Alien Clay

everything is described 3+ times, in a stilted convoluted non-linear fashion with random unnecessary scene changes. And it really only picks up the pace in the third act. It is like this was a short story padded out to be novel length.

I think I find a jocular first person narrative really irritating. I wish Adrian Tchaikovsky would write fewer books but make them all as good as children of time (not the sequels).