Reviews and Comments

I picked this up because a lot of people whose taste I respect say very nice things about Newitz's writing. A couple of chapters in I'm getting too strong cyberpunk vibes for my taste, and a mission briefing that feels too much like the story part in a 25-years-ago video game. I will give it a few more chapters, but so far I'm not sure this one's for me.

There's a book I would have truly loved in here, but it's buried under enough trying to make every sentence glitter that I almost gave up on reading it more than once.

I think this is a general vibe I get from Valente: my introduction to her work was a short story (or maybe a book chapter?) read aloud by a friend, and I loved it. But I haven't got on well enough with either of the novels I've read by her to want more. Every sentence, every paragraph, is beautiful and funny and quotable, but after a while it gets exhausting. It reminds me of why I never followed comedians on Twitter. In the terms of this book: it can feel like the sort of music in which every bar is someone's solo and they're all trying to outdo each other. It ends up lacking dynamics and coherency.

I'm very charmed by the basic idea of this book: First Contact happens, and the aliens immediately demand that Earth enters Galactic Eurovision to prove its higher life forms are worth admitting to the galactic community and not a threat who should be exterminated. And at its best, it's a fun ride along that premise. Not trying to take itself seriously, in large part a tribute to Douglas Adams. But it just gets tiring to read.

And then there's one detail that really grated on me: a Turkish character named "Omar Calişkan". "Çalışkan" is a common Turkish name, but Turkish has strong linguistic well-formedness rules and "Calişkan" is Just Not Turkish to the point of being irritating to see. I know this is a niche complaint, but it never stopped bugging me that she found the "ş", but not the "Ç" which would always go with it in Turkish, even though that one's in Latin-1. "Omar" doesn't feel like a Turkish name to me either (the equivalent would be "Ömer"), though I'm less confident in this one: maybe it's just unusual enough that I haven't run into any Turkish Omars. But anyway, this felt extra-jarring when the characters (father and son) are so well-observed that I felt very personally skewered by the "Englishblokeman" thing, and had a specific individual in mind when reading about the son. Couldn't author or editor have found a Turk to run the name by?

#SFFBookClub

The way I've been hearing this book discussed, I figured I'd love or hate it. In the end it was neither. It was a fun romp, mostly a light read even though it does go into some pretty heavy topics. But I didn't find myself caring enough about the main characters to be particularly interested in the sequel, never mind all 8 books.

I had read this as a child, but evidently didn't remember much of it. I picked it up to re-read because while planning a visit to Snæfellsjökull I read that the place has significance in this story. I'm very glad I did, and that I did so while in Iceland, though there are some of the typical regrettable portions (ugh "Race Science" makes an appearance, though mercifully only for a few pages), and towards the end it jumps the shark a bit.

I think there's basically two things that make Verne still worth reading, when I mostly avoid white mens' SFF from before this century, never mind before the 20th:

One is that he was a very good observer of the things in his stories that were drawn from reality. I can't tell if he actually went to Iceland himself, but if not then he had good notes from someone who did. His rendering of Reykjavík fits with what I've read in museums in that city, and the descriptions of the landscape work very well, when it's one that would be pretty hard for someone who'd never left mainland Europe to imagine. There was a detail of the Icelanders' clothing that seemed off and stereotyped to me, until we happened to go to a museum with a reenactor who was clearly wearing what I'd misunderstood the description of a few days earlier.

The other is that he was an avid follower of the big scientific debates of the time. The central conceit of Journey is that the mad geologist is trying to prove a theory that sounds absolutely bonkers in hindsight. But it sent me down a wikihole, from which I learned that it was very much a live controversy in the mid-19th Century. Verne picked what ended up being the losing side of the argument, because it's the one that gave him a story to write, but somehow that feels much more credible knowing that he didn't make it up.

I'm finding it hard to say anything pithy about this book because it wraps so many different things together. I read it uncharacteristically slowly just because it was a busy time, and that maybe contributed to my sense that it's several different books woven together - but also to my enjoyment of the writing itself. It's beautifully done, and you should just go and read it yourself.

#SFFBookClub

I read about half of a borrowed copy before having to return it, and would like to continue. Impressions so far: very accessible without feeling oversimplifying, somewhat cranky often in ways I agree with but it can still be a bit much.

I've not been making enough time for reading lately, but I have been enjoying this book a lot as I slowly make my way through it. #SFFBookClub

#SFFBookClub book from a few months ago. I read this quickly and enjoyed it, but it also felt very thin. The overall arc seemed sort of formulaic, and it just never got me caring enough about its world or characters for the ending to make me feel very much.

Possible future #SFFBookClub book? (largely on the strength of bookwyrm.social/user/sohkamyung/review/10090007 )

Whew. This volume really brings home the grotesqueness of war in general and Japan's war in particular. It was already gut-wrenching to read, and then just a week after finishing it it suddenly felt very topical. Will we ever learn?

I think I might set this book aside for a bit. I enjoyed it a lot for... oh about the length of a typical modern novel. But the slowness of the story is starting to drag, and I'm getting tired of how much of the story is now about Hans Castorp's exceedingly middle school crush on a woman he'll do anything for a chance to gaze upon but heaven forbid actually speaking to her beyond the most formal of pleasantries.

I'm not sure if I'm giving up on this or just taking a break, but I need to read something faster paced and with a less tiny world.