Well that was a blast. This book is a hero's journey combined with a cat-and-mouse chase that very much reminded me of Endymion in content and pacWell that was a blast. This book is a hero's journey combined with a cat-and-mouse chase that very much reminded me of Endymion in content and pacing. A 12-year-old boy has to cross the United States from coast to coast to save his mother's life, while his murderous uncle, who is hellbent on stopping him, is hot on his heels. To make things a bit more complicated, the boy has the power to jump into a parallel universe stuck in the middle ages, where he also has to save the dying queen. Much of this book is based on tried and tested formulas, but the parallel universes are wonderfully pulled off and the journey is much more about the protagonist's physical and spiritual growth than anything else. It has everything you want in this kind of book: charming sidekicks, despicable villains, high stakes, memorable locations... I also love how King's novels avoid European fantasy tropes to create a wholly original American fantasy setting. Anyway, it was perfect holiday reading and I can't wait to read the sequel....more
This book is not bad - plotwise, it did everything right! - but it is such a waste of a good idea.
I went into it blindly because I fell in love with tThis book is not bad - plotwise, it did everything right! - but it is such a waste of a good idea.
I went into it blindly because I fell in love with the premise: God dies and His body falls into the sea. Knowing nothing more than that, my mind went wild considering the myriad implications this would have for humanity at large. Sadly the book sidesteps global chaos by circumscribing the plot to the naval adventure of the selected few tasked with towing the body to the North Pole for burial.
Three things spoiled the experience for me: 1) I don't like Morrow's writing at all. He’s one of those writers who tries to spice up his otherwise dry prose by using brands as adjectives (sure, it was a very nineties thing, but it still makes my skin crawl). 2) It took me several chapters to pinpoint what this book was trying to be, and I was somewhat deflated to find out it is a satire. On what? Who knows. A vague old nineties satire filled with jokes on feminism and environmentalism that hit quite differently when read in 2021. 3) The whole World War Two Reenactment Society subplot, which easily takes up a quarter of the book, was an absolute snoozefest and didn’t connect thematically in any way with the novel’s main ideas…
As I said at first, it’s not all bad. I quite liked some of the characters, most notably those with some religious stakes: Father Ockham and Niel Weisinger. I also liked the instances when the story pushed the boundaries of good taste, such as the chapters dealing with theophagy. This is more of what I expected going into this. Even the zany humour also sometimes worked by virtue of being so over the top it cannot be taken seriously, vide warding off sharks with bazookas. But the fine lines the book treads were too often crossed or forgotten to the point that I feel the author didn’t realise the potential of what he was handling....more
I'm absolutely loving this Babel series. Bancroft has already proved to be insanely creative (with his steampunk Victorian Middle East) and a strikingI'm absolutely loving this Babel series. Bancroft has already proved to be insanely creative (with his steampunk Victorian Middle East) and a striking, witty writer (with descriptions that feel like George Eliot having watched one too many Fritz Lang films), but in this third book I believe he shows his true strength: plotting.
These books shine when the story is character-driven. Bancroft excels at intrigue, espionage and subterfuge (think The Baths section of book 1), and I'm happy to report almost the entirety of book 3 falls under these categories. It brings to mind novels like those of Graham Greene, where you feel the tension build up with every new encounter and dialogue, despite little to no action taking place on the stage.
Still not quite worthy of five stars (even though reading all three books has been a five-star experience, if that makes sense) because I feel like I'm missing some sort of underlying theme that ties all the different stories together. Each individual story is a little 5-star masterpiece, but when you put them side by side they don't quite gel. There's always a dissonance, a shift, when we switch from story to story, and for that I'm thankful that he decided to tell each story in its entirety before rewinding and starting anew with a fresh POV; doing that modern popular thing where different storylines keep interrupting each other would have been a very bad idea.
Regardless, absolutely recommended series. These books are beautifull written, moving and by far one of the best things in fantasy out there right now....more
A snack in the guise of delicatessen. It is considerably more relaxed and whimsical than Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, to the point of being, at A snack in the guise of delicatessen. It is considerably more relaxed and whimsical than Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, to the point of being, at times, a bit silly. I found On Lickerish Hill, Mrs Mabb and John Uskglass and the Cumbrian Charcoal Burner to be quite good. The one starring Mary Queen of Scots is fun too. But most are inane; a couple are boring and befuddling (the title story, for instance). In short, this is one for the fans of Clarke's magnum opus. Some might enjoy revisiting her world with its unique take on magic (at once lovecraftian and mischievous), others like myself will find it lacking....more
The Third Policeman feels like the lovechild of David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive and Yoshio Sawai's Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo. It is the peanut butter and jam eThe Third Policeman feels like the lovechild of David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive and Yoshio Sawai's Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo. It is the peanut butter and jam equivalent of highbrow and funny. If I were given to underlining books, my copy would look like that of an overly-zealous one-eyed censor. No matter how much you read about this book, you will not have a clue about what to expect. This is a rabbit hole you have to fall into and hope the trip is a good one....more
This is the grandest, most convoluted retelling of the princess in the tower trope ever. A rolicking adventure in the spirit of the 19th century classThis is the grandest, most convoluted retelling of the princess in the tower trope ever. A rolicking adventure in the spirit of the 19th century classics set in an alternate version of the Middle East with a fresh coat of steampunk tech.
Josiah Bancroft treads a tried and tested path, but Senlin Ascends shows just how good that formula can be when done well. The plot is perfectly executed, constantly surprising and filled with twists and betrayals. When characters are introduced and then made to exit the stage, you just know they will eventually show up again, but it is always tasteful and satisfactory when it happens.
This book is delightful, plain and simple Fun with a capital F. The sense of glee and anticipation I felt every time our protagonist was about to reach a new level in his climb up the Tower of Babel reminded me of The Magic Faraway Tree books my mother would read to me when I was little. I love books that contain worlds within worlds, and Bancroft’s Tower of Babel manages to be both that and a cohesive whole.
I am very tempted to give this 5 stars but will only leave it at 4 because I want to give the author the chance to outdo himself in the following installments....more
For a post-apocalyptic novel, the tone of this book is strangely uplifting and buoyant, bordering on feThe first word that comes to mind is “dreamy”.
For a post-apocalyptic novel, the tone of this book is strangely uplifting and buoyant, bordering on feelgood, though slaked with an undercurrent of disquiet and unease. It feels like floating inside someone’s (the author’s) head; the foundations and rules of this world are as flimsy and equivocal as dreams.
The world is sad, strange and beautiful, but the human element is full of candor. I refrain from calling it whimsical because that would imply Dick was having some level of fun, and despite how absolutely silly everything is (from the insecure homunculus to the rat playing the nose-flute), I feel like the author is at all times deadly serious.
It’s not perfect, but it delivers way more than a paranoid drug-fueled vision of a post-nuclear future has any right to claim....more
Somebody give this man a degree in ambition, because he getsPhew. Damn. Well. Brrrrrrr. Wow. Yep. Aha. Okay.
Sometimes the sunk cost fallacy pays off.
Somebody give this man a degree in ambition, because he gets it. I’ve read some ambitious sci-fi and fantasy series over the years, but this one knocks the ball out of the park.
The feelings I experienced reading this book were similar to the ones I described in my review of Last and First Men. I feel like Tom Toner took my sense of self-worth and relevance in the world and crushed them to the point where I’m kind of at peace with the idea that my life won’t leave more than a dust-mote’s worth of friction upon the canvas of the universe after I shuffle off this mortal coil.
The Amaranthine Spectrum had a bumpy start, with a clumsy, overwritten and befuddlingly sexist first instalment. The problem is that reading the first book is absolutely necessary to be able to understand what the hell is going on in the second and third instalments.
So now I’m faced with the extremely difficult task of recommending people hold their breath and make their way through what is, in essence, a pretty bad first book to then enjoy the considerably better second one and, eventually, have their socks blown off by the third.
I don’t know if authors read these reviews or if this is even something the publishing industry would consider, but I might as well give it a shot: Tom Toner, you’ve grown a lot as a writer since The Promise of the Child. It’s a pity that many people will miss out on your awesome saga because of the shortcomings of the first book. I say: remove the gatekeeper, rewrite the first book. Make it shorter, streamline the plot, get rid of the pervy parts, add a few POV chapters of characters who will appear in later books to make the trilogy feel more consistent as a whole, and you might just have a winning saga under your belt....more
This was lovely, very different from any other Discworld novel I've read - more charming and less hectic. It also works as a great standalone story, rThis was lovely, very different from any other Discworld novel I've read - more charming and less hectic. It also works as a great standalone story, regardless of its place within the Discworld series.
Infused with the spirit of second-wave feminism (as told by a well-meaning white man), it tells the story of a young girl who is destined to become a wizard, much to the concern of both witches and wizards alike. But to me it also felt like a tale about the older generation coming to terms with and learning to embrace the desire for change promoted by the youth.
This exploration of what kinds of magic women can and can’t do reminded me of the debate in modern Judaism about whether women should be able to perform mitzvot (commandments) from which they are traditionally considered ‘exempt’ (that is, only men are allowed to perform them). Rabbi Joseph ber Soloveitchik, for instance, argues that the reason men and women have different religious obligations is because they are ontologically different creatures, seeing the sexes as separate spiritual castes (for a layman-friendly breakdown of the modern debate surrounding the role of women in Judaism I recommend rabbi Hartman’s The God Who Hates Lies, which I reviewed here).
In Equal Rites, the wizards of Unseen University (and also the conservative Granny Weatherwax) firmly believe in this ontological difference between the sexes, which is apparent in the way they find it natural that there be gender-specific forms of magic, forms more in tune with what they see as each sex’s defining attributes (the earthy, nurturing and psychological power of witchcraft for women; the logical, calculative, energy-based power of magic for men).
The book’s clever reveal is that these attributes aren’t actually inherent to the sexes but socially accepted conventions, ingrained by a long history of patriarchal rule into the collective subconscious. As it turns out, there's nothing standing between a girl practicing magic and becoming a wizard but the patriarchy. That there is great feminist literature if you ask me....more
Oh now I see why the first book felt like a half-finished incoherent mess. Because it was only the first act of a story. This here is act two.
I’m not Oh now I see why the first book felt like a half-finished incoherent mess. Because it was only the first act of a story. This here is act two.
I’m not a big fan of trilogies that are essentially one story told in three volumes, as reading any single one of its books ends up feeling unsatisfactory. The only way to appreciate these stories is to read all three books one after the other.
The pacing in The Amaranthine Spectrum is glacial, which on the one hand ties in really well with its themes of immortality and aeon-long plots, but makes things hard to piece together when the info is spread thin between three books. It’s been about a year since I read the first volume, and only now, after much furious flapping through the first book to make sense of things in the second, I appreciate that what at the time felt like pointless stand-alone chapters were actually set-ups for stories continued in this book and that will likely be resolved in the third. Humph.
I will double down on what I said in my review of the first book about this emphatically not being science fiction, but more of a steampunk/fantasy space opera. What little science is mentioned doesn’t doesn’t even try to sound plausible, like the way the movement of souls is affected by the force of gravity, or the way spacesuits are operated with little coal-burning steam engines. It's all very cute, but no matter how far you set this in the future it still doesn't make any sense. In a way it reminded me of The Windup Girl, which also takes place in a future that allegedly stems from our present but hardly feels grounded in reality. This phenomenon is practically deserving of a genre in its own right; call it future fantasy. If you’re comfortable with that, it’s good fun, but I see how it could upset some sci-fi purists.
Moving on, Tom Toner seems to have taken criticism of the first book to heart and done his best to amend its faults. This book is a lot more tightly plotted than The Promise of the Child, which was filled with meandering asides that at best could be described as character development and at worst, self-indulgence. That’s all gone and here every chapter helps move the story forward at a good clip (if in Toner’s dreamy distant way).
In this book I got a much better feel for the different breeds humanity has splintered into throughout the Prism Investiture and the Amaranthine Firmament (again, don’t expect it to make much evolutionary sense; why the Zelioceti would develop a nasal proboscis is beyond me). There’s a lot more interaction between individuals of different species and it’s all fun. The trouble I find is that it’s often hard to tell the personalities of members of the same breed apart, as if each breed had some defining traits shared by all its component members. The Lacaille are proud and somber, the Vulgar are rowdy and chaotic, the Zelioceti are secretive and mysterious, the Quetterel are tidy and vague… and don’t get me started on the Oxel and the Bult, both of whom feel like soulless CGI copy-paste jobs. I had to keep reminding myself that these are all deep down allegedly humans and not animals, which is a troubling implication to have to deal with when reading about members, however distant, of your own species.
Toner is still hopeless at writing women, but I appreciate the apparent effort he put into making this book less creepy than the first, with the inclusion of a whole storyline based on two sisters (even though their story consists in blindly following a man’s instructions, but hey, baby steps), whom we get to know mildly in depth. But Toner’s many intergalactic societies are still bafflingly patriarchal. Part of me wants to think it’s justified by the mediaeval aesthetic he was going for, but still, we’re talking dozens of cultures that have developed separately throughout two interstellar empires all over the galaxy. Not a single one of these societies has achieved equal rights for women? None has developed into an even slightly matriarchal society? It makes my heart break and my brain hurt.
Still, I had fun and I’ll read the third volume. This book managed to get me invested in a way the first one failed to do, and with all the juicy cliffhangers it ends on I expect the finale is going to be spectacular....more
I’ve just suffered literary whiplash and I’m about to try and justify why that’s a good thing.
Titus Alone isn’t so much a book as a mystery to be solvI’ve just suffered literary whiplash and I’m about to try and justify why that’s a good thing.
Titus Alone isn’t so much a book as a mystery to be solved. Chances are you’re reading it on the coattails of its two staggering predecessors, Titus Groan and Gormenghast. Consequently, you’ll spend most of the time wondering why it’s so different from the other two. Is it shorter because Peake planned it to be that way? Did he rush it in an attempt to outrun his worsening dementia? Is the brisker style a consequence of said dementia, of the aforementioned rush, or is it simply a stylistic choice meant to reflect the fast, vast world Titus now finds himself in, beyond the borders of his realm?
I’m inclined to believe the latter. I find it helps to think about Peake’s works in aesthetic terms. He was, after all, a painter before he was a writer, and this showed abundantly in the first two books in the series, where scenes weren’t so much described as painted in words.
In that sense, this book, like its predecessors, is as much a literary as an aesthetic experience, only instead of being one of awe and grandeur like standing in the nave of a cathedral, this is one of unhinged manic insanity like... well, listening to a Death Grips album.
This wouldn’t only reflect the deeply strange, alien world Titus is made to confront, but also his poor mental health, as trauma, loneliness and displacement exacerbate his aggressive and sexual impulses.
(By the way, how jarring to find mention of cocks and breasts and tightening scrotums in these books.)
But all these considerations aside, is the book good? I think so...? I am still a bit baffled by it all. Peake’s imagination is still wild and beautiful, and the book contains moments that I would rank highly among the trilogy’s highlights (the fight to the death between the camel and the mule, for one). It has a neat three-act structure, memorable characters… It should be great, but it’s hard to love. Everything in it is permeated by this strange aesthetic, where it’s at once lean and wonky, streamlined and disjointed, like the world it takes place in, like Muzzlehatch’s car....more
This is a hard book to rate. I hadn’t read a children’s book in a long time and most of the listlessness I felt while reading this one was due to the This is a hard book to rate. I hadn’t read a children’s book in a long time and most of the listlessness I felt while reading this one was due to the dumbed down language and on-the-nose exposition. Still, had I read this when I was 12, I probably would have thought it is the best thing ever.
As whimsy followed whimsy, I kept having this nagging feeling that UnLondon needing better defining. So eventually I found a formula that, in my mind, helped explain the abcity’s (un)logic. For every un-X I’d encounter, I’d tell myself “It is X... but it isn’t”. So, for UnLondon, “It is London... but it isn’t;” unbrellas, “They are umbrellas... but they aren’t;” the UnChosen One, “She is the Chosen One... but she isn’t.”
When I understood this, all the subverting of quest fantasy tropes upon which the story is built suddenly made a lot more sense. At first I thought Miéville was just trying to be cool, but when you think about it, the tropes he subverts are only valid qua tropes in the real word, whereas in UnLondon, the tropes necessarily have to be subverted in some way or another in order to be valid. They are untropes: it is a trope... but it isn’t. It’s actually rather clever.
Miéville does get carried away in certain parts - the whole section in the Talklands added literally nothing to the story and felt like a homage to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland I could have done without - but overall this was a fun, light read I wish I had stumbled upon at an earlier age....more
Well, I got myself in a good pickle rating Titus Groan 5 stars because this book is by every measurable and conceivable standard better than the fWell, I got myself in a good pickle rating Titus Groan 5 stars because this book is by every measurable and conceivable standard better than the first. This gets all the stars.
Gormenghast is a book you have to Set Time Aside For, and I'm genuinely afraid this will scare off modern readers, what with our diminishing attention spans and insatiable lust for instant gratification. It’s not a book you can pick up while on the intercity bus because you’d end up spending three consecutive bus rides reading the description of the way the sun slants onto some flagstones at a certain time of the day.
Having said that, Peake has seriously improved as a storyteller. Not as a writer because, blimey, this guy can write, and Titus Groan couldn’t have been better written had the Almighty himself guided the author’s hand. I say he’s improved as a storyteller because in Gormenghast he’s learnt how to quicken the pace, raise the stakes and create a genuinely moving human drama. That is not to say this book isn’t slow; it’s the difference between watching continental drift and watching a glacier calving.
So many things threaten to stay in my memory I should make them pay rent: Opus Fluke’s silent laughter, Irma Prunesquallor’s soirée, the surprise for Titus’ 10th birthday, the endless but hypnotising description of Titus’ daydreams evoked by staring at the colours of a marble… This book manages to be magical without containing an ounce of magic and to feel familiar in the most alienating of settings, a moving reminder of the power of literature to spirit us away to worlds previously unimaginable. It is a true wonder that belongs in the highest echelons of modern British literature and I will treasure it like an heirloom....more
This little book about a motley gang of college flatmates on a quest to find eternal life shook me much more than I expected. What was meant to be somThis little book about a motley gang of college flatmates on a quest to find eternal life shook me much more than I expected. What was meant to be some light holiday reading unexpectedly turned into a riveting roller-coaster of existential dread. When reading it at night it would slip into my dreams, and when reading it by day I’d catch myself staring vacantly at a wall asking myself all sorts of morbid questions revolving mostly around two themes:
Immortality Would I want to live forever? Does living a long life make death more or less daunting? Would immortality put an end to my individuality, eroding the traits that make me me, let alone human? Would my sense of morality grow or slacken? Would I be beyond good and evil? Would sex mean anything?
Death When will I die? Will I live to see my son grow up? How many loved ones will I see die? Am I more afraid of my own death or of the deaths of others? Is it better to die by my own hand or by that of another? Is a planned death more or less terrifying than a sudden one?
So here’s the gist of it: a bookish Jew, a rich jock, a sombre farm-boy and a gay poetaster go on a road trip from New England to Arizona to seek a cult that could grant them life eternal. The rub: only two can attain it if the other two die, one by his own hand and the other murdered by the rest.
A long part of the book is dedicated to the road trip, a time-tested vehicle (no pun intended) for getting to know the characters and the web of relations that binds them. Only this web is fascinating; they are little less than friends, don’t seem to care too much about each other, and are on this quest for a variety of reasons: boredom, narcissism, megalomania, altruism.
The novel is very American and very Seventies (I loved the repeatedly un-ironic use of ‘groovy’), and it effectively sustains a decent amount of mysteries until the very end of the book: Will they find the cult? Is life eternal really attainable? Will two of them really die? Mind you, not all questions get clear answers.
As if reading a reverse whodunit, or Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold, you spend the whole book wondering how the two-lives-for-two-deaths debacle will play out. Here’s where the use of first-person narration adds extra booze to the punch; you are privy to the suspicions, prejudices and fears of all four characters. It’s truly riveting how their (and the reader’s) suspicions constantly change as events play out. Despite their almost charicaturesque natures, these undergrads have surprisingly rich, organic interior lives.
My only complaint is probably the result of reading this immediately after Small Island, and that is that all four first-person narrators’ voices sounded kind of the same. They all had very distinct personalities, sure, but all interior monologues had the same quippy over-educated undergrad ring to them.
Still, doesn't stop me from giving this memento mori five stars; it gave me everything I want out of a book and more....more
This seems like a good book to point out how cinematographic Pratchett’s writing is. I always thought he writes the way movies look, so this book feltThis seems like a good book to point out how cinematographic Pratchett’s writing is. I always thought he writes the way movies look, so this book felt like a tailor-made fit for his style.
I see lots of reviewers saying it’s one of the weakest Discworld novels, but I had a blast. It's tightly plotted, introduces several memorable characters, and has a brisk pace. Not even all the obvious movie references rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe it’s because living in the age of references, nostalgia and fan service (looking at you, Ready Player One), Pratchett’s sprinkling in the occasional nudge-nudge felt tame in comparison.
Also, while I prefer Discworld novels that come up with their own original premise (Small Gods and Reaper Man come to mind) over the ones that simply rely on parodying some real-word theme (such as The Truth; wasn't a big fan), I thought this one provided a very amusing deconstruction of the cinema industry and studio interference.
I loved the new characters, especially Gaspode the Wonder Dog; Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler was utilised to perfection in this one; and although Pratchett’s endings tend to overwhelm me, I found this one, while still containing all his signature eldritch mayhem, to be very satisfying. Also, it packs a hell of a punchline.
Anyway, great fun, as us’. Can’t really go wrong with Pratchett....more
This final instalment elevates the trilogy as a whole. Not that the first two books were bad (they were rather awesome), but tUn-rusting-putdownable.
This final instalment elevates the trilogy as a whole. Not that the first two books were bad (they were rather awesome), but this is the kind of trilogy that reads more like a single book split into three volumes. Consequently, the third book corresponds entirely to the third act of a story with two books' worth of build-up, which means that your pulse will be racing throughout. By the time I reached the climax, I was a sorry mess that couldn’t be told apart from the cushions surrounding me on the sofa.
This is one of the best stories and one of the most important fantasy series of our times. Everyone should read it, book one through to book three. Jemisin and I have our differences (I’ll never forgive her stylistic choices), but the STORY is so powerful, meaningful, unique and overall mind-blowing, it simply has to be read by any self-respecting 21st-century fan of the genre.
I love that it’s an apocalyptic fantasy story whose hero is a jaded middle-aged mother. I love how the idea of the Evil Earth is played straight. I love its moments of far future sci-fi and its intricate magic. I love that the micro reflects the macro. And the climax had me as riveted and invested as teenage me was about the final Naruto vs Sasuke encounter. There’s so, so much to love.
I said in my review of The Fifth Season that "it’s a pretty universal story of the oppressed versus the oppressor." I take back that condescending codswallop. This trilogy is about the f*ing human condition.
At first, with the opening Byron and Wilde quotes and a prologue set in mediaeval Prague, I thought it would be a HThis book is completely bonkers.
At first, with the opening Byron and Wilde quotes and a prologue set in mediaeval Prague, I thought it would be a Hyperion sort of deal, mixing far-future sci-fi with classic history and literature. But as I advanced it turned out to be a very different animal indeed.
While it’s certainly a space opera and includes AIs and FTL travel, I don’t think it can be considered sci-fi. Saying this book is sci-fi would be like saying The Lord of the Rings is a historical novel because it has kings and castles in it.
It takes place in the 147th century. It’s one of those cases where the story’s set so far into the future, the author can pretty much do whatever he wants and get away with it. I mean, think about it, 12,000 years in the future! 12,000 years ago we only just learnt how to domesticate the goat!
Everything about this book feels deeply strange and alien, from the multiple species humanity has splintered into to the architecture, social hierarchies, animals, weapons and even the food. It’s a world that takes a couple of hundred pages to get used to, and even by the end you’ll still be re-reading passages to understand what’s happening.
The worldbuilding is borderline steampunk. There’s no trace of anything resembling a computer, and some technologies seem to run on alchemy. Spaceships are often referred to as ‘galleons’ or ‘schooners’ and the captains navigate solar systems using actual physical ‘charts’. Not a complaint, I loved all the scenes that took place on the Wilemo Maril, but I’m pointing this out to highlight how far this is from actual sci-fi.
While the story is bonkers, and the moment in the end when everything clicks together is truly riveting, there’s no denying it’s a first novel. Toner has said in interviews that he mostly improvised this book as he went along, only discovering the benefits of plotting in further books. And it shows; the structure is a bit of a hot mess, with long passages lingering on inconsequential moments, some strange POV changes that come from nowhere and don’t help move the plot along, and way too many questions being answered in the last 50 pages. In all likelihood, Toner will be slightly embarrassed to reread this book in the future, when he’s a more accomplished writer.
The style is odd too. The prose is grand and poetic, with almost impressionistic descriptions. There’s a lot of mention of colour, and considering the saga is called the Amaranthine Spectrum I kept wondering whether it’s intentional. Things are often described with a single colour adjective, which comes across as a bit childish, but ends up having a nice aesthetic cumulative effect… The author studied fine arts, so that might have something to do with it.
Now, I’m not the first person to point this out, but this book has a major problem with female representation. About 90% of the characters in the book are men, and I’m not sure it passes the Bechdel test. At first I thought it was just the Melius species, with whom we spend a lot of time, who live in an antiquated patriarchal society, and I was fine with that. But as the book goes on, you start to realise that every single species and society in the galaxy treats women like procreating ornaments. And that’s jarring. Also, only two 6-page chapters are told from female POVs. 12 pages out of 534.
I struggle to believe this comes from a bad place, and it didn't completely ruin the book for me (I know for some people it might), but I hope someone brought this to Toner’s attention before he went on to write more books in the saga....more
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