Dmitri Petrov

Intriguing ideas with insufferable narrator

Revisado: 05-07-25

The ideas in the book are interesting, however the narrator is over the top preachy. Impossible for me to listen to for more than a few minutes.

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Kind of dull

Revisado: 01-28-25

The premise is unoriginal and the beginning with all the strange phobias is just boring. Maybe there is some big reveal coming, but I am giving up on the book.

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Ev ev ev…

Revisado: 11-21-24

If only I had a dollar for every instance of the acronym EV that I heard in this book. I had to stop listening in the middle because this just got too boring. The premise of the book — that there are very different approaches to risk in the society seems interesting but the book doesn’t seem to have much depth. It chooses to emphasize the most superficial examples of risk — gambling, venture capital — and seems to glorify them. Failing to acknowledge the fact that these are artificial environments and people most successful there are not actually taking many risks, they are mostly taking advantage of less skilled participants in the “game”

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Diversity Training in Space

Revisado: 04-27-23

Honestly this reads like someone tried to transplant the idea of corporate diversity training into a space opera. The first couple of hours of the book (couldn’t stand it any further) show almost no plot development but thoroughly explore the proper use of they vs “zey”, body positivity, etc. I get that SciFi is often about exploring contemporary issues in an imaginary universe but this is just so blunt and dull.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

Slow train to nowhere.

Revisado: 03-20-23

I am 5 hours in the book. Many plot lines not much plot development. Characters seem to be in a hurry, “things couldn’t happen fast enough”, the narrator is very “hyper” and produces a sense of urgency, however the story is littered with a lot of unnecessary details, so things barely move.

I think I am giving up on this.

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Dull

Revisado: 01-14-23

I bought the book after listening to a podcast with the author where he gave an engaging summary of his ideas and research. Unfortunately the book is anything but engaging. I couldn’t get through the first two chapters. The endless discussion on the question of existence of “free will” is probably interesting for philosophy majors. The rest of us can skip the book.

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esto le resultó útil a 1 persona

So very boring.

Revisado: 02-02-22

I liked The Martian, so had to try this. Unfortunately it seems to be the same story just tweaked a bit and as all sequels it is not better than the original.
The protagonist seems to have the emotional range of a robot. I am having a hard time imagining a person who would wake up from a coma in a strange environment with no control of his body and instead of panicking would start to methodically try to work on enabling his body functions -- move an eye lid, then try to speak, then move the hands. The only thing missing is a boot up screen. So, he seems very detached about things that are happening to him but get all gushy about abstract things like 'oh my god aliens!' or 'the sun is dying'.
Then there are the tedious descriptions of scientific experiments. Dropping things and pendulums. This is definitely a robot which was programmed to teach junior high science.
I returned the book so didn't get to the end. Maybe there is a clever explanation at the end for author's lack of literary skill -- the character is actually a simulation of a human mind running on a huge alien computer?

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Kind of dull.

Revisado: 07-02-20

Not much of a story. The premise is interesting, so it keeps you going for the first half of the book. However then the tedium sets in: the main character[s] seems to have no personality, the mission is pointless, a lot of repetitive descriptions of approaches to new solar systems, scanning asteroid belts, fly bys, etc. First time it is kind of interesting, third time it is dull.

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Predictable.

Revisado: 07-31-18

The book goes in a straight line from start to finish with no surprises. All events are well announced in advance. In the end I was bored.

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esto le resultó útil a 3 personas

On a slow train to nowhere.

Revisado: 06-23-17

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Not really. Simak has much better books. To me this feels like one of his weaker works.

Has A Heritage of Stars turned you off from other books in this genre?

no

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