Reviews

Queen of Angels by Greg Bear

angus_mckeogh's review

3.0

I’ll pretend like I understood what happened. Mankind discovers life elsewhere in the universe, AI becomes self-aware, man and machine are fused both physically and mentally, and an investigator tries to solve a murder in a dystopian future. How do they all tie together? I honestly don’t know. But it was interesting enough to finish.

eososray's review

1.0

I just could not get into this book at all. The writing style was frustratingly archaic and the characters so far removed from this reality as to not excite much interest. I finally gave up after 10 chapters.

heliopteryx's review

3.0

It has a lot of interesting ideas, but was also really boring.

I did like the whole retributive versus restorative justice thing.

cdeane61's review against another edition

3.0

Very engaged up to a point. Once we got deep into the "country of the mind" section it sorta lost me.

I enjoyed the vision of Los Angeles of the future, and the hint of a police procedural set in the future, but don't really think it panned out that way.

This is essentially a book about the mind, and all that influences it, be it organic or artificial.

Will not pursue the rest of the series

jonmhansen's review against another edition

3.0

It's cool and interesting and there's a lot going on to recommend it, but it didn't come together for me.

catastrojb's review

It didn’t fit my mood at the moment - I’ll come back to it. 

matosapa's review against another edition

dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

annahlee's review

mysterious reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

kindfulkirby's review

2.0

I've quit books half-read before, usually because they were bad. This isn't really a bad book, I just don't care. Neither the plot nor any of the characters are the least bit engaging. I'm not even bored by it, I... just don't care.

omad's review against another edition

3.0

2047 is ending and Emmanuel Goldsmith, a well respected poet has slaughtered 8 young devotees before disappearing. Hence begins a search to find him, and understand out why he would do such a thing. Several intertwined story lines follow a pd (public defence) investigator, a disgraced neural scientist, a friend of Goldsmith's, and an AI researcher.

I had a lot of trouble getting into this, due to a combination of unfamiliar terms and some unusual typographic techniques, used to indicate what a character was thinking. It made for confusing and slow going.

Fortunately, I persevered and thoroughly enjoyed the story.