the codex by lev grossman should have been a far more interesting book. i think it was this review from salon that made me put it in my reading queue.

the ending is a letdown, and none of the promise of the book really pays off. the computer-game-within-the-novel is pretty trite — it apparently is a combination of first-person shooter, space combat game, resource management sim game, and oh yeah, it’s open source, too.

the writing is good, the characters are good, and the plot is almost good. it just ends up being one of those novels that is worse than the sum of its parts.