wolvenbolt's reviews
256 reviews

A Review for The Way of Kings Part 1 Leatherbound Edition:

Absolutely beautiful art and the craftsmanship put into the Leatherbound is breathtaking 😍🥰

It was a slow start but the character development of Daneel and Giskard was amazing!

Watching the two become more human in different ways was fascinating, with Giskard representing a robot with empathy and Daneel representing human logic and illogicals.

I was saddened that this book didn't feature Elijah Baley but his descendant D.G Baley was clearly a stand-in for him and acceptable.

I absolutely loved this book, it is flawed yes but enough to overlook them.

Seeing how the Solarian's Humaniform robots were able to overrule the First Law because their definition of Human was altered, was a devious revelation that blew my mind.

However, seeing Daneel essentially rewrite his own programming to invent a Zeroth law was jaw dropping and an incredible twist! And the fact it was Elijahs last words to him that caused such a path was beautiful, from that point on, those words planted a seed that would be watered by life experience of Daneel. Seeing Gladia's speech was the spark that lit the flame. It was amazing.
Daneel's Positronic brain had become so humanlike that it was able to form abstract thought and reach for that intangible definition of what Humanity is. This formed the basis for Zeroth Law.

However, the story ended on a cliffhanger and extremely quickly, with so many loose ends and things left unsaid. We have no idea what happened to Gladia, nor how Daneel will change. This feels unfinished, and I've been so consumed by this incredible world built by Asimov, that it's actually heartbreaking that I will never know what comes next, as the Author is dead.

So far this is the weakest book of the series, it took the weaknesses and sufferings from the first book that were originally minor and amblified them.

Majority of this book was dialogue, I'm not kidding, I kept track of it and at one point 20% of the book near the beginning was taken up by a single character's dialogue spanning many pages in a row. It just kept going on and on and on and on, dialogue and dialogue and talking and talking and talking and talking. I've read over 300 books since 2018, I've never encountered anything like this ratio of prose and dialogue. It was completely unchecked and out of control.

I absolutely love Baley, he's one of the most fascinating and well-written protagonists I've read. I really enjoyed his journey in this book, and seeing how he's trying to overcome his fears and acclimatise himself to the Outside.
Daneel was as good as ever but, again, not shown as much as I'd have liked, it focused more on Giskard, which I realised why at the end of the book.

However, again, same critism as the first book:
The tying up of the investigation at the end of the book was a massive exposition dump that mostly came out of nowhere. Now it wasn't as random-seeming as the first book, but the second book was quite good at the tying up of the investigation, and this was closer to book 1 than the book 2. Everything made sense in the end, which is good, but we were along for the journey with Baley the whole time and we were in his head and most of what he deduced at the end seemed to have popped out of nowhere and like Baley came to those deductions off-camera. Books such as this are done well when you get to the end and everything is revealed and you can go "Oh shit yeah! I remember seeing that! Oh yeah that makes sense!" etc, and that really didn't feel like it at the end.

But I really loved the last bit of the book and the amazing twist with one of the characters. Makes me super excited for the last book!

The book was too long, the prose-to-dialogue ratio was tilted way too far towards the dialogue, focused a lot less on the world building compared to the other books (and it's one of Asimov's strengths in this series imo), but the worldbuilding that was there was decent enough to make me see the world. But the ending and it's implications are exciting! 

This book was amazing. It was far better than the first book. Every criticism I had about the first book was completely resolved in this one.

I was not expecting to return to Elijah Baley and Daneel Olivaw. I really enjoyed their characters in the first book but I honestly believed the first book was just a setup for the world itself and not part of a larger narrative featuring these two characters.

The world building was excellent. Asimov crafted an incredible story with intricate detail woven into it to really make you feel the world of Solaria.
I love the plot, it was really interesting to follow. There was a lot of complexities with the world and how different it was to ours. I really loved seeing how the lack of human connection was portrayed. Baley's character in this book was engaging in every scene and it was very satisfying hearing Baley's thoughts and how he observed the world around him and his piecing things together and trying to understand how the culture was so different, and yet no Solarian realised that he was taking everything in and forming all sorts of reasonings.

I was a bit disappointed at first that the book didn't feature Daneel as much as the first book, but after finishing it, I believe it was the right choice as it let Baley shine more. In the first book, Daneel was often used as a plot device to introduce us to the world and future culture of Earth. This time however, Asimov chose to show us the world of Solaria through Bailey's eyes only. And it really made you feel like you were on Solaria. The planets unusual culture and norms could shock and confuse us just as much as it did Baley, and we came to understand why such cultures existed, the same times Baley did. 

At the 95% mark we were shown who the killer was. At first I was confused and told myself that this couldn't possibly be the killer, that his confession was due to duress of human contact, which in fact proved that he was not physically capable of committing the first murder. And then when we got to the very end of the book and it was revealed that he was indeed the mastermind of the two murders but his aversion to human touch, connection and presence prevented him from physically carrying out the first murder, so he manipulated the man's wife into doing, and she done so under such terrible stress and blacked it out.

I am very much looking forward to the next book! 

This book was not at all what I was expecting after coming from The Complete Robot, but that's not a bad thing! After coming from a collection of short stories set in the same universe as Asimov's The Robot, after experiencing all sorts of sciencey stories, technological tales and philosophical fictions, I was expecting a more grand tale in this main book.

Instead I found a neat little detective story, that was cleverly written to give as much detail on lore and world-building as it could, such as societal norms, different superstitions and perspectives, and make this world full of robots, ironically, feel as alive as possible.

However, it was not perfect. It suffers from what many detective books, shows and movies often do; leaving little clues around to make the reader at the end go "Oh yeah! I remember, oh yeah that makes sense now!" when what's actually happening is the detective at the end out of nowhere explains this huge speculation of how the killer did it, and why, and we never made these connections ourselves with the detective. It really did feel like Elijah vomited up a wad of exposition dumps at the end and explained what happened, with 5% breadcrumb evidence and 95% pure speculation that cannot really be proved without a confession.

I found myself saying "Holy shit, that makes sense!" and "Oh yeah it makes sense now", but then I took a step back from the moment afterwards and realised this all came out of nowhere, Elijah was pulling all of this out of his ass from 4 or 5 bits to be remembered from the story. And honestly that saddens me, if I was Asimov, I'd have got to the point at the end and then took parts of the speculation and added more detail throughout the overall narrative so it would feel less out of nowhere at the end exposing the killer.

I believe Asimov spent more time on world-building, lore and character development, than the plot itself, and I believe it suffered and became evident at the end. 

Overall? It was a neat little book that made me think a lot about how we treat others and how we view ourselves, I really enjoyed this book and I have no idea where the next book in the series is going to take me, but I'm here for it 😊

Just made me uncomfortable, not my taste 

What an unexpectedly delightful book!
I wanted to start Asimov's robot series due to the current state of AI and I was curious.
This book was filled with so many ideas and philosophical questions that scratched at itches I rarely get scratched.

There is a great selection of wholesome and heartwarming little stories contained in this short story collection, but also some horrific tragedies.
I was fascinated by the Three Laws of Robotics and how Asimov showcased all the consequences of these laws, how they were pushed to their limits, and their understanding of them challenged. The entire book constantly reinforces the Three Laws, and for a little while I found it annoying, but after reaching the end, I am glad it was so repeatedly brought up. 

This book, about robots, brought so many new perspectives, insights and understandings of what it is to be human. Which is unbelievably ironic 🤣

Please put this book on your TBR and stick with it, trust in it to make you feel grateful of life and of the beautiful genius imagination that was poured into it. 

This is by far the best book in the series so far, BY FAR. The difference between Ashes of Man and this book is not even an ocean but a universe of difference.
This took all the best parts of the books and put them in one book, 30% into the book and I already felt like it was the best of the series, and I never once felt any different as I progressed further.
It's hard to put into words how amazing this book is, and for me, it's in my top 3 best books I've ever read.
It was thrilling, captivating, gripping and I found it extremely difficult to pull away from the book.
It captured all my favourite feelings and moments from all the books, from the expedition from the first book, to the meet of Kharn Sagara in the second, from the political intrigues on Forum and the little moments in between.
This, is peak Sun Eater. And I fear, the next book, the final book, won't be able to top this.

Now there is only one thing about this book that I had an issue with, and that was the portrayal of

Cassandra.

.

From reading Tales of the Sun Eater volume 3, we were first introduced to her character on Jadd, and she was 15 years old. An intriguing character, and her very existence tugged at my heart strings, as I saw echos of her mother in her, and of her father.
Here's the issue though, Cassandra in this book was almost identical to her 15 year old self, despite her being over 40 years old. Those 40 years she spent growing up on Jadd, was spent entirely out of fugue, so those 40 years were actually lived and spent conscious and aging. And yet, she was still as foolish and immature as her 15 year old self, crying out for her Abba every second and never doing what her father asked. It was BEYOND annoying, of course her character has to have some form of naivety, she's been sequestered on Jadd for her whole life, subjected to all the hardships of her school, forged into a master swordswoman, but completely lacking in real-life experiences of battle and aliens and robotic foes. It makes me question how she survived the trials, how can she still as naive and dumb as her 15 year old self and yet survive the trials, it is unbelievable. I thought she was going to grow as the book progressed, but no, she was still reduced to a capable swordswoman crying out for her daddy every two seconds. It felt like she received the same treatment as Valka did by Ruocchio in Ashes of Man, reduced to emotional stereotypes, instead of complex and human.

Apart from that, there is nothing else I can nitpick. This book felt like 3 books packed into one without it feeling that length, it never stopped being gripping. From amazing lore reveals, the action, the character work, the story, the twists! This, I say again, is peak Sun Eater.

By FAR the best of the Tales of the Sun Eater collections, I loved every story in this.

There were characters in this, such as Simon, that I sincerely hope are incorporated into the main cast of the next main book!