K. W. JeterBesprekingen

F/SF

There are several things about this novel that don't chime with later DS9 canon - Odo consumes liquid; the political situation on Bajor is more fraught; the Redemptorists aren't mentioned again. But all in all I liked the way that it dealt with galactic politics and thought the existence of a "quarantine module" made good sense, and while it didn't stand out as having particularly great characterization, I'm not mad at it.

OK first "steampunk" novel. Sequel to Wells' Time Machine. Brings new elements to the story.

In the stand-alone sequel to the original steampunk story, Dower returns from exile to see the Victorian world his father’s inventions inspired, including FEX, where Jeter finally names his obsession: ferrous sex, the mechanical augmentation of humans and the imitations of intimacy that allows. The tale ends with a titanic clash that closes this bubble of alternative history.

De nuevo basada en el universo cinematográfico de Ridley Scott, Blade Runner 3 se aleja de la obra de Philip K. Dick.

Vuelve Rick Deckard, el ex blade runner que ha entablado con sus enemigos, los androides rebeldes, una relación de amor-odio. Vuelve Dave Holden, el viejo camarada de Deckard, portador de un presagio de horror y muerte. Vuelve Sarah Tyrell, la amante de Deckard y heredera de la corporación qué creo a los replicantes, convertida en rehen de un complot macabro. Los replicantes se sublevan convencidos que son mas humanos que los humanos. Y Deckard siente que se cierra en torno a él el cerco tendido por fuerzas perversas conjuradas para destruirle. El tiempo se agota.

Continuación de la historia creada para el cine, Blade Runner 2 sigue el referente cinematográfico, lejos de la historia original de Philip k. Dick.
Rick Deckard, el blade runner protagonista de la espectacular película de Ridley Scott, vuelve a internarse en la jungla de acero y microchips para cazar replicantes, androides renegados. Pero Deckard se convierte en un cazador cazado. Le acusan de haber asesinado a un ser humano, al que confundió con un replicante. Le acusan de ser él mismo un replicante.
Le busca la policía. Le busca su antiguo compañero Dave Holden. Le busca un asesino despiadado. Y Deckard corre contra el tiempo para salvar a su amada Rachael, una replicante.

An easy read but the ending makes it unsatisfying. Essentially this is part one of a longer story rather than being a book in its own right. It also fails to deliver on the action front and to be honest, while I'm left wanting to know what happens next, that desire isn't going to be enough to make me buy the next book.

Thoroughly, unabashedly steampunk with all of the bells and whistles entailed in the description. The narrative style takes a few moments to get used to and the action builds gently, but once Infernal Devices starts - it's runs along swiftly. A gentle hat tip to Lovecraft concerning the fishy folk of Wetwick and a menagerie of bizarre devices and occurrences. Our hero is definitely a trouble magnet - bad things happen to him with a regularity that only increases in pace. Fortunately, he learns to rise to the occasion as often as possible. I truly wish I'd read this sooner.

Based on the reviews I had read before starting this book (and finishing Edge of Human), I almost decided not to read this book. I am glad that I overrode my reluctance.

It is true that portions of the book deal with the plot of the movie Blade Runner. However, that is what most sequels do, is build on the material that they are developed from. I was expecting a bunch of retread, and every chapter I read, had a little trepidation of that. For the most part, my trepidation's were unfounded. I found this to be an introspective discovery of the meaning of humanity (much as I found the 2nd book). Despair, madness, even love are threaded through this book in a method that I found meaningful.

That said, it did take me some time to complete this book. Some portions moved rather slowly, other portions I was able to read through quite quickly.

Let me first say that I wish that this would have been a sequel to "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep", rather then a mixture of "Blade Runner" and a Androids, with most of the basis being the former.

However, I was very pleased with this book, even if it does start slow - so slow that I almost quit reading it, but I persevered, and it picked up after a few chapters.

I think that this book brought the tension of the movie and developed some of the characters there more, to some satisfaction. One of the core conflicts that is the theme of this book is based upon the subtitle "The Edge of Human"; therefore man vs. machine. I quite enjoyed some of the philosophical ideas along this vein.

A satisfactory book that brings some closure to the movie, with its unanswered questions.

Would've been enjoyable if it wasn't for the constant callbacks to the film. They are relentless. Also resurrecting dead characters feels forced.

Before I say anything else, remember that a 2-star rating from me on Goodreads means what Goodreads says it does--it was okay. NOT terrible, just okay. Although it was quite violent and dark, I kept with this story because it had characters and a setting with a ton of potential. However, as the story progressed, it felt like the main focus was on that darkness, not on fulfilling the potential.

The writing is strong and evocative, and the storyline progresses quickly for the most part (the backstory on each new character is sort of dumped all in one go, but it's interesting backstory and presented almost as part of the narrative, so it doesn't really slow the story down). I think it suffers in audiobook form because there are a lot of fight scenes, which, when read, mostly become confusing rather than exciting.

All in all, it was not my cup of tea, but if you like darker themes, a bleak setting, and lots of action, you'll probably like this book.

I found this read a little disappointing after some intial promise. Without spoling the plot, I felt the writing was just too stuffily victorian to be easily readable - though I have to say it did lend agood character to the overall book. So I am somewhat caught a-fenced between wanting more machicanery and more satisfying plotline. Since this is my first foray in to the genre, Ill use it as a benchmark for others to come.

Everything in this book just drags.

Romanzo interessante, abbastanza avvincente e con uno sfondo narrativo molto originale ed intrigante. Il quid della storia in realtà non è che sia poi così originale (anzi) ma il contesto tanto "intenso" lo rende un qualcosa di avvincente. Purtroppo il finale è terribilmente tirato via, poche decine di pag. per concludere una storia che avrebbe necessitato molto molto di più, l'autore avrebbe potuto tranquillamente raddoppiare le pagine totali se si fosse dedicato per es. a spiegare questo strano mondo, la sua nascita, significato e "contenuti".
Peccato.½

Definitely one of the Books I Should Have Read Already, though I have tried three other times. I just couldn't get into it. But I finally did.

I like steampunk. The visual art element anyway. I like the creativity. Not the gluing on of gears, but a lot of really fun stuff is out there. The thing about steampunk is that is is completely impossible, so I can usually take it in stride. Literary steampunk, on the other hand, is a challenge. For some reason, authors feel like they need to develop neologisms to separate their stories from "ordinary" fantasy fiction. Jeter doesn't have quite as many, but if he's one of the grandfathers of modern steampunk literature, then he's partially to blame for encumbering a story with unwieldy language - to set it apart, and to set it in the chosen time period, I'm guessing. Still, unlike so-called "hard" science fiction, in which there're always things inconsistent within the framework of the universe crafted, which are glaringly obvious, steampunk, unburdened from "clacking" and such is easy to swallow.

But Jeter wove some really bizarre stuff in this book. Absurd even in his universe. I think I settled on him spiking satirical with some of the really out there interjections.

I've got a few more of the origins of steampunk literature to try. Checking this one off.

There's a reasonably decent story here, somewhat burdened by those onerous syntactical constructs.

There's some great stuff in here, but some books would be so much better with a strong editor, and this is one of them .

the audio version was entertaining but this is very visual storytelling with a scene by scene series of interconnected plots, characters and locales, so it would make an even more interesting hanna-barbera meets porco rosso meets wizard of oz sort of live action w green screen "who framed roger rabbit" sorta thing, but even then who would do the flying machine special effects? i have no idea !

regardless, there are all the trappings of dime novel fun here to keep you entertained and few wonderful twists and turns to keep you thinking too, so even at two measly stars i'm still encouraging you to give it a try, especially if piscene creatures or the goings-on of automaton enthusiasts are your thing !

I spent a lot of time reading this book to make sure that I followed everything plot-wise. I have to say it was worth it to me but couldn't guarantee that it would be equally so for anybody else. I loved the original Philip K. Dick novel and Jeter tries his best to follow all the details of the book and more so of the Ridely Scott movie. The original novel is set is San Francisco, but the movie is set in Los Angeles. The book by Jeter follows the narrative of Los Angeles.
This book traces Deckard (former LAPD retirer of androids) as he moves from a Mars colony of earthlings to an offworld base. The story is confusing so Jeter has to recap often which would likely be found by most readers as distasteful. Most of the action is near the end and so the book ends with a Phillip Marlowe flourish. I found this ending interesting as I'm a fan of Raymond Chandler. The best part of the book for me were the descriptions of the emotional attachments Deckard had with Rachael while interacting with both Rachael child and Sara Tyrell who were part of the Philip K.Dick world or merging and separating of identities. Jeter doesn't have the poet philosopher of Dick in him, but I love his tenacity to describe as best he can the world which Dick's creations inhabit. I really appreciated Jeter's determination to finish a work that bore a strong resemblance to Dick's original creative story. Fans of science fiction and Philip K. Dick would like this but only the most adventurous of other genre would be pleased with this selection.

You don't get much weirder than this long out of print classic. A richly disturbing novel, Dr. Adder is cyberpunk dystopianism at its finest.

Dr. Adder is trashy, stupid, and fun.

Perhaps Dr. Adder's importance as an early cyberpunk dystopia exceeds its entertainment value. K.W. Jeter wrote it in 1972 while attending college, but it wouldn't be published until the cyberpunk explosion in '84. Because of this, the obsession with technology, the casual violence, the Interface-as-Sprawl et al., are all prescient forebears of some of the themes dominating contemporary sci-fi.*

But is it a great novel? Not really.

E. Allen Limmit is a naive, dumb kid with big dreams. The abandoned son of a brilliant scientist, he hopes to use his heritage as a means of conning millions from the titular doctor, an amoral J.C. for the slums of L.A. He leaves behind his shallow life taking care of a desert brothel, a perverted place dedicated to the quirkiest quirks of sexual desire: Giant, genetically-modified chickens. What he takes with him, and what he hopes will make his millions, is a broken cyber-weapon invented by his deadbeat dad, a laser-firing 'flash glove' (straight out of '70s camp) capable of turning its agent into a weapon of mass destruction.

The self-serving, obnoxious Dr. Adder is a brilliant surgeon specializing in body modification for the prostitutes across L.A.'s slums -- a precursor to Gibson's Sprawl known as the Interface. Adder's a callously evil, uncaring, misogynistic bucket of amorality start to finish, and Limmit's con doesn't quite go as planned, pulling both characters into a battle over the souls (and money) of the Interface with John Mox, Adder's rival and CEO-slash-religious leader of the world's moral authority.

The ultra-violence and gross sexuality still hold up as over-the-top, but it's more quirky cartoon than outright obscene. (Sam Delany also beat these extremes by a few years, writing Hogg -- possibly the most shocking novel of the 20th century -- in 1969. Hogg was similarly held up by its violence and sexuality, unpublished until 1994.) Characters are seemingly driven by a young writer's snark and sadism more-so than individual goals: Limmit is -- much like the hero of Hogg -- an unfeeling, dumb vehicle being pushed around by the plot, barely stopping to form a single thought; Mox is a shadow of evil in religion and capitalism; Adder's, frankly, boring and nearly as dumb as Limmit; all the women are walking sex organs (sometimes quite literally) and vehicles for kinky sleaze.

So Dr. Adder isn't driven by its depth of character, it's not driven by its attacks on consumerism and religion; it's driven, to some degree, by a handful of clever technological ideas (like uploading human consciousness to early computers long before it was passe), but mostly it's driven by its extremes -- and that it shouted those extremes first. Excessive drug use, sex, violence, and misanthropy fill every page (again, much like Hogg), and under all that the snark and self-importance of a young writer. Despite the mountain of excesses, the dystopian streets and sewers of L.A.'s Interface provide a wildly entertaining ride. As the laser-glove is unleashed and a corporate war between Adder and Mox's church heat up, the Interface is hit with a deluge of corpses and gore.

Dr. Adder isn't the great piece of fiction that Neuromancer or Green Eyes would be in 1984, but if you can look past its faults, past the sleaze and ultra-violence, you'll find a fun ride that holds up pretty dang well after 40 years.

One odd note on current (c. 2017) Kindle editions: Many of Jeter's self-published books, despite being cult classics in sci-fi and horror, feature some of the *worst* stock photo cover art I've ever seen. Random models -- always women -- eyeing the camera sexily, with minimal background art. Sometimes just a stock photo of a motorcycle that isn't even the right dimensions for a book cover. His cover art is wild. Dr. Adder is no exception. Perhaps only W.T. Quick or Thomas T. Thomas compare.

Got this as a free download from the author's website. The book is an extended introduction to the main character, Kim Oh, setting up her apparently unlikely transformation from from Little Nerd Accountant Girl to Scary Hitwoman. It's an entertaining read: well-written and professionally-presented and there are currently three further books in the series.

Poorly plotted, paced, and developed.

Having 2 different storylines at different time periods is confusing when trying to write a review. Boba Fett does this, Boba Fett does that. It is just reading adventures about Boba Fett that have a very thin connection to each other.

A mediocre ending to a very mediocre trilogy. Boba Fett was not the main character and he was 2 dimensional. The writing was insipid and didn't make you feel anything, even disgust. This series was warm, bland mushy oatmeal. At least Karen Traviss gives some depth and personality to Fett.

2 stories. One taking place around New Hope and the second during Return of the Jedi.
First story is about Fett taking down the Bounty Hunters Guild.
The second story is what happens to him after being eaten by the Sarlacc.

Not really sure how canon this is, considering all that Traviss has written about the Mando and Fett himself. I'm enjoying it though. No jedi, lots of assassins and bounty hunters though.

Update-considering how Lucas has trashed Traviss's Mando continuity, this is as canon as you want it to be.