I couldn't follow the story. It's like watching a pro ball game - you could have a long afternoon nap after the first inning, and when you wake up, the game is still going and the score's still even. A lot is going on, but nothing. ( )

Peplumpunk no thanks

Not as good as its predecessor [b: Proxima|17983396|Proxima|Stephen Baxter|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1375157355s/17983396.jpg|25216071], but I avoided the audiobook this time because the last time it was just that bad. Reading this on paper was a lot easier than listening to that awful fake accent.

The story is about characters who kind of get transferred into an alternative reality after a catastrophic event at the end of the first book - they end up in a world where Rome never fell, and Imperial Rome lasted into the modern day. That's completely ludicrous, in a word, but "Romans in space" is interesting as high-concept sci-fi, so I let that slide. It gets even more batshit further into the novel, though: they later end up in a world where Inca is the dominant culture, and they've relocated off-world to a spinning tube in the sky... yet the inhabitants are mostly described as primitive farmers and superstitious. Then the world ends with a sudden heat-death when they travel to Ultima, which is actually the same as Proxima - the concept was explained and backed up with some statistical reasoning (apparently it's a real thing), but I didn't buy the argument. Just as in the earlier book, they have to circumnavigate to the dark side of the planet for some reason.

Also, I didn't like several of the characters. There wasn't really any character development over the novel, and the Romans were entirely interchangeable except for one with a distinctive tic - which he only develops in the later chapters.

I much preferred Proxima's storyline. I got into it near the end, though, and read about a third of the book in one sitting, more than usual. So it certainly has its ups and downs. ( )

I have mixed feelings about this book. It had some interesting concepts, but much of it was boring and I just wanted to get through it to see if it was going anywhere. Turns out it wasn't really. It just kind of ended, as if there was another book coming; maybe there is.

If you're not into technical issues, you probably won't like this series. But I did think the audiobook was well narrated, and that made it easier to follow, I think. ( )

While by far not as good as the first book, it also is not as bad as I feared. The main issue is, that it drifts off into a sci-fi style that is really not my main interest. Sort of "alternate Universe/what if" scenario. So if you read the first book, be prepared that the second one is not the stunning conclusion as you might expect but really goes off into a total different direction. ( )