Instruct: Classify Amazon reviews into positive or negative sentiment
Query: Great ending, weak plot

I've followed the Doc Ford series with a lot of enthusiasm. But I found Mangrove Coast very slow to get going. It took about 250 pages for Doc to quit spewing his philosophies on the ills of society and get some action going. Great ending,but it just doesn't make up for a long, drawn-out middle. Ambrose Bierce said something like "A novel is just a short story padded". That quote about sums it up for me. But do read the rest of the series.