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6/23/2016
I can appreciate how this book is regarded with such importance and reverence -- it is, after all, one of the first SF books and a seminal work in that respect alone.
But the 1st half is painfully boring and monotonous. The author bludgeons the reader with countless and superfluous place names of the suburbs and outskirts of London, making the prose a depressing sea of confusing, dizzying, pointless geography. Also, one cannot identify with the protagonist at all. Half the time he is (magically?) telling the story from other peoples' POV. Book 1 is a tortuous and very tiresome read.
The 2nd half is completely the reverse. Tightly written and much more interesting, it fulfills the expectations of a very good sci-fi story and is quite enjoyable.