Providence

This novel is about 90% popcorn flick novel and 10% sci-fi thinker, which makes it quite the page turner. The story is simple enough humans vs aliens, following the mission of a four person crew on the space ship providence. The small cast features very strong archtypes that consistently play off each other and propel the narrative through the somewhat basic story. Of the four characters one was a bit too bland for me and I ended up skimming their back story sections a bit. The other three characters had a bit of something going on to make them compelling to me. If the book was 100% popcorn flick pulp I'd give it four stars. I can say that at around the third act I was fully engrossed in the story and actually delayed reading it because I wanted to finish it in one sitting, which is a testament to how much I enjoyed it. The 10% sci-fi thinker puts it in the 5 star category, the ship in the story is AI powered and the plot leaves room for the reader to ponder some big questions around autonomy, propaganda, and so on. I also found the explanations of the aliens extremely clever and were an excellent complement to the AI.

I was introduced to Max Barry by Lexicon, a book I loved and continue to recommend to anyone who will sit still and listen for maybe even 10 seconds. Providence is a good bit of Sci Fi, clever, interesting, and well written but not mind bending in the way that Lexicon was. Maybe I just have to accept that Max writes many good books but thus far, only one great one.

Wow! What a great read. First, I have to preface this review: I’m not by any means an expert in the SciFi genre. I read across all genre’s but mostly dwell in thrillers and mysteries (for obvious reasons). But I do read quite a bit of Scifi. I loved this book and think at the very least it should be nominated for a Hugo.SciFi has two additional hurdles to make the story work, world building and creativity. Both are a difficult balancing act and Berry does a superb job at it here. This book reminded me of Old Man’s War combined with Fuzzy Nation, Starship Troopers and a bit of 2001 Space Odyssey. This book had everything, world building, creativity and most of all, action. What it did lack though was romance. Could’ve at least used a smidgeon of that.This story only has four characters, two strong female roles, and two male roles where the characters are flawed.What worked so well for me was how the author set the conflict with great motivation and verve in three pages. Just that quick Berry had me by the throat pulling me through the text. In the way I deconstruct novels, there are four parts of the story arc, conflict, complication, crisis, conclusion. What was also interesting in this book was how the story slipped too soon into the crisis. I have seen this before and what happens is that the action isn’t sustainable the reader can suffer plot fatigue and get dumped out of the story. Berry meshed or integrated the complication with the crisis and it worked wonderfully. In fact, I’m going to go back and reread it to analyze the structure to see exactly how he pulled it off. Great craft.If you like a good space opera, this is an excellent one and I highly recommend it.David Putnam author of the Bruno Johnson series.

Great premise. Opening chapters are fantastic. The dialogue is great, realistic, humorous. But about halfway through the story just gets tedious and the plot and characters monotonous. Spoiler alert. I don’t know or care how the book ended.

Max Barry is one of my favorite authors. Providence is great 95% of the way through. A terrific metaphor for our never-ending war in Afghanistan. But ... it feels like he just decided to "wrap it up" near the end. It was an unsatisfying, unexplained, illogical conclusion. The build up was amazing, the ending meh.

I read a lot of books but I don’t review many, because there are so many ”just OK” books out there. Providence is so much more than “just OK,” it’s an intelligent, interesting, very well written story that grabs you from the beginning and never lets you go. Totally believable, with well developed characters and a plot that moves along smoothly, steadily accelerating to a satisfying conclusion. If you like books that are hard to put down and leave you wanting more, Providence is a great choice. And a helluva read!

Spoilers Ahead:I was lead to this book from NationStates and the two thirds were great! The ending however……… It sucked. Nobody confronted Anders about attacking the ship, "Marlin" just seems like a failed attempt at humanizing the salamanders. Jacksons death was good but Anders death just seemed fake. It didn't make sense. It seemend rushed and didnt give the character the sendoff he deserved. Same thing with Gilly. Anders needed to die to redeem himself but Gilly should have survived. All in all its a good book with a rushed unsatisfying ending.

I read a lot of science fiction. It's my preferred entertainment. And so I also read a lot of books that aren't very good - either because their plot is silly, or their characters are two dimensional, or the writing is just boring. This is one of the exceptions. Everything here just works, beautifully. I couldn't put it down. It won't be for everyone, because far future stories with aliens just aren't what everyone wants. But if the broad subject doesn't repel you, this book is a definite must read. And frankly, it's original and interesting and well written enough that I'd recommend it even if you don't normally read stuff like this. It's thoughtful and exciting at the same time.

Kurz zum Inhalt: Die vier Hauptfiguren, drei Soldaten und ein Zivilist, befinden sich auf einem Raumschiff im Kriegseinsatz gegen "Salamder" genannten Aliens. Das Schiff wird aber von einer KI gesteuert und die Menschen sind nur Beiwerk, das einem verlustreichen Krieg ein menschliches Gesicht geben soll um die Kampfmoral einer kriegsmüden, finanziell ausgebluteten Bevölkerung (Kriegsschiffe der Providence Klasse sind unfassbar teuer) aufrecht zu erhalten.Zur Kritik: Die Handlung ist über weite Teile charaktergetrieben, da es zwar früh zu Kampfhandlungen kommt, diese durch die absolute Überlegenheit der Providence aber geradezu Routine sind, ohne den geringsten Zweifel wer gewinnt.Die Charaktere lernt man nach und nach kennen - zuerst oft aus der Sicht der anderen Crewmitglieder, früher oder später auch aus ihrer eigenen Sicht. Wobei ich mich öfter als einmal in einem Charakter getäuscht habe.Interessant wird es, da zum einen die Salamander mit jeder Attacke dazulernen und zum anderen durch die menschliche Komponente. Denn die vier Protagonisten beginnen sowohl an der Kompetenz als auch der "Motivation" des intelligenten Schiffes zu zweifeln. Dies führt zu einem überraschenden Ende das mit weniger Kontrolle und mehr Vertrauen besser ausgegangen wäre. Man könnte hier im Nachhinein an der Frage "Was wäre wenn?" wirklich verzweifeln.Das Buch wirft sehr interessante Fragen auf, die sicher nicht neu sind aber doch immer wieder anders gehandhabt werden: Wie reagieren Menschen psychisch darauf Jahre im Weltraum, auf engem Raum, mit immer denselben Menschen und immer derselben Routine zu verbringen?Und wie kann man einer künstlichen Intelligenz vertrauen, deren "Gedankengänge" mit menschlichen Gehirnen nicht nachvollziehbar sind und von der man nicht wissen kann auf welcher Seite sie wirklich steht?Fazit: Viel Psychologie am Anfang, überzeugende Action im letzten Drittel und ein sehr spannendes starkes Ende.

Brilliantly paced and elaborated.A delight to read.Perfect for a flight or a one night binge.Cements the author as one of the current best in SF.

The book started of really well and up until half way I just could not put it down. But then it quickly goes downhill from there, with crews acting crazy for no reason and fighting like they are in a Hollywood movie. It was huge disappointment.

This book is a curate's egg. Some parts are truly sensational whilst others are a bit plodding. Overall I would recommend it and I will look for other books by this author.