Die Maschinen

Really enjoyed this book. In some ways it's a classic space opera but there's enough twists on the formula that it feels super fresh. Fascinating explorations of identity, language, and class. The writing was fun and engaging, I ate this book up.

This is a fun space opera that has all the fun space opera things: giant interstellar empires; worldbuilding on various interstellar cultures, and how they interact with each other, and how they do gender; exploration of how cognition and identity works in entities that are not (or not entirely) human; grand plots and conspiracies.

The overall plot is perhaps a bit simple, and some of the characters lean perhaps too much into one-dimensional archetypes, but it does not matter that much against the lively worldbuilding, and how it ties into the whole story.

I liked it!

I found it difficult to follow the first 15% of the book and only really got into it at about 25% which is pretty far compared to what I'm used to. I'm sure it was intentional but I was doubting my understanding and comprehension initially. This made it feel like I was forcefully trudging through until a point I would hopefully understand.

Once I got into it the book kept on getting more interesting and exciting as it progressed.

I enjoyed the way the book played with concept of self, culture and gender concepts.

This is a really good read, with great concepts. Definitely a page turner!