Reviews

Shards of Earth: The Final Architecture Book 1 by Adrian Tchaikovsky

maneatingclam's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

nina_zara's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

detrimental's review against another edition

adventurous dark funny mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

charlibirb's review against another edition

4.5

Wow. Just...wow. 
The entire trilogy had excellent characters, excellent plot, great characterizations of aliens, and intricate plot. Would highly recommend. 

timinbc's review against another edition

3.0

A competent space opera, I suppose.

It's too long. There are too many stock characters. Grumpy Olli. A character all the others unjustifiably hate. Etc. Etc.

Some of the alien species are interestingly presented.

The "only we can navigate subspace" is badly worn, but AT certainly needs subspace to make everyone able to whip around the universe as if it were the size of Manhattan.

And as others have noted, there are WAY too many cases of character X arriving at location Y *just* in time to advance the plot.

+1 for the Architects being something almost beyond our comprehension.

AT can do better, but hey, he doesn't have to hit a home run every time up. Maybe #2 in this series will step ahead. I'll probably read it.

sine_qua_non's review against another edition

adventurous fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

testaroscia's review against another edition

3.0

This became available in my library queue the day I was finishing an Iain Banks Culture novel. Coincidence? There is a lot to like here if you like Banks. I think the next installment will really grow on me

maxschuman's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No

3.0

I think this book avoids some of the issues that worse authors have with the genre - alien species were weird and diverse, characters were not just monolithic representatives of their species, there was a lot of world building left unsaid instead of being dumped at the start - but I was not really hooked by the plot of this one, and the choice of starting with a crew that is already together meant that we missed out on the reasons why they were together. By the end I didn’t really care who lives and dies, the main interest to keep going was the mystery of the big bad. OK overall but not amazing, maybe filling out the rest of the trilogy makes it better.

kaamezcua2's review

adventurous mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.5

bookworm_ayz's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0