[Andorion]

About 67% in. I hope this slow doldrummy middle is finally over already

[JPK]

Keep with it Ando, the ending really makes the book.

[Andorion]

80% done.

Spoiler

Nice reveal about the Hungry kids. I mostly guessed it though.

Just a sudden thought - does Beacon still exist?

Also are the Sporangea really the global threat Cauldwell thinks? In that case humanity is doomed.

Gallagher is going to die, isn't he?

[Andorion]

Finished.

Overall I really liked it. The middle was a struggle, but the ending was pretty great. Nice twist there, and very very bleak.

[Abyss]

Abyss, on 24 March 2017 - 02:25 AM, said:

Sequel!
SEEEEQUEEEEEEEEEELLLLLL!!!!!!!!
http://io9.gizmodo.c...th-a-1791163965

worry, on 24 March 2017 - 02:34 AM, said:

Awesome. Stoked!

Library just dl'd me THE BOY ON THE BRIDGE earbook.
Very psyched to listen.

[Abyss]

Abyss, on 19 June 2017 - 03:39 PM, said:

Library just dl'd me THE BOY ON THE BRIDGE earbook.
Very psyched to listen.

Halfway in, this is good stuff.


Very much in the vein of GIRL, well connected but sufficiently distant/different that even tho it is a prequel - If you've read the blurb it's no spoiler that this is the story of the Rosalind Conway expedition, the armored vehicle found towards the end of GIRL - and you know where some of the threads must be going, it's still utterly compelling, hard to put down/pause.


Earbook is Finty Williams (fun fact: Judi Dench's daughter) the same narrator as GIRL. She handles the narration very well. Her pacing and tone as tension rises is art.

[Abyss]

The BOY ON THE BRIDGE..... about 60% through... yknow, based on LUCIFER and the FELIX CASTOR series, i tend to think that Carey generally leans more towards suspense and tension than action, but when he does action HOLY ZOMBIEFUCK.

Seriously, there is an action sequence in this book that is not wildly original in any way but is utterly rivetting. It's placed just right in the story, and even if you see it coming ... it's almost impossible not to see it coming because the setup is so obvious and logical, but it twists and twists again and even when every step is perfectly where the plot was going Carey still manages to grab you and hold your attention hard.


If you read/enjoyed THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS, i think that you will really want to read this or earbook it. It turns a lot of what you think you know from GIRL sideways. I'm hooked, am actually sticking with this instead of sidelining it for the latest Stross LAUNDRY book, it's that good.

[Imperial Historian]

Finished the boy on the bridge last week. For me girl with all the gifts was a great first half and a decent second half. I don't think boy on the bridge rises to the heights of the original, but the majority of the book is better than the second half of girl with all the gifts, all in all a good return to the world (and does a nice job of subverting some of the knowledge from girl). If you liked girl with all the gifts I'd definitely pick this one up.

[Abyss]

Finished BOY. It was damn good, and a solid prologue and epilogue to GIRL as well.

I give GIRL a slight edge for overall story, but other than Melanie, found the characters in BOY overall more interesting. The path the characters take in BOY is just overall more unpredictable and tense. And despite being a prologue to GIRL, it's actually fairly difficult to guess where things will ultimately end up. I predicted some of it, but Carey managed to surprise me on three points. Great action scenes too.


SPOILERS

BOTH BOOKS

SPOILERS

Spoiler

I expected the Colonel to die, more than once.

I did not expect McQueen's face/heel/face turn at all.

And while i expected Greaves to die, i did not expect it to happen like that. While he wasn't as fascinating as Melanie, Greaves was an interesting character. My big issue was how he was so divorced from normal human feelings and interactions, but instantly concluded he could not reveal the cure because of the risk to the Hungry kids.

I also loved the twist of Khan's reveal to the Colonel about the Highlands but not the 'cure'.

It's interesting that in GIRL the survivors have definitely guessed that the second gen Hungry kids are the key to a cure, but not figured it out. In theory they have the same resources, and Greaves' combo of resistant tissue with Hungry kid sample seems almost too simple. Tho the key may have been that Khan was already infected, i suppose.

The Epilogue was fascinating, with Melanie as leader of an advanced second gen Hungry civilisation looking for human survivors to save. It's a more positive end than i was expecting.

The two books together actually form a very complete and very readable story. Utterly worthwhile.


Earbook narrator was excellent.