One thing I am starting to notice as a volunteer judge is a series of patterns that keep on appearing in the books I have cut. While I do believe cutting a book in the first 3 pages is overkill, I have cut several books that start out with mountains of descriptive text that don't improve enough later on. Most of the books I am voting a restounding Yes to advance lure me in within only 10 pages.

Even though Harbinger in the night tries to separate these description mountains into more digestible smaller paragraphs, I could grab a marker and scribble over 60% of the description without losing the jist of the chapter. Plotwise, I feel this book could be told in only 40,000 words. Cutting down the book by deleting almost 70% of the description would make it much tighter, more focused and better overall.

Another huge problem I had is that I couldn't stand the protagonist, Michael. He has shown absolutely no reasons to make me like him. Makes fun of janitors and feels people deserve to be unemployed for not getting useful techie degrees. Like dude, you do realize janitors are some of the bravest people I have ever met? During the Covid pandemic, who was going inside of those contaminated hospital rooms in stuffy tyvek suits removing needles on the floor and scrubbing soap on the walls? Janitors should be paid far more money due to the extremely dangerous and vital job they do!!!

Like, Michael doesn't even do anything for the plot except make fun of an overweight guy that is kindly sending him a video mentioning an unusual phenomena of the faraway satellites Michael is in charge of connecting with space Wi-Fi. I didn't take very well Michael's fatphobic and ableist comments. Also, what are birth control glasses? Could he mansplain it?

In every scene of the book, it is the AI Gustav that does 99.9% of the work. Michael could have fallen into a pothole in chapter 1 and the book up until the 20% point would not be affected. The excited satellite space video guy would have found someone else to send the video, maybe Michael's girlfriend or his boss. There would be other engineers in charge of working on Gustav to analyze the satellite data. It also seems very contrary to bureaucracy that nobody has given Michael a 'very stern warning' when they have caught him asking Gustav to change traffic lights.

I didn't quite understand why Michael doesn't want a cactus garden outside his house. I live in a country where water-wasting grass yards is not common. Most normal people have small concrete or dirt patios with potted plants and still have enough space to play soccer or hang laundry. In fact, with all the super techology, why is Los Angeles still 100% car dependent? Why not build trains? Michael's way of thinking against home office seems like he was someone born in the 1950's. Most young adults today would be thrilled to do home office. He is fatphobic and supposidly happy to have more free time to go jogging with his girlfriend. But also wants to commute to work everyday? Doesn't care about a toxic cloud of burning lithium polluting the air near his house? His likes and dislikes seem to be all over the place.

The girlfriend seems to tolerate him far too much. He makes these awful ableist comments about janitors deserving to be unemployed (which angers her because he has essentially insulted her own family members), but she's all perky and happy the next day? Oh, and she is taking a shower and he's slobbering watching her naked body showering and she giggles. Apparently his nasty comments from yesterday are forgotten and voyeurism at an inopportune moment is a none issue. Lana also enjoys it when he mansplains his job to her. She just patiently lets him say super smart sciency stuff with a weird smile on her face. This seems especially weird because she is a sports medicine PhD candidate (so obviously she should be a scientist as well). Lana never offers comments about her theories of the odd satellite behavior.

There is another female scientist character named Debra that everyone cuddly monikers her as Deb or Debbie. She is apparently super overqualified with a hard science Masters Degree but has to pirouette like a little ballerina across the hallways to allow the super smart male Data Scientists to walk through. A lady must know her place and ensure her less qualified male coworkers hog the entire hallway. And he must also slobber over her athletic body while he stomps through the middle of the hallway. Debra has to smile with meekness knowing she doesn't like it when male coworkers behave this way because she knows her place as the overqualified coffee and crumpets servant she must be due to her gender. UGHHHHHHHH!

In case anyone is wondering if the Spanish phrases said by Juan González are correct, yes, they are correctly written, only missing tilde and ¿ ¡ diactritics.

In a nutshell, the biggest thing I got from the book isn't exactly flattering both due to the excessive word filler and portrayal of the female characters. I still liked the Gustav AI. And so, this book is a cut for me.