Alexander P. Osborn

Excellent Scifi Endeavor

Reviewed: 09-04-24

The works of Fabius Bile are mentally stimulating food-for-thought scenarios for the mad science types out there. Each book of this set have explored the wily nature of Fabius' mind and views against all manner of foe, his will indomitable every step of the way. Manflayer culminates in Fabius' greatest feat of biological engineering yet, paving the way for a scientist of immeasurable craft free of restraints.

Now I can look forward to his book with Cawl with the excitement it deserves.

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Enlightened Hunting

Reviewed: 09-19-22

"Illidan" is easily one of the better character novels set in the Warcraft universe. After reading "Arthas" I was hesitant for another novel revolving around events as experienced by a major character, but "Illidan" swept aside all my concerns, within the first couple paragraphs I was hooked to learn more about Illidan's point of view as he took charge of Outland after the events of "The Frozen Throne". I think a large part of why "Illidan" fares better than the "Arthas" novel is due to the fact we never experienced Illidan's story in its entirety the same way we did Arthas's, which leaves readers and long-time fans with a greater air of curiosity in piecing together Illidan's machinations. Granted, my experience may be heightened for having played through Legion and knowing where the ultimate conclusion of this story ends.

On that note, Maiev is incredibly unbearable through the story. I get that as readers we're granted the curse of knowledge that characters aren't privileged to, but that does little to assuage Maiev's incessant bitterness and hatred which only serves to dumb down her character. Gone is any sort of tactician or genuine hunter as her level head is absolutely replaced by this narrow-minded predator. Which is the point, but the writer does nothing to make this less annoying when we're reminded of this fact EVERY. SINGLE. PERSPECTIVE SWITCH. We get it. Maiev has become as "bad" as the foe she hunts, you can stop saying it with every interaction and bit of retrospection she's involved in - of course, this is more tedious to endure when we know that her beliefs about Illidan are radically off-kilter from his actual agenda.

Thankfully the other perspective characters are far less insufferable: Akama and Vandel. These two are interesting because it gives us two perspectives working alongside Illidan who don't see into their Overlord's thoughts the same way we do, but are less viciously ignorant than Maiev. Between them we get a more traditional arc of a character simply interested in honoring and preserving an old way of life and seeing that goal constantly teased before them in Akama, while with Vandel we get to experience the raw process of what drives the typical Demon Hunter through their creation and existence.

The narrator does a decent job, but he's not my favorite. He uses the same tone throughout the entire book for every character he speaks as, and while there are some characters you can imagine the voice working for the sheer consistency of the one-note is uninspiring.

"Illidan" is a great character novel that I recommend wholeheartedly for any Warcraft fan, and strongly recommend for fans of fantasy - though there are references within the universe that long-time fans will be more appreciative of and quick to pickup.

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Great context

Reviewed: 09-29-21

A great book of context for the man (machine?), the legend, the myth: Belisarius Cawl. The high concept setting will tickle tech fascists pink, while there are genuine moments of wonder as to how the Archmagos will escape multiple dire predicaments. I'll definitely be giving this another viewing upon completion so as to better place Cawl's behavior throughout the book.

Wholehearted recommendation for all fans of the Mechanicus and what they stand for, as well as those Heretek fans as we all know Cawl like to dabble in what the Empire deems unsalvageable xenos heresy.

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Fun Chew

Reviewed: 01-23-21

Despite having been written in 2005, The Singularity is Near has plenty of relevant food for thought to chew on. As a neuroscience major with a sub-interest in AI I found myself frequently marveling at the accuracy with which Kurzweil made his predictions referring to the 20s and 30s and the way that computation and brain research would end up marrying in order to produce a more complex understanding of our brain and nervous system. With such projects as the NeuraLink, among other BCI tech in development, the data we're due to receive on the brain will be staggering, and with machine learning to help sort the data the application of that knowledge will be astounding.

This was a fun book to mull over and I definitely recommend it, because the predictions are interesting for modern comparison.

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9 people found this helpful