The Sword and Laser discussion

Hi everyone!

As it's still a bit quiet I wanted to ask if anyone else has difficulty "getting into" In the Company of Others? I am listening to the audiobook and must admit when travelling I seem to refrain from continuing with the book most of the time and start listening to another podcast instead. I am in chapter 17 now and I feel the pacing has just started to pick up, so hopefully this will change from now on, but I was wondering if anyone is feeling the same way? And what may be the reason for this?

Is it maybe that it's hard science fiction that has to (?) do a lot of world building before the story can really start? While space operas and other "soft" scifi can throw you into the adventure right away?

It was a bit slow at the beginning, but it does pick up.

The narrator doesn't help.

The narrator doesn't help.

He's more energetic since I changed to 1.25 speed ;-)

I'm reading the Kindle edition but am definitely finding it slow to grab me. Granted, I'm only at chapter 3, but in another thread, Trike mentioned a Ruth Reichl book that sounded interesting and I'm already 50 pages into that one...this one may not be long for the world. Or at least my world.

I had to stop listening to the audio book due to the narrator.

Just finished the book today, found it okay. The characters were a bit shallow and I didn’t love the ending. Would give it a B-

Yeah, the first few chapters got a bit repetitive - I swear there were at least five different, detailed descriptions of the blockade and all that after the first Quill attack. It picks up a lot later on, though.

I really got into this one due to the world building and politics of the station. The different political groups based on the disaster and the culture shifts between them all, and the earthers was fascinating. I could feel the claustrophobia of the crowded halls and continuous frustration of having to be so polite all the time.
That said, the author does repeat herself a bit, so that can be annoying. She also will contradict her established group norms occasionally, which can be jarring. I'm found my interest was lagging later in the book, once the world was established and it felt like the story was going to take forever to move the plot off the station. The occasional action has kept me going and some of the character interactions. I will finish this, as I could finish the Snow Queen, and this is a better story than that.

I find the world building fascinating - as with many harder Science Fiction - but the way it's presented it often feels so "expository". And sometimes it feels like she just wants to present how much detail went into the world building. But I really don't know how much of that is the audio book's fault...

Another Audible listener here. I'm not digging the narrator either. He seems to over enunciate in ways that I find kinda annoying but it does make him easier to understand at faster speeds. I've bumped him up to 2.0. As for the story, I'm only at Chapter 12, and I'm into it.

I read a paperback from the library and got into it pretty quickly. I've always like Czerneda's ideas and depictions of alien life and found the one in this book particularly fascinating.

Just over a third of the way through.
I can see the young man is important
I can see that the professor needs to team up with him.

JUST GET ON WITH IT!!

I've not started this one yet (this weekend...) but one thing about Czerneda is that she can sometimes take a bit to make the story move. She has a background as a biologist and can indulge that side of things a little too much sometimes.

Reap the Wild Wind is like this. Amazingly detailed story about the people living on the planet, but pretty slow. By contrast, Beholder's Eye and A Thousand Words for Stranger both get into the action pretty quickly.

TRP wrote: "Just over a third of the way through.
I can see the young man is important
I can see that the professor needs to team up with him.

JUST GET ON WITH IT!!"

Oh no, I'm only about a fifth of the way in and am starting to get antsy that they're taking so long, I guess I should put my patience pants on? XD

I’m 90 pages in (day two for me) and it is slow for me, more so than The Snow Queen. The world building is barely happening in my head. I hope it clicks.

Just decided to check and see if anyone else was struggling with this one too. I'm on Chapter 17 and even though things are starting to happen, the narrator's voice causes my mind to wander.

Jen wrote: "I'm on Chapter 17 and even though things are starting to happen"

Oh sweet summer child!

oof. That did not get better OR pick up. It's $10 worth of plot in a 50$ novel and a lot of stretching to make it fit. You could (and I did) skip entire sections and miss nothing. And the writing wasn't beautiful or enjoyable enough to justify the lack of plot.

I didn't love the narrator either, but I liked how he did Maly's voice.
Did I spell it right?

I had so many moments of thinking "this is like the Expanse!"

Ian wrote: "I didn't love the narrator either, but I liked how he did Maly's voice.
Did I spell it right?"

Hugh Malley

Ian wrote: "I didn't love the narrator either, but I liked how he did Maly's voice.
Did I spell it right?

I had so many moments of thinking "this is like the Expanse!""

I thought this too-especially when they were on the station. Unlike The Expanse books though, I had to slog my way through this one and basically skimmed the last 100 pages. As others said, I found the pacing too slow and I also (view spoiler)[ found the quasi-love triangle between Gail, Pardell and Malley just...no (hide spoiler)]

Regarding Vanessa's Spoiler above: (view spoiler)[I must admit that the Smith/Pardell relationship seemed at times a bit too close to an inappropriate doctor/patient relationship for my taste (hide spoiler)]

Once I got to around chapter 20 it got really engaging. I found the best pacing for the narrator was x1.65 with the Audible Narrator

took y'all suggestion and bumped narrator to x 1.50 on the audiobook, that helped a lot seems like I am flying through it. not sure I could stand another slow set up in print after snow queen.

it's interesting how the narrator's pacing impacts enjoyment. the first half of the book seem more like a daring escape from thomburg. not sure how that will effect my review/rating of this book because the story need modifications to enhance it.

Yeah, totally agree, once I bumped up the speed to 1.5 it was a very different and improved experience

I had to restart the audio a few times, then bumped the speed up to 1.25 and that worked. Sometimes there's too many characters introduced in the beginning and I can't keep them straight. I felt this way about Snow Queen too.

I ended up liking the book but the romance parts made me cringe. I do like romance and I love a good sci fi rom, but this one didn't work for me. Otherwise, I liked the book quite a bit.

Wow, lots of listeners on this one. I'm with everyone else on the required speed boost. I think I would have Lemmed it due to the narrator otherwise.

Every time Malley does something like "steal a kiss" or inappropriately touch Dr. Smith, I get kicked out of the narrative. It just reads like sexual harassment to me (maybe I'm a little attuned to that being on a Title IX board at a college), not romance, not fun flirting.

Additionally, some of the descriptions, inner monologues, and assessments of attractiveness read like they are straight out of the "men writing women" subreddit, which is always jarring. The "female gaze" of Dr. Smith is almost entirely unrecognizable to me, it reads like "woman writing what she thinks men will want to read a woman writing about". All of this is making me have trouble getting into this novel. I'm 40% through and I don't know if I can stand it much longer.