Group Reads Discussions 2023: "The Immortality Thief" Discuss Everything *Spoilers*

[SFFBC, Ancillary Mod]

Questions to get us started:

1. What do you think of the world/world building?
2. What do you think of the plot?
3. What worked or didn't for you?
4. Overall thoughts?

Non-spoiler thread here: First impressions

[Allison, Fairy Mod-mother]

Spoiler thread is live!

[Rick]

1. What do you think of the world/world building?
Hackneyed and derivative. Ohh, let's write about criminals given a choice of the mission or something bad. And have the mission be to salvage a Wreck With Secrets! Haven't seen that in... what, a month? Really, there's a run on this plot and it needs to die off. McDevitt did it first and better long ago.

2. What do you think of the plot?
The what?

3. What worked or didn't for you?
This isn't an actively bad book, but too much of it is lazy tropes and, 35% in, I want to punch the protagonist hard and leave him for the monsters.

The internal contradictions are sloppy, too. We're told the Ministers are ruthless, murdering aliens. The group we meet talks about them as if fighting them brings gruesome death. We get a story from Sean, the protagonist, about this. Yet when they appear early on, they spare our plucky band of misfits. Uh... what?

Some of the writing is annoying and repetitive, too. Early on Sean meets a woman who apparently has large, prominent eyes and he calls her Lantern Eyes. OK, whatever. Later, though, they meet again and he learns her name but even late in the novel the author has him referring to her as Lantern Eyes and - in the same paragraph - by her name. NO ONE would do this. Even if one made up a nickname for someone (vs 'that woman'), you would not keep using it when you know their name and you especially would not switch back and forth randomly.

Oh and (DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU VE NOT FINISHED) (view spoiler)[ in chapter 57 we read this "Thoughts clicked off in my brain, the same way they had back on Kystrom, turning over Brigid’s body." but on the last page he gets a letter from... Brigid. That's either a huge continuity error or Sean's memories (and this much of the reason are supposed to sympathize with him) are fake. (hide spoiler)]

4. Overall thoughts?
Read about 35%, skimmed much of it, likely going to DNF. I have other books to read

[Banshee]

Rick wrote: "Oh and (DO NOT READ THIS IF YOU VE NOT FINISHED) (view spoiler)"

Lol, yes! First, it was predictable the moment I heard he got a message from someone, because it's a tired trope. Second, it didn't make sense. Do we get zombies in Book 2?

But overall, I actually really enjoyed the novel. No, there wasn't much plot or character development, but I found the novel to be really entertaining. I devoured the audiobook in record time, because it was pretty compulsive, even if not exactly one of the most ambitious reads I've experienced.

[Rick]

Yeah, the short chapters are easy to consume and it does move quickly. I just didn't like it because it was so paint by numbers and generic. And Sean is a character whose personality isn't developed enough early on to make his quirks endearing rather than abrasively annoying.

Like I said, it's not actively bad at all (the Lantern Eyes thing and the Ministers sparing them in the first place aside), but it's not actually good in any dimension either. This is very obviously an early effort from a less experienced author and it shows.

[Cynda]

Because SciFi is not part of my usual reading practice, I am glad to read this book, glad that the science is not too far from my understanding. I am grateful to some of my general nonfiction group who read science books. I will have to thank them. No time better than present. . . .

[Cynda]

That done. . . .I laughed out loud while reading Chapter 15: One and Two.

One tells our narrator Sean Wren some truths that Sean thinks he is above hearing and considering. What he tells us what is his problem that will cause other problems in the book:

If there's a lesson, I'll learn it my own way.

This is just the kind of comment that makes wiser people want to sigh and wish Sean well.

That One shares this wisdom, I begin to wonder if the Ministers are somewhat like old wise witches in folktales are--the ones who show the way.

[HeyT]

I really enjoyed this because it was a quick read that didn't expect too much from me. I could have done without the last page series set up but it's easy to ignore that.

[Ellen]

I thought the basic story was good but that it was too drawn out and repetitive .

[Nicci]

Initially, I gave the story a 3 rating. Then I started thinking, do I know the structure of a good horror story? No. I generally do not read horror. So, it scared me silly. The monsters are terrifying. I take issue with twisting your neck a certain way to get through curvy tight spaces. Doesn’t appear realistic. I hated the children’s part of the story. Still, I changed the rating to 4 stars.

So, I guess I’ve to learn the elements of a good horror story.

[Hank, Hankenstein's Modster]

I get the complaints but this one worked for me. I loved the old school command line video game feel of going room to room wondering what surprises each one holds. I loved the ending trifecta of Sean, Lantern Eyes and Indigo and some of the monsters were pretty creepy.

I read enough that everything seems derivative and I stopped caring about it so much.

[Edwin]

3 stars for me with thoughts mirroring everyone else:

--The zombie escape room sequences got repetetive, but were generally fun and fast-paced, thought the monsters themselves were not very credible (dracula-like flesh eating adults and evil pointed tooth children, originally created to, um, do what again?)
--The plotting was not terribly original or consistent, though there was a moderately interesting back story, and the story line held together well enough.
--I liked the interactions and growth between the three main characters, enemies forced to bond and work together, sort-of.

Not great, but a mostly enjoyable and fast read.