Read all his books as a young teen in the 70's. Very fond memories.

The ending was awful, completely killed the book for me. Humans apparently are too stupid and conflict oriented, so the solution is the spiders mind control us, effectively causing us to be slaves and lose our humanity. I was enjoying the book until about 3/4 of the way through it.

Into book 5 now, it’s a bummer that there’s basically nothing about this series.

I really enjoyed the audio book

Love your review. Just re reading this book now for the third time, though its been probably 7 or 8 years since the last time. It was the first book I read in a single sitting back when I was in high school. I thought your review did the book justice, especially in as far as you considered the originality of it. I can always appreciate books, movies, or etc that are simply unique in their concepts and explorations of ideas. I also appreciate your take on it being a romance, as that isn't the way I ever thought to describe it, but nevertheless very accurate and a constant theme that is developed throughout the events of the story.

What happened to Greg? I've been waiting for new content for years.

Spoilers. RIP Homer 😢

Thanks for the review! I sat down with this book expecting a cool story to read in my spare time, but I ended up inhaling the thing in two days. I was actually quite fascinated by the spiders and it was wonderful learning their history and watching their society/culture change with time. And I suppose if you're not into that, you're not going to have a good time 😅 I didn't quite care too much for the humans, except for maybe Lain. So I was very surprised to be rooting for the spidies in the end, thinking 'well, humanity had a good run!'. Super keen to read the sequel.

Love this series. Treat yourself to the audio version. The fourth book wasn't quite as good as the original trilogy, but still fun and progresses the universe nicely.

Good review!👍👍👍🤖📚🚀

Jesus fuck pronounce it Zaroas. Try listening to both audio book and reading it bfor doing a review. You do a shit job of giving the series service. Do you're research dude.

I've read the Elephant in the Brain, I know the true reason you made this review!

I have just started reading and when you said ‘your brain will take you to a different story’ in relation to the illustration in the pulp magazine that struck a chord with me. Never been a reader but always interested and this really gave me a new outlook on the process always feared I wasn’t imagining the right thing but it’s totally up to the reader. Respect.

collapsar's are what we call now neutron star's i believe

Good review!

Greg, did you had the Mass Effect vibe while reading this ? The characters, good or bad always had their counterpart in the Mass Effect game, with some magic dust of the original Star Wars here and there.

*Spoilers, kinda* Good review, thanks!!! I'd argue that the tech is 5/5. It's not groundbreaking, but I loved that the busters were the first, simplest and fastest things Bob could come up with, but WOW- they end up serving so many purposes! A fusion reactor with a hard shell? YES! PLUS, how Bob thinks through things like rail guns until the end when Bill does his thing- (the Star Wars thing). It might not be all accurate, but it is so consistent with the Bobiverse that I love it. Just a thought from someone who has yet to get his copies of the next two books in the mail. Thanks again! [Guppy, check the mail]

H-A-L-D-E-M-A-N = M-A-N-D-E-L-A-H. Mary-Gay is also the name of Joe Haldeman's wife.

I love this book. Try to put yourself in the shoes of a spider.

Wait what in the fuck? Your reviewing the thing before you've even finished watching the show 😲 I know this review is old but shit, to quote another famous Sci-fi boy "Amazing. Every word of what you just said was wrong" 🤦‍♂️

while searching for a new book I found this vid. I almost skipped it because I thought if you are wearing a Picard shirt then you must be a fan of it. I then realized that your vid was released prior to the show and watched. Then the picture of the worst character in star trek in the background. Quit after #8 . .. so far this list would be better as "underatted, fun and vanilla sci fi" with a few exceptions

Love your reviews!

You shouldn't do a review if you skip chapters!

I loved this series too.

Man, I was hoping to love this review, but oof. I'm a huge sci-fi nerd and this was the first time I'd dipped my toes into modern authors and goddamn was I blown away. Yeah it starts slow, but it 100% pays off. You're totally wrong when it comes to pacing, the 'slow' bits were the contrast to the Gilgamesh plotline and built up the tension. It's the best hard sci-fi treatment of space travel I've ever encountered (sorry Niven), and it hurts to see it done so dirty.

I loved this book. But it leans on the reader having an interest in anthropology, social psychology, and its intersections with biology. I strongly disagree that this wasn't "hard sci-fi" unless you narrow your view of hard science fiction to the traditional technological sciences. Of course not everyone has to like it, that's totally cool. But to readers of the comments, I'd say ask yourself if you have an interest in the hows and whys of social organization, and how material realities affect thought and being. If yes, you may also love this book.

Dennis E. Taylor made a great scifi series. Beyond the mind fuck of being a clone of millions His humor is a thread through it all.

as i remember the version i bought was the 'corrected' version; apparently the were errors in the first; but i do recall in the foreword/dedication mr dyson was listed as a contributor. EDIT, my bad, the dedication was in the sequel. engineers

Dude, you were in a bookshop. Holding the book. And you brought it on Kindle ?!? WTF - never subscribed and not going to - support your local bookstore 😞

Every time I hear someone complain about a story, or part of a story, dragging on, and then I read the book myself, I find that the person complaining likely has a short attention span. Most of the time I do not have the issues that they do. In fact, I like details because you can learn things that the author is trying to convey and those details. But the people complaining often miss what the author is saying in the slow parts.

Thanks for doing this.

Niven did go into what held up the Buildings, it was via a maglev system which is why most of the buildings crashed to the surface when the superconductor virus was unleashed. Edit - Also the follow ups RIngworld Throne /Children /Engineers are great at expanding on the (ring)worlds inhabitants, cultures and customs - Rishathra was one of the more original ideas for diplomacy or sealing trade deals I've come across in sci fi.

Is it really good or is it one of those books that people like just because of journals and media? I started it but finding it convoluted and hard to get into whereas something like Dune grabbed me from page 1. Wondering if I should give it more of a chance.

Great video, it’s very cool ! Made me wanna read the books, and so I did… and oh my god it’s so cool ! Loved the first one, the second one was pretty good and I loved the third one too. Thanks ! I loved the fact that you follow the First Foundation through many years, like there’s a 50 years gap between every stories. It kinda give the reader a « satisfaction » of knowing what’s happening to this foundation very quickly (well for me at least). And the character of Seldon is so classy ! (Not even talking about Salvor Hardin, The Mule, Han Pritsher or Mallow) ! My favorite (series of) books so far..

the books play 10000 years in the future, because the minds where transferred bi the needlecast, and that sometimes needs thousends of years to transfer by lightspeed throught the universe. I've read only the german version, but i cant imagine, that it's very different in english

I've read the book shortly after it came out, year before the series and i think it's one of my favourite books of all time. It's brutal, but the ideas with the "hendrix" was fun. I loved the description of the fight scenes, in which Kovacs was always a brutal guy, struggeling with himself. The second book was completly different to the first, but the third was better again, but it never had the quality of the first one. There is also a sililar book of Morgan (Scorpion) but with different caracters. The newer books with the medieval/mythic theme are also fun, but i still like the sci-fy thing much more.

Algorithm

Great video. Othe than Old Man's War, I was unfamiliar with most of the titles.

Dyson spheres , Ring World etc Are gravitationally unstable and could never be constructed but if it were it would break up of it's own accord.

You should focus on reviewing the book instead of talking about how and where you read.

I discovered this book in serialized form, before the book was created. It, and his other work like "All my sins remembered" influenced my own work significantly.

originality: The initial premise is somewhat close to Larry Niven's old "A World Out of Time" (AWOOT) novel where this guy named "Corbell" is dead then is thawed out by "The State" after a hundred years and forced into being a interstellar ramjet pilot. Of course back then, Corbell was a physical guy, so Taylor's twist is that Bob is just the mind image and memories and no body. Obviously at some point, ideas have to repeat somewhat in Sci-Fi. AWOOT in the later parts is totally different from the Bobiverse (Corbell disobeys, goes off using relativistic time dilation to outlive the "State" and comes back to a solar system radically altered by planetary engineering)

Like video

This book is trash. The ending is such a fucked up mess. I recommend you read A deepness in the sky. Literally has the same themes of the book and executes them a million times better.

The expeditionary force audiobooks are amazing. Can you do a rec Video of more books/audiobooks like expeditionary force?

Greg are you interrested in reviewing HFY? I love "Deathworlders" (Jenkinsverse) it is an amazing ongoing story (every month a new chapter 74 chapters so far) and I would love to hear what you have to say about it.

I got into the Ember universe pretty recently (like maybe 2 months ago). I've really enjoyed listening to Luke Daniels narrate the stories. I've become obsessed.. there are only a few left that I haven't read/listened too. Can't get enough! Great work by Richard Fox.

Is it a midlife crisis that makes you throw books around?

The book started great and ended ok. Why do I say this? Because as Bob's multiply and take on the various antagonist, be it the Brazilian guy or the aliens, in the book, Bob says, Oh, I didn't know we can do that now as they seem to overcome obstacle after obstacle, seemingly w/o effort. They just surmount issue after issue and can do things, that even more advanced enemies cannot do. It just seems too easy.

I like your thoughts and your pacing. Your score system could use some work. I recommend a simpler "recomend/do not recommend" approach and brief comment of why you chose that way. It is more organic and understandable. Cheers.