When I set out to write a book about the natural history of breasts, I knew I'd have to answer some awkward questions about my book topic. At a...
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I just finished this book, making it through the 760some pages in about three weeks or so. I found it a little meandering and needlessly long (do we really need to pause for an entire chapter, twice, for a roll call of all the men who have died to that point?) but still found that I couldn't put it down. The most compelling part was the setting and the knowledge that the people whose stories you are reading cannot survive the book. I really wanted to find out what was going to happen to everyone, more than anything else.
In the end, I found the cast of characters tiring, with many of them coming straight from the last Die Hard movie. I don't understand the need for a supernatural beastie when the sheer terror of being stranded in the Arctic ice for two solid years would have been plenty. And don't get me started on the ending. I realize he's a science fiction writer, but seriously, folks...
All in all, amazingly rendered setting, brilliant atmosphere, but kinda lousy everything else.
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(6 of 17 readers found this comment helpful)
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boekelhe has commented on (1) product.
The Terror: A Novel by Dan Simmons
boekelhe, January 31, 2008
I just finished this book, making it through the 760some pages in about three weeks or so. I found it a little meandering and needlessly long (do we really need to pause for an entire chapter, twice, for a roll call of all the men who have died to that point?) but still found that I couldn't put it down. The most compelling part was the setting and the knowledge that the people whose stories you are reading cannot survive the book. I really wanted to find out what was going to happen to everyone, more than anything else.In the end, I found the cast of characters tiring, with many of them coming straight from the last Die Hard movie. I don't understand the need for a supernatural beastie when the sheer terror of being stranded in the Arctic ice for two solid years would have been plenty. And don't get me started on the ending. I realize he's a science fiction writer, but seriously, folks...
All in all, amazingly rendered setting, brilliant atmosphere, but kinda lousy everything else.
(6 of 17 readers found this comment helpful)