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4 stars and a beeping zelle

An absolutely phenomenal story and social sci-fi vision partially crushed flat under too complex world building.

Hence 4, not 5 stars.

The major drawback of Embassytown is simple: there is simply too much there.

That's all. But it makes reading the novel like walking into an overladen Victorian drawing room cram packed with so many fascinating, unique and exotic trinkets that you go room blind - or faint - trying to take them all in.

There's simply no breathing room.

Somebody open a window and pass the smelling salts.

This density stifles not only the fascinating setting and inhabitants of Embassytown because they are not, and cannot, be developed to their full glory, but it also completely crushes the voice/personality development of the narrator Avice Benner Cho (ABC. Ha! Joke! You'll get it at the end. Hopefully.)

What details are let through about her do her no favours. Quite the opposite. (She's an arrogant [but talented] time & space traveler who seemingly indiscriminately sleeps with/marries a bunch of people she really shouldn't. That's about all there is to her: swagger and screwing. Yawn.)

What also threatens to crush the life out of the tale is the complex linguistic theorising. While very important to the plot, it is far too jargonish and academic, confusing the reader and pushing them out of the narrative (or making them feel stupid) far more than bringing them into the story.

This makes some stretches a tedious slog to read. And you probably won't really understand them anyway.

Too bad several are at the start.

But hang in there, because this is a novel that truly gets better and better and better as it goes along.

Just maybe it should have be conceived as two books, not one.

You know, for some breathing room.