A Google user
There seem to be two kinds of science fiction I enjoy. Those that write well and tell a good story. And those for whom the story is just a way to explore ideas. Idea explorers. I would put Asimov, for instance, in this category.
Kim Stanley Robinson likes words. And he likes using a lot of them. Sometimes so much so that I felt my eyes glassing over. But that isn't always a bad thing.
So part of the reason I decided this was going to be my next pick is an interview I'd listened to where he spoke at length about gender. One of the topics was the indeterminate gender of one of the characters, Jean Genette. He talked about trying to avoid the use of gender defining pronouns in regards to this character. I was with it until it started creeping in as the character became more of a POV character, and made more frequent appearances. And the odd thing was that the definition was consistent, consistently male. Repeatedly masculine pronoun usage slipped in, which completely destroyed the image of this character that had been conjured. Oh well.
That said, the story itself reached what, to me, was a predictable conclusion [SPOILER] the synthetics (qubans or quboids) being fired off extra-sol-system [/SPOILER] primarily because KSR has stated in several interviews that he doesn't believe homo sapiens will expand beyond this solar system. The conclusion was predictable, but the manner in which it was reached was ham fisted.
All in all I found the novel somewhat frustrating. I'm glad I read it, but the story itself seemed kind of weak. And after having gone on at length about this future vision of a diversified and self-directed humanity, it ends with a rather stereotypical princess meets prince charming (almost too literally) and they get married.
A Google user
Read this to follow up on the terrific mars trilogy. Unfortunately not in the same class. At best, tired and pointless rehashing of old ideas, but mostly painful unmotivated exposition. Random plot points scatter listlessly, none of the characters gel. More than once I hoped they'd all die. Trudged through the whole thing, not one iota of suspense, no denouement, and it read as though KSR was bored of the source material, or was deliberately trashing his own style. Random lists of scattered imagery suggest that the author thinks a painfully poor attempt at mid 80s postmodernism is an adequate substitution for plot development. It is not. Unlike earlier books, which endure the odd pointless intertextual reference, the science here can only be described as lazy, shoddy, and ad hoc. This book represents a tremendous wasted opportunity.
1 person found this review helpful
Joshua McMeel
There were enough interesting ideas and futurist predictions that I read the book through and feel good about it, but I don't see myself reading it again or recommending it to friends. It is clearly meant to be a moral cautionary tale wrapped in a character study, but the characters were either bland or so scattered with color that they were unlikable, even to themselves. The writing style was likewise fractured which repeatedly killed the momentum and any interest I was building in the plot. C+/B-