This is conveniently timed. Although anyone can respond, please, I'm just quoting you since you happened to mention it in the last post.
From this thread, I've had the first Culture book lined up to read for years. I finally read it last week. I feel vastly underwhelmed. I disliked almost every character, even the main one, I literally skimmed huge swaths of descriptions that contributed absolutely nothing to the story, I thought many parts of it were just completely fucking out there because the author thought up some weird fucking scenario and had no idea how to include it in a "space opera" (cannibals on a ringworld that is about to be destroyed?? wtf?), and the ending was a big whoop blonde hair don't care just glad it is over event for me.
I rated it 3* on Goodreads, but it was probably a 2.5 or maybe even 2. Granted, there were parts of the book I liked and enjoyed, but it just didn't grab me in any way at all, and the author's writing style left me bored to tears. I know not everything needs to be "show, don't tell" but SOME of it should be shown, right? He told us what people were like, rarely showing us them doing those described traits, and often when he did they did the opposite of what he told us! And the endless fucking descriptions...omg. Maybe some people like that, but I can't stand it and it just kills any desire I have to keep reading.
So my question is...does it get any better? I see that the next book is all new characters, but I'm afraid that since it is the same author I will likely not care about these characters either. Or be able to stand all the endless pointless descriptions. But maybe he grew as an author and the first one is just rough, which is definitely a thing with a lot of authors, so I'm willing to consider the possibility.
