Ehhh...let's just say I mostly agree with the two or three out of five reviews. At 40% I was reasonably certain I wouldn't finish the book, but I guess I just needed a little break (also motivated to finish a book to mark that goal off of my list).
This book is notably lacking of interesting science concepts. Also, I can't remember anything truly interesting about the ways in which the alternate history deviates from real history.
Pretty short as it only took me 20 minutes to read, but I guess worth signing up to the mailing list to get for free. It is just a prologue to the Quantum series.
The writings compiled in this book do an excellent job at describing the mostly negative impacts that WWII had on its contributors, certainly making me feel like I have it pretty easy (I do!). It did get pretty repetitive and is not what I would describe as a page turner past about halfway. I closed it up with about 20 pages left to go, not that it was bad but just that I didn't feel that I had anything to gain by reading the last 20 pages (nor the previous 50-100 pages).
I found this game on the No Bullshit Games page, which lists games that don't have IAPs or ads. So generally they cost a couple bucks, and I believe this one did.
I really like the mechanics of this game. Little agents move around your system of facilities automatically performing tasks. It reminds me of the World/Kingdom of Keflings which I played nigh on a decade ago. Setting up automated systems like this is one of my favorite game mechanics.
I don't like that the campaign levels are so short. It seems like I could get more enjoyment out of the effort I put into setting everything up. Actually these short levels would be OK for a few tutorial levels, maybe even 10 learning levels. But it keeps going, and with seemingly random new things mixed in. I have passed level 27 in the campaign and it keeps throwing in new concepts that are only used for one or two levels. By now I am maybe four hours into the game and I am tired of learning one-off things.
It would help a lot of the buildings and/or resources were intuitively named. Gumballs are made in a laboratory? How am I supposed to remember that? Maybe it should be called...a gumball factory!
At this point I don't really feel like completing the campaign.
Wacky. It's about people being abducted by aliens for mind control purposes, so basically all of the stereotypical stuff with a mild plot wrapped around it. A little cheesier than I expected.
I bought this as my second motorcycle, looking for something a little more casual than the CBR 1000F. It was a bit neglected by the previous owner after he had been rear-ended on it, and then I had some trouble as described in this forum post:
This jumped around a lot.
Think like a long-form magazine article that starts out with the exciting subject matter and brings that discussion towards a climax, then abruptly cuts to tell the story of when the person of interest was growing up. For example, "and so, John took the last few precarious steps towards the top of the mountain. <cut> When John was 5, he was interested in many thing." And then maybe 50% of the article's length is spent on this not very interesting backstory, until it cuts back to John reaching the top of the mountain and everyone's reactions afterwards to finish out the article.
Now imagine that for 8-10 characters--that is this book, and I found it annoying. There are even some points where the author explicitly says thing like, "remember x, who had done this and that? Now they are..." Like, maybe if he had told me their story in a continuous segment I wouldn't have to be pulled back and forth.
The wording is a bit pretentious in many places, trying too hard to convey the author's awe of things like the conditions or the racers' determination.
The content overall is good. The descriptions of the challenges that the racers faced are great and did give me an appreciation of them. And it was a good way to learn about the subject matter.
