this was supposed to be a space opera!
Yeah, I almost quit before I got started. I'm in chapter 7 now and it's not as much of a struggle, but it took much longer than I was expecting. And I was really turned off by the magic when I was expecting SciFi... I don't know why. I mean I guess technically the Machineries of Empire series counts as "Science Fantasy", and I loved that series, but there the "magic" just seems like a kind of technology, vs. seeming kind of, er, magical and impossible.
Ah, good that it's not just my impression. If this wasn't a group read, I indeed would have DNF'd it in the first chapter. I'm glad to hear that it picks up later. I will wait till I finish my current read to start again.
DNF’ing a book after reading a chapter titled “DNF” would be very apt Gabi!! I finished this last month and will hold my thoughts until the spoiler thread opens up.
Also for whatever reason my mental image of Boots was Alex Borstein, specifically the role she plays on “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”.
Christopher wrote: "DNF’ing a book after reading a chapter titled “DNF” would be very apt Gabi!! I finished this last month and will hold my thoughts until the spoiler thread opens up."OMG! You're right! I completely forgot that it was the name of the chapter :')
Yeah, the whole magic in a sci-fi setting definitely threw me off for the first bit. My brain took a while to mentally adjust to that. I'm about five chapters in now and really intrigued so far.
Ariana wrote: "I mean I guess technically the Machineries of Empire series counts as "Science Fantasy", and I loved that series, but there the "magic" just seems like a kind of technology, vs. seeming kind of, er, magical and impossible."Yes, completely different! With this one I was promised space opera reminding some people of Becky Chambers, but got magical race cars instead?! But since our fantasy book this month has dystopian elements, maybe it's only right that our scifi book has some magic? I still don't like it, but we'll see once I've read more.
I like books that don’t ‘stay in their genre’ so I’m getting intrigued now
Hah, I wasn’t planning on reading it as space opera is so not my thing but now I’m getting curious XD
I started this today and I'm kind of liking it so far. I will say that I did read this thread before I started so my expectations were modified and I wasn't like wtf is happening when it opened with magical race cars.
The dialogue isn't really working for me. Not sure how much of this is the audio narrator. Hesitant to blame it all on the narrator, but it feels pretty stilted.
I couldn't finish the second chapter. The characters seem very superficial and I really don't go for the magic part of it at all. I was sorry this was the case, because the basic premise sounded fun.
@Ariana: I'm reading and having the same issue, so I don't know that it has much to do with the narrator.And actually, the dialogue is the worst, but the writing style overall isn't working super well for me.
I'm trying really hard not to express an opinion right now, because it's no longer initial.
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..."it's final."
Kaa wrote: "@Ariana: I'm reading and having the same issue, so I don't know that it has much to do with the narrator.And actually, the dialogue is the worst, but the writing style overall isn't working super..."
That was my guess, that the format was not the problem, but nice to have corroborating evidence.
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lololol
And the font? Would you say it's legible?
Yeah, no squinting. At the font. I may have narrowed my eyes a couple of times.
Anna wrote: "Yeah, no squinting. At the font. I may have narrowed my eyes a couple of times."Lol. Yes. Definitely some non-font-related eye-narrowing going on over here too.
Allison wrote: "... And the font? Would you say it's legible?"It's okay for at least the Kindle version.
I started this last fall, got a few pages into it, and decided that "DNF" was a particularly apt chapter name. The rainbow pooping NASCAR in space vibe just wasn't working for me. The rest of it sounds like it should work for me though so I'm going to see if I can push through to that "kicks off" part after I finish my current BR.
Oh folks! I was hoping for some encouraging comments here this morning (CET morning) to pick it up again.... ^^'
To quote Murakami: "No Good News in this Chapter”
Christopher, you lowered your rating? :DI'm sorry everyone, we really should try to keep it to initial impressions in this thread. I'm over halfway now, so I'll hold off until we have the spoiler thread.
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Yes, this thread got me to start reflecting on the book a so I re-evaluated, won't say any more here
I had to restart chapter one this morning after a first attempt last night. Initially my impression was of the race in The Phantom Menace which really put me off and combined with the magical elements I was like WTF?After restarting this morning and realizing that the racing is more F1 than Phantom Menace it made way more sense and I'm intrigued enough to continue on. In any case I do like the Nilah character so far. She reminds me of the Naomi Nagata character from The Expanse. https://goo.gl/images/TffpbE
Thank you James! We need more of that in this thread. I'll go back to reading, and leave everyone to enjoy their first impressions in peace :)
Add me to the list of people who struggled to get through chapter one.1. There may be nothing in this world more boring to me than car racing. As an introduction to the world, it could not have been worse.
2. I hate when magic is just magic. I want there to be some explanation for why it exists. I hope this is addressed later in the book. It also loses something when apparently just about everyone in the world has it, and the people who don't are the weird ones.
3. Space opera + magic was already pretty off-putting to me. It's going to be hard for him to mix these two in a way that is satisfying.
Honestly, the only thing compelling about this book so far is what the big ship at the edge of the universe is.
Anna wrote: "The cover is nice?"Yes, that is the best part, and the title is fun.
Joon wrote: "Add me to the list of people who struggled to get through chapter one.1. There may be nothing in this world more boring to me than car racing. As an introduction to the world, it could not have b..."
There is explanation for why the magic exists in chapter 2. I got that far, at least.
Karin wrote: "Joon wrote: "Add me to the list of people who struggled to get through chapter one.1. There may be nothing in this world more boring to me than car racing. As an introduction to the world, it cou..."
That's more of a "how" than a "why", and definitely not enough.
In any case, I'm into chapter 4 now and it's picking up, though I'm worried this book is going to have a character-likability problem, because I'm not real fond of either of the main characters right now.
I started listening to this during my dog walking and, while not totally sold on it, I am definitely intrigued. I was a bit turned off by the 'magic' references, though. In fantasy, you expect there to be some magic. In science fiction, though, one expects the plot to be resolved by, well, science.
Like some of the other posters, I was a bit nonplussed at the use of magic in what I was expecting to be a scifi book. Unlike some others though, this bump has not stopped me from enjoying the first few chapters.
While it took a while to adapt to it, I think the combination of magic and sci-fi is what made me stay with the book in the end. I switched from WTF to why not and by now I'm in the camp - great idea!! we should see this more often.If you enjoy fusion food ...
There's nothing wrong with space fantasy and genre-benders, I think most of us just weren't prepared for it with this one. I should've done my research properly in this case, and warned people. I don't have a problem with magic in my space books, I just want to know in advance. It's not that it was a secret, I just didn't read all the info carefully enough. Hopefully those who are starting a little later (or actually read blurbs) won't be surprised by this, and can enjoy the book as is.
The problem with the magic in this book (at least so far, I'm only like 15% in) is that it's called "magic" (even by the characters themselves, if I recall). Yes, they have names for the specialties, though many of those names are downright silly (see: mnemonomancer), but in a sci-fi type story, and especially one where the source of magic is (view spoiler), it feels all the more.... anachronistic, so to speak. Lazy, at best. Plenty of sci-fi books have "magic", it just isn't called "magic".
To be honest, and I may not have even realized this until now....I think I kind of just hate the word "magic". I think I hate it even in fantasy. It feels like a vague catch-all term for powers nobody understands. I seem to prefer fantasy where the "magic" is intricate, well-explained and even kind of fits into the world like science (Sanderson, etc.).
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I can't wait to read this and see why this makes less sense than Dresden or Harry Potter or Uprooted or the deus ex machina "saves" of books like RP1 or whatever the hell was going on in Ophiuchi Hotline.
I was so worried about voicing a "meh" first impression that I waited a few days before reading this thread. Now my "meh" feels like a downright compliment!I actually prefer fantasy over scifi, so I'm actually enjoying the magic part. My meh-ness is from not really getting a good feel for the world that's being created from the first few chapters. Maybe that's the wine dulling my imagination? :)
Allison wrote: "We've got a scifi book with magic and a fantasy book that was published by a scifi press this month. We are daring, original and brave. We're like the Ziggy Stardust of book clubs, basically..."Indeed! I do look forward to this, but library issues mean I probably won't get it until March.
Joon wrote: "To be honest, and I may not have even realized this until now....I think I kind of just hate the word "magic". I think I hate it even in fantasy. It feels like a vague catch-all term for powers nobody understands."This is very insightful. It's like calling anything you can't explain a miracle.
so, I'm kind of in the minority here, but I thought the first couple of chapters were a lot of fun. I'll be reading more of it a bit later today.Also, I don't have any problems with genre-bending, as I'm actually running the "high tech sci-fi magic in space" tabletop RPG Starfinder for a group of 4 other people, and have been running that game for over a year.
It's getting better, and I'm sufficiently hooked, but I'm still dismayed that I don't really like any of the characters. Nilah has so far offended me the least (aside from her single-minded obsession with racing), but at about 20% in, she's contributed nothing to the story; so far Boots is very much the main character, and she's the worst.
I read 3 chapters. I don't really have a clue what's going on tbh. It's not that bad, and I'm curious where it's going, but I'm not really invested.
Another book that totally fails with the opening chapter. Nothing more boring to me that a description of a car race. It took a while to get in the least bit interesting, but now I'm nearly half way through it feels more like Firefly than anything else. But with pretty basic "magic". Hoping the magic becomes more fully formed as the book progresses, but I do like the setting.
Please leave any specifics about plot, characters, or expectations for the full discussion thread open on the 7th!