When I reviewed the first volume in this series, I noted that while it was a cool concept, it suffered from "series bloat" - the tendency of writeGAH.
When I reviewed the first volume in this series, I noted that while it was a cool concept, it suffered from "series bloat" - the tendency of writers to pad out stories that should really be one book in order to turn them into a series. And after reading the second volume, I'm even more convinced of this than ever.
For most of this book, nothing happens except supposedly suspenseful action sequences that in reality lack all suspense because it's obvious that the author is not going to kill off our favorite characters. Almost nothing is done to further flesh out the (interesting) universe, or the characters. Some of them become extremely tiresome - I'm looking at you, Moon - whereas others just sort of chug along.
Then comes the ending, which has been obvious since fairly early in the first book. (view spoiler)[The Registry becomes conscious and saves everyone (hide spoiler)]. This happens in about thirty minutes (I was listening to the audiobook) and with a bare minimum of logic or explanation. (view spoiler)[How on earth did Topaz develop the ability to hack and reprogram the most advanced computer system in the known universe? I don't know, and I don't think the author does either. (hide spoiler)]
I beg authors and publishers to stop doing this. Yes, you got me to buy two books, even if the second purchase went against my better judgement. But I'm never going to read anything in a series by this author again, because I expect a repeat of the experience. Why not just give us good, well-rounded, one-volume novels that work and are not 50% padding? I like this author's ideas and I like the writing style. I want to want to read more. But whatever incentives are causing this to happen - whether they come from the publisher or the author or both - are getting in the way of me ever committing to reading M.R. Carey again. And in the long run, that's not a win for anybody....more
I will read every word Ann Leckie writes until she stops writing them. She is an amazingly talented writer. But this was a big miss for me. Why?
- The I will read every word Ann Leckie writes until she stops writing them. She is an amazingly talented writer. But this was a big miss for me. Why?
- The writing is so much less rich and dense than it was in the original trilogy, as is the plot. Whereas the original trilogy bent your mind, this book is light and insubstantial. The amount of repetition and hammering the same themes and points down your throat is out of this world.
- Example: the Presger Translators are prissy - we get it!!! Granted, there are times when Leckie makes this genuinely funny. One of the funniest moments in the original trilogy is when Translator Zeiat says "Well, Fleet Captain, I must say, this war of yours is very inconvenient". It was an intriguing glimpse into the weirdness of the Presger Translators and years later I still sometimes think about that line. But in this book, it just becomes boring and overdone, crammed down your throat and definitely no longer funny.
- The characters are mopey and annoying. It's basically a YA coming-of-age novel set in the Imperial Radch universe. The one older main character is a trope, basically Miss Marple in space.
- People will disagree about this, but I find it annoying to read a 400+ page book centering on the Presger and not really learn anything about the Presger. What we learned about the Translators was somewhat interesting, but the constant references to "mysteries you simply will never be able to comprehend" is just frustrating and hammy. It was okay in the original trilogy because most of it wasn't explicitly centered on the Presger, and it was very exciting to think that we might one day learn more about them. But apparently we won't. So, like, that sucks.
- Much of the book seems like it aims to simply evoke a sort of cozy feeling without really worrying about plot/characters. As with the Monk and Robot series (which are also by an amazingly talented writer), many people are bound to find this really annoying.
Part of this is no doubt about expectations, and Leckie has set them sky high with the original trilogy. I don't remember Provenance that much, but I do remember thinking that it was still satisfying and worthwhile. Then, perhaps, I was aglow with the warmth of the original series. But I still feel the same now - I was more excited about this novel than about any other in years. Writers of course evolve and move on to new things, and they reach new audiences by doing that - but in this case, sadly for me, Leckie left me behind....more
What's interesting and unusual about this book is the way that it draws on the tropes of three different genres - hard sci-fi, military sci-fi, and YAWhat's interesting and unusual about this book is the way that it draws on the tropes of three different genres - hard sci-fi, military sci-fi, and YA - and explores each through one particular character whose paths eventually cross. How you feel about it is going to then turn on how you feel about those genres. But it also seems like quite a bold move to put such radically different genres into the same book - how many people like both hard sci-fi and YA? For me, this meant that I enjoyed the first half, but then got majorly turned off by the YA adventure in the second half. When the (view spoiler)[oversized teenaged bunny took down the super-soldier using her high-school science knowledge (hide spoiler)], I really started to check out of the book.
The other problem with it was what I call "series bloat". This is the first in a series rather than a standalone. This means that the author leaves all of the major questions unresolved at the end of it. This is in itself extremely frustrating, but it also results in a ludicrously overstuffed book - there is so much filler in here which it feels like the author jammed in purely to avoid having to actually resolve any of the plot, and to create the need for the next entry in the series.
This book would have been much better if it was half the length, and I would have been much more willing to read the next one. Now, having invested nearly 17hrs into listening to a slog of on audiobook and not getting any resolution at the end of it, I have to decide whether I'm going to put a similar amount of time into the next one. It feels insulting to the reader....more
I was a big fan of A Memory Called Empire so I really wanted to read this book. It's taken me about two years to get around to it because I wanted to I was a big fan of A Memory Called Empire so I really wanted to read this book. It's taken me about two years to get around to it because I wanted to wait until I had time to really savor it. But in the end it was a huge disappointment which feels rushed and padded with filler (something the author eludes to in the acknowledgements).
Here were a few problems I had with it, in no particular order:
- Very little happens! A Memory Called Empire also felt slightly over-long and definitely had parts which engaged me less, but the character development and world-building made it all worthwhile. I was completely sucked into Teixcalaan and always hungry to know more about it. In this book, there is very little additional world-building or character development and a greatly increased problem with pacing. The narrator and the characters just talk the same problems and themes to death for hundreds of pages without really progressing, until suddenly everything happens in the last fifty pages. This book could have been half the length and would have been much better.
- There is a significant tonal shift from the first book. The first book felt... stately. It sometimes lived up to its pretensions to be philosophical. The characters acted in ways which felt realistic and like adults, albeit adults who were experiencing profoundly difficult events. Instead this volume is suffused with a sort of you-go-girl, Young Adult immaturity which makes it feel like it's aimed at a completely different audience. Of course, there's nothing wrong with that audience or writing books for them - it's just not what I expected after the first.
- The author also has a few stylistic tics such as over-use of italics and parentheses which disrupt the flow and make you very aware that you're reading a book rather than being sucked into a story.
- The main antagonist is never really fleshed out beyond a cliche. (view spoiler)[You discover eventually that the antagonist is a networked fungal intelligence. This is not just a cliche but one that we've seen everywhere recently - Star Trek: Discovery, The Expanse, Adrian Tchaikovsky. Martine doesn't really do anything new or interesting with it. What are their motivations? Why do they act the way they do? What's their history? The book ends with one of the characters just beginning to explore these questions - it would have been nice to hear something about them in the nearly 500 pages it took me to get there! (hide spoiler)] Likewise, Twenty Cicada's pseudo-space-Buddhism becomes significant in the end, but this isn't really fleshed out at all either, beyond "he likes nature and harmony!"
I could go on, but I'll leave it there. Martine showed she's worth reading in the first volume, and I'm not completely convinced to give up on her yet....more
This was such a fresh and brilliant book. It seems to draw inspiration from solarpunk, a relatively new genre of speculative fiction which imagines hoThis was such a fresh and brilliant book. It seems to draw inspiration from solarpunk, a relatively new genre of speculative fiction which imagines how the future might look if humans solve major environmental challenges and manage to live in harmony with nature. Here there's a catch - humans engineered a race of super-humans called the Erta to solve these problems, but have themselves ceased to exist. Having completed their work, the Erta are ready to move onto a new plane of existence - transcendence - and are debating whether to reintroduce humans into the biosphere before they do. The title character, the human son, is an experiment they create in order to observe humans and see if they can be trusted to return.
The plot revolves around an Erta named Ima who is given the task of raising the human son, and how the broader community of Erta react to his presence. The author fully explores all of the humor and tension which comes from a clinical and precise super-human trying to raise a human infant, and the development of their relationship over time was one of the most satisfying parts of the novel. At the same time that Ima is finding meaning and fulfillment in motherhood, the solarpunk vibe slowly gives way to a darker and more baroque one as the Erta become increasingly detached, cultish and anti-human in pursuit of transcendence.
Along with this fantastic world-building and character-building, the plot was fresh and unpredictable - I never felt we were just plodding along for no reason, or that it was too easy to tell where things were going. I've seen people in other reviews say they disliked the ending. I often struggle with endings too - it's difficult to avoid being anti-climactic - but I didn't find that the case here at all. I was in floods of tears in the closing few pages because everything fell so neatly into place.
I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Alison O'Donnell, and this was an example of where the audiobook really added to the experience. The Erta live in Sweden and have a kind of Celtic vibe to them, so hearing them rendered in a sometimes-otherworldly Scottish accent added so much to the richness of the story....more
I usually don't like writing negative reviews but I was super-disappointed with this and wish I had known more about it before I started reading (actuI usually don't like writing negative reviews but I was super-disappointed with this and wish I had known more about it before I started reading (actually, listening to the audiobook).
If you are going to read this novel hoping that Tchaikovsky is back to the form he found with Children of Time, do not! This is a totally different beast which feels like it is aimed at a young adult audience or one which doesn't usually read sci fi.
The basic plot is that some Moon-sized entities called the Architects had been destroying humanity's planets, they were sent away by humans with special abilities called intermediaries, and now they're back. The world-building isn't too bad, but it's also not particularly fresh or interesting. To be honest it feels like a real mash-up of different elements from Mass Effect, Becky Chambers, Alistair Reynolds and The Expanse.
The main problem with the book is the woeful character-building. The book revolves around a crew of blue-collar, salt-of-the-cosmos spacers who have about the same level as character development as a lance corporal with a bit part in a Terry Pratchett novel. Their entire "characters" consist of saying things like "see right?" and complaining about the Man, with almost nothing about personal history, inner struggles, etc. One human who we encounter on a planet with a strange and deadly biosphere turns out to be (you guessed it) some kind of space Australian, who says things like "he's just opened up a whole bloody can of research on us!" (Nearly DNFed right there and then). There's an alien whose entire schtick is that they are overly polite, layering every sentence with things like "my friend, my comrade, my sister". But WHY do they do that? What does it tell us about their society, their inner life, their relationship to humans? Nothing like this is explored. There is literally nothing deeper there than "haha see aliens talk funny!?"
The book is "plot-driven" in the sense that some petty thing is always happening to the crew, but for most of it nothing. important. is. happening. This book is so long given how shallow it is and you find yourself continuing just because you're convinced some amazing development must be right around the corner, given how long you've been bored for. The characters don't really have any interesting response to what is happening around them, and their interpersonal relationships - which are supposed to drive a lot of the plot - are underdeveloped and mostly static, just gestures to establish where they stand with each other. It's so hard to care about the plot because it's so hard to care about the characters. I actually found myself pleased when some fairly major characters died, if only because I thought it might signal the book was moving into a more interesting phase. One thing I will say is that after a while I picked up my audiobook speed to 1.5x - the equivalent of skimming - and it moved along more briskly. But it's not a good thing that you have to do that!
I gave this two stars rather than one because I realize maybe it's just not for me, and if you're into the space opera equivalent of an action movie, it probably has something to offer you. Becky Chambers has really spoiled me for this kind of thing now - she's just light years ahead of everyone else and it's hard to go back to something so shallow afterwards. I usually feel compelled to finish trilogies even if I don't enjoy the first novel, but no way am I reading the next two of these....more
There aren't many books which I not only say are among my favorite, but also that just make me feel so much better about the world to know that they'rThere aren't many books which I not only say are among my favorite, but also that just make me feel so much better about the world to know that they're in it - but this is one of the latter. And I almost didn't read it. After finishing A Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet I jumped into this with glee, then got turned off when I discovered that it isn't really a sequel - it's based in the same universe, and stars one of the characters from A Long Way, but that's about it. What Chambers excels at is creating a set of characters which you really care about and exploring the social dynamics of her galaxy, and the focus is much more on doing that than on plot. A Long Way was so great that it left me wanting a continuation of that plotline, and I was disappointed not to get it. But when I finally came back to A Closed and Common Orbit and gave it a chance on its own terms, I was so glad that I did.
There are three things I love about this book. The first is how seriously it takes children, something which is rare in sci-fi (and also a strong point of the sequel, Record of a Spaceborn Few). A large part of the story revolves around Jane, an escaped child slave, who is raised by a sentient AI called Owl as they work together to escape the planet on which Jane is born. The narrative of Jane growing up is by far my favorite part of the book, and it's so distant from the usual intergalactic politics and space battles which dominant space operas. Throughout all of the Wayfarers books Chambers focuses on the marginal figures in the galaxy - indeed, in her galaxy, humans themselves are marginal, a species of refugees - and giving so much of the book to focus on a child, who is the most marginal figure of all, made it very special to me. Nor is the "child slave" theme, which seems incredibly grim for the first few pages, followed for long enough to turn this into some sort of spectacle of misery. Your mileage on this part might vary, but if you're a parent, I suspect you're going to love this book.
Secondly, the way that all of the pieces of this story fit together are masterful. Sometimes having two timelines doesn't really add anything or can be annoying, but that's not the case here. You figure out almost immediately that Pepper, the present-day narrator, was Jane, and that her experiences when she was younger shape how she treats Lovelace, the sentient AI in a human's body who is the other protagonist. Seeing Pepper's relationship with Lovelace unfold at the same time as Owl cares for Jane allows you to see the symmetry between the two experiences, and how both are acts of mercy and justice set against a grimmer backdrop of social (and, in a sense, racial) injustice. People sometimes say that Chambers' novels are far too cheerful and kumbaya, and it's true that on the surface they are - that's what makes them a joy to read. But that's not the case when you fill in the gaps and the silences and pay attention to the background details.
Thirdly, I love the sheer complexity of the themes. I can think of at least a half dozen ways in which the theme of "a closed and common orbit" plays out in the book - the closed and common orbit understood as the lifetimes we share together as families, the karma we pass forward or don't pass forward, the planet we share together with other beings who we care for or don't care for enough, and more. Chambers' books are so much more about the moods and emotions and tableaux they evoke than intricate plots, which means that you want to return to them like you return to a piece of poetry, even if you already know it by heart. It didn't leave me wanting more because this was just enough, and I know it'll bring me joy again in the future....more
Ringworld is a sci-fi "classic" which really shows its age. I listened to the audiobook narrated by Tom Parker. On the one hand this really improved tRingworld is a sci-fi "classic" which really shows its age. I listened to the audiobook narrated by Tom Parker. On the one hand this really improved the experience - Parker's voice is perfect and he sounds like just sort the sort of elderly gentleman rogue who should be voicing the protagonist, Louis Wu. On the other hand, it made the experience worse because this is the sort of book where I think you really want to be able to skim - which tells you something about its quality.
The basic plot is that four people - two humans and two aliens - set out to explore a Ringworld, a huge habitable band completely surrounding a star. They are led to do so by an alien called a Puppeteer, for reasons which never become clear. Towards the end of the book one of the characters says something along the lines of "do you think they're called Puppeteers because they manipulate us towards their own unfathomable ends?", which the reader figured out about 200 pages back. In general the book telegraphs big developments way in advance, so nothing really comes as a surprise to the reader, and you often feel that you're just slogging towards whatever obvious thing is about to happen.
The plot actually moves quite briskly before the characters arrive on the Ringworld, but then it becomes a dead zone of plot. The Ringworld is mostly desolate and inhabited by "savages" who the main characters can't communicate with for most of the book, and the whole thing is about as exciting as it sounds. I realize that a lot of sci-fi books set up the outline sketch of a broader universe and then focus intently on a micro-narrative happening to the main characters, but in order to do that you have to actually make the main characters and the things happening to them interesting. The Wayfarer series by Becky Chambers is a fantastic example of this which works really well. Niven's characters are sometimes entertaining - it's a genuinely witty book at times, and doesn't try too hard to be constantly funny like say John Scalzi - and the world-building behind his alien species is interesting, but the characters are too one-dimensional to sustain our attention all the way through.
The book's treatment of its female characters is appalling. The male gaze is everywhere in this book, even in the narrator - for instance "she was one of those rare women who wasn't ugly when she cried". Of the two main female characters, one is an attractive 20-something who has sex with the protagonist and the other is an attractive prostitute who has sex with the protagonist. Women in the book aren't entirely without agency, but one of the main plot points is that the 20-something is genetically lucky and, having never been hurt, is innocent and naive and exerts a power over men and events without being aware of it. She has a sort of power (as does the prostitute, who turns out to be more intelligent than she is originally cast and uses sex to get her way) but cannot be called empowered.
Why then three stars? Niven throws a lot of interesting ideas at the wall in this and some of them do stick. I'm definitely going to read the sequels, if only because the overall universe he sketches out is interesting and I would like to see it fleshed out more. The moments of understated wit are genuine and funny. He needed to do a lot more to color in either the Ringworld or his characters, but he does enough to leave me wanting more....more
I've long wanted to read The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crighton, but when I finally got around to it late last year I was almost gobsmacked by how bI've long wanted to read The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crighton, but when I finally got around to it late last year I was almost gobsmacked by how bad it is. How did this book attain such critical acclaim?
The book is an early example of a "techno-thriller", in which the reader is supposed to be gripped by anxiety as in a traditional thriller, but also to be thrilled by the technology displayed in the book. Crighton certainly did a lot of research into biology and medicine, but sometimes the book reads almost like an encyclopedia entry - the narrator or one of the characters describes at great length, and rather confusingly, some principle of biology or medicine. It's not just because the technology now seems hopelessly outdated that the book fails to thrill, but also because the book gives us little incentive to care about these long technological digressions. These sections don't tend to amplify the dramatic tension but to completely diffuse it. It's hard to be gripped by the impending death of a character via alien microbes while five pages into struggling through what reads like a Wikipedia entry about disease.
A big part of the problem is the writing, which is linked to the values the book is trying to communicate. Even when not slipping into encyclopedia mode, the book has all the charm of a document written by a government bureaucrat. The reader gets the sense this is supposed to be part of the appeal - the book is communicating a hyper-rational, hyper-masculine set of values in which reason overcomes nature and anything else that humans do and which usually form the subject matter for novels (social relations, emotions, impulses, conflict) is and should be irrelevant. But this just ends up leaving the book feeling alienating and dead.
At first I was tempted to think that perhaps the book had just aged badly, but then I thought more about the time at which it was released. In 1969 the Vietnam War was at its height, and there was no excuse not to be more critical of everything that this book worships - military efficiency and expertise, government secrecy, technology, bureaucracy. The book could have been much more intellectually interesting by creating some some sort of moral dilemma which made us question the appeal of these values, even if they were eventually redeemed. But in the end we get no human struggle at all, only the struggle between male military expertise and the virus, with the virtues of the former unambiguously demonstrated....more
The Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley is unlike anything I've ever read. The story is set among a collection of organic ship-worlds called The LegionThe Stars Are Legion by Kameron Hurley is unlike anything I've ever read. The story is set among a collection of organic ship-worlds called The Legion in which an all-female population live a brutal and bizarre existence. While they take their plight for granted, the protagonist - Zan - is recovering from amnesia and so she with us questions life within the The Legion as she explores more and more of it.
The world-building in this book was some of the best I've ever read. About the first quarter was spellbinding, introducing the reader to a world which is so imaginative and just flat out weird that I found it hard to put the book down. In the middle sections it settles down a little bit, becoming almost like a fantasy quest, and I found the lack of pace here slightly frustrating. But everything comes together brilliantly at the end, and when one of the characters says the words which form the book's title - "the stars are legion" - it suddenly all fit together for me. This is a book about the depths of depravity which humans can endure and the horrible things they can do to each other, but also one about our striving for something better, and the suffering it takes to get there. There is always something over the horizon. The stars are legion.
The fact the book has all-female characters is also integral to its message and value. Too often in fiction what is male is generically human and what is female is specifically and narrowly female, but this book contains the full range of human nature in its all-female cast.
Wonderful. I haven't read the Wayfarer series (and from what I know, I'm not sure I'd like it), but this is fantastic. It's a novella about an expeditWonderful. I haven't read the Wayfarer series (and from what I know, I'm not sure I'd like it), but this is fantastic. It's a novella about an expedition to explore exoplanets and what the expedition finds. It's hard sci-fi which still manages to be concise and inspirational. Highly recommended....more
For the first third of this book I was convinced it would end up being a five-star read, but ultimately it suffers from significant pacing problems anFor the first third of this book I was convinced it would end up being a five-star read, but ultimately it suffers from significant pacing problems and a lack of sustained development of the many ideas and storylines it introduces. I loved the premise but the book ultimately just ended up feeling like a slog which did not reward the time investment. In particular, I really hoped for an ending which would provide some answers about the past and future within which this story was situated - but in the end, it just sort of fizzled, leaving me with questions that will never be answered....more
I didn't feel that the way this book was marketed at all reflects its contents. It has no real unifying argument or point to make, but is just a colleI didn't feel that the way this book was marketed at all reflects its contents. It has no real unifying argument or point to make, but is just a collection of the author's brief thoughts on various subjects. Sadly he never really spends long enough on any one topic to say anything interesting or new about it. Perhaps it would be good for someone who doesn't read the science section in the newspaper and has never read other popular science books on the various topics addressed here, but otherwise you're unlikely to find anything new. And if you are new to these topics and want a deep dive, there are better books for that....more
This book doesn't deliver what it promises at all. I was very disappointed. It promises to tell us "what the latest thinking on alien civilizations reThis book doesn't deliver what it promises at all. I was very disappointed. It promises to tell us "what the latest thinking on alien civilizations reveals about our own", but in reality it just gives four or five simple points, none of which are based on even recent research. For instance, one whole chapter is dedicated to pointing out that Mars and Venus have had various climates over their history. Another chapter tells us that Earth has too. Each of these chapters could have been boiled down to single sentences. The rest of it is filler: "dramatic" retellings of astronomers making observations, biographies of scientists, etc.
If you were hoping for a volume that reported the latest research on exoplanets, this is not it. I honestly don't think there's anything here that someone who just casually reads about this topic whenever it makes the news wouldn't know already....more
One of the best novels I have ever read. As a book dealing just with its particular time and place it would be remarkable enough, especially because iOne of the best novels I have ever read. As a book dealing just with its particular time and place it would be remarkable enough, especially because it opens a window onto the moral complexities of the Vietnam War in a way that so few cultural remembrances of it do, but it transcends this context to address the enduring human questions that are the domain of great literature. The author's style is also creative and captivating, with perhaps a shade of Kundera. Quite simply brilliant....more
Excellent and thought-provoking book that blends hard sci fi with evocative scenes from the Chinese Cultural Revolution. This book makes ChinBrilliant
Excellent and thought-provoking book that blends hard sci fi with evocative scenes from the Chinese Cultural Revolution. This book makes China's most renowned sci fi author available to English readers for the first time. It's also hence insightful as a window into Chinese history and literature. ...more
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