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3.58 AVERAGE
3.58 AVERAGE
Lo encuentro delicioso, especialmente al principio. El final y la trama general no me deja satisfecha
I loved the first section, and thought Anders captured the voice and mindset of children and young teens with rare accuracy and grace. The second half--when those characters morph into navel gazing adults? Not so much.
My enjoyment of this novel varied widely from page to page--not because it was "weird," which I was warned about (and it's not that weird), but because the writing itself is so uneven. At times revelatory, at times utterly boring, the novel's lack of consistent momentum made it challenging for me to pay it the attention it might have deserved.
My enjoyment of this novel varied widely from page to page--not because it was "weird," which I was warned about (and it's not that weird), but because the writing itself is so uneven. At times revelatory, at times utterly boring, the novel's lack of consistent momentum made it challenging for me to pay it the attention it might have deserved.
One of the best books I have read in ages, easily in the top three I've read this year.
A very nice first novel. The world is close to an environmental apocalypse. Set in the near future, the book is a picture on how people of science and of magic look at the challenges and how some people on both sides will wish to make very similar mistakes but from each side. Patricia and Laurence are the two flawed heroes of magic and science, and they try to find a way through it.
The only thing that keeps this 4-stars rather than 5-stars is that the writing is too often so simple that it's dull. Still, a very interesting idea done well.
The only thing that keeps this 4-stars rather than 5-stars is that the writing is too often so simple that it's dull. Still, a very interesting idea done well.
The entire story has the vibe of a children’s story for 12 or 13-year-olds. It’s very much like a fairytale. The first four or five chapters felt like a knock off Percy Jackson, and in the middle of the book it gets into sex and drugs, and alcohol, and then wraps up like an episode of the avengers where the heroes have to save the world and they just have to put aside their personal baggage and team up. It’s definitely cheesy. You can’t take it too seriously but it was a good read.
Really enjoyed this mix of fantasy and science fiction. A weird blend of genres but still satisfying as we follow the two main characters, Patricia Delfine (a witch) and Laurence Armstead (a scientist/engineer) beginning their friendship from school before meeting up again, off and on, later in life.
The blurb: 'a deeply magical, darkly funny examination of life, love and the apocalypse' sums it it perfectly. Well worth reading.
The blurb: 'a deeply magical, darkly funny examination of life, love and the apocalypse' sums it it perfectly. Well worth reading.
I was going to give this 2 stars because I was desperately searching for something in the last 20 pages that I liked and I found two small things, but GR defines 1 star as "did not like it" and that pretty well sums up my reaction to the whole book. The characters seemed incredibly flat and clichéd to me. I felt nothing for any of them. The plot never grabbed me and felt like all sorts of random things were just thrown in there. I never cared what happened or even if I found out what was going to happen. I finished it because it's part of a group read and it was also a chance for me to preview it before my son read it (I gave it to him as a gift), but now I can save him some time and get him a better gift.
I am a fan of the io9.com website, which Anders edits and I discovered a very entertaining short story of hers free online:
"The Fermi Paradox is Our Business Model"
Also, I do really like the cover--props to Will Staehle and Unusual Co.
I am a fan of the io9.com website, which Anders edits and I discovered a very entertaining short story of hers free online:
"The Fermi Paradox is Our Business Model"
Also, I do really like the cover--props to Will Staehle and Unusual Co.
As I read this book, I didn't feel like I was reading it so much as falling through it, moving around in it, and being permeated and changed by it. It's the very rare book, like Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, or Pictures at a Revolution, that just emerges in my life with impossibly perfect timing and insists that I be better, personally and creatively, than I've been so far.
On the surface, the most intriguing thing about it, the initial hook, is Anders's fluid combination of fantasy and science fiction. Here's a world in which subtle magic and scientific miracles are matter-of-factly known to exist, though any kid with a talent for using and manipulating these wonders is considered an unstable and potentially dangerous misfit. Patricia, a witch, and Laurence, a boy genius, meet while trying to get through junior high. They connect, despite their doubts and suspicions about each other, because they share some understandings of the world—and because everyone else at school, as well as their own families, reacts to their differentness with bullying and ridicule.
Actually, the first third of the novel plays so much like a YA coming-of-age novel that it's a little jarring, just for a second, when the story jumps ahead to a time that plausibly resembles our near future, in which we meet back up with Patricia and Laurence as adults trying to deal with the near-constant threat of environmental collapse, with more numerous and destructive catastrophes than we’ve had to handle so far in the real world. They're both more confident, secure within communities that value their abilities, but still striving to figure out exactly who they are. And their respective peers have deeply conflicting ideas about how to face possible armageddon.
Laurence and Patricia's relationship is always right at the heart of the book, and one of the most brilliant elements is the specificity of the ways they grow apart, come back together, split away, and try to reconcile again. Their conflicts don’t always end with a ground-shaking argument and a vow never to see each other again, and they try to work things out because the mutual caring between them makes it impossible to do otherwise, not because the plot calls for them to be reunited. The prospect of natural and manufactured disaster makes their personal bond seem more important, not less. Tragic, crushing disasters do happen in this book, some of them due to preventable misunderstandings, and any lingering hopefulness is all wrapped up in the will of two very different people to maintain their belief in each other and listen and try to understand.
I read All the Birds in the Sky the week before the 2016 presidential election. At the time, the book provoked me to consider how best to think and talk about a divided country under the new Clinton administration. Now, the messages and themes remain the same, but they’ve taken on a different coloring: the moments of hard-won hope and understanding provide a corrective to despair.
All that, and it’s just endless fun to hang out in a beautiful, dangerous world where clever spells and smartly conceived artificial intelligence coexist seamlessly. Charlie Jane Anders has written the best book of the year.
On the surface, the most intriguing thing about it, the initial hook, is Anders's fluid combination of fantasy and science fiction. Here's a world in which subtle magic and scientific miracles are matter-of-factly known to exist, though any kid with a talent for using and manipulating these wonders is considered an unstable and potentially dangerous misfit. Patricia, a witch, and Laurence, a boy genius, meet while trying to get through junior high. They connect, despite their doubts and suspicions about each other, because they share some understandings of the world—and because everyone else at school, as well as their own families, reacts to their differentness with bullying and ridicule.
Actually, the first third of the novel plays so much like a YA coming-of-age novel that it's a little jarring, just for a second, when the story jumps ahead to a time that plausibly resembles our near future, in which we meet back up with Patricia and Laurence as adults trying to deal with the near-constant threat of environmental collapse, with more numerous and destructive catastrophes than we’ve had to handle so far in the real world. They're both more confident, secure within communities that value their abilities, but still striving to figure out exactly who they are. And their respective peers have deeply conflicting ideas about how to face possible armageddon.
Laurence and Patricia's relationship is always right at the heart of the book, and one of the most brilliant elements is the specificity of the ways they grow apart, come back together, split away, and try to reconcile again. Their conflicts don’t always end with a ground-shaking argument and a vow never to see each other again, and they try to work things out because the mutual caring between them makes it impossible to do otherwise, not because the plot calls for them to be reunited. The prospect of natural and manufactured disaster makes their personal bond seem more important, not less. Tragic, crushing disasters do happen in this book, some of them due to preventable misunderstandings, and any lingering hopefulness is all wrapped up in the will of two very different people to maintain their belief in each other and listen and try to understand.
I read All the Birds in the Sky the week before the 2016 presidential election. At the time, the book provoked me to consider how best to think and talk about a divided country under the new Clinton administration. Now, the messages and themes remain the same, but they’ve taken on a different coloring: the moments of hard-won hope and understanding provide a corrective to despair.
All that, and it’s just endless fun to hang out in a beautiful, dangerous world where clever spells and smartly conceived artificial intelligence coexist seamlessly. Charlie Jane Anders has written the best book of the year.