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strydrath's review
challenging
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
linds4y's review against another edition
5.0
Very sad. An interesting mix of blog posts and first-person trains of thought.
meghan_is_reading's review against another edition
Ecoterrorism and complicated family relationships.
morgandhu's review
4.0
In The Blood of Angels, Johanna Sinisalo has returned to the themes of her previous novel, Birdbrain - the thoughtless use and abuse of the ecosystem by humans intent on their own needs, disharmony among humans and between humans and nature, and the idea of a consciousness in nature that responds to the damage wrought on it.
In The Blood of Angels, Sinisalo focuses on bees, and the mystery of Colony Collapse Disorder, which in this near-future world has become Colony Collapse Catastrophe (CCC) - the sudden disappearance of the worker population of a major proportion of the industrialised world's hives, each abandoned hive leaving behind only a few immature bees and a dead or dying queen. The loss of so many bees, particularly in North America, has resulted in food crisis as plant crops dependent on bees for pollination are dying out, and meat, reliant on plant feeds for its continued production, is becoming a rare and expensive food. Parts of Europe - including Finland where the novel is set - and most of Africa and Asia are not yet as hard hit by CCC, but there are signs that more trouble is coming.
Against this background, the novel is structured around four generations of a family. Pupa the beekeeper, the protagonist's grandfather, is seen only in remembrance, and Ari, his son, the industrialist beef producer, only in a few scenes. The novel belongs to Orvo and his son Eero, both of whom are shaped by their relations to their fathers and grandfathers, and the relations of those men to the natural world.
Orvo is a funeral director by trade, but his heart is in the bee colonies he inherited from his grandfather. Eero is a student and ecological activist, one of the key members in the Animalist Revolutionary Army (ARA), whose main focus is animal rights. He blogs about animal rights, and selection from his blog - many of them dealing with, on the one hand, the role of bees in the ecology and the importance of CCC, and on the other, the corrupt and cruel practices of factory farming of animals.
When CCC strikes in one of Orvo's hives, and tragedy occurs during an ARA action at Ari's Hopevale Meats factory, Orvo discovers what may lie behind the disappearance of the bees, and a multitude of ancient myths linking bees, the gods, and the souls of men.
A stark tale of family tragedy, an ecological activist's primer, a narrative of a slow apocalypse of human making, an indictment of man's inability to think beyond his own needs and desires, an examination of death and and the potentials for rebirth, this novel functions on many levels, and exquisitely so.
In The Blood of Angels, Sinisalo focuses on bees, and the mystery of Colony Collapse Disorder, which in this near-future world has become Colony Collapse Catastrophe (CCC) - the sudden disappearance of the worker population of a major proportion of the industrialised world's hives, each abandoned hive leaving behind only a few immature bees and a dead or dying queen. The loss of so many bees, particularly in North America, has resulted in food crisis as plant crops dependent on bees for pollination are dying out, and meat, reliant on plant feeds for its continued production, is becoming a rare and expensive food. Parts of Europe - including Finland where the novel is set - and most of Africa and Asia are not yet as hard hit by CCC, but there are signs that more trouble is coming.
Against this background, the novel is structured around four generations of a family. Pupa the beekeeper, the protagonist's grandfather, is seen only in remembrance, and Ari, his son, the industrialist beef producer, only in a few scenes. The novel belongs to Orvo and his son Eero, both of whom are shaped by their relations to their fathers and grandfathers, and the relations of those men to the natural world.
Orvo is a funeral director by trade, but his heart is in the bee colonies he inherited from his grandfather. Eero is a student and ecological activist, one of the key members in the Animalist Revolutionary Army (ARA), whose main focus is animal rights. He blogs about animal rights, and selection from his blog - many of them dealing with, on the one hand, the role of bees in the ecology and the importance of CCC, and on the other, the corrupt and cruel practices of factory farming of animals.
When CCC strikes in one of Orvo's hives, and tragedy occurs during an ARA action at Ari's Hopevale Meats factory, Orvo discovers what may lie behind the disappearance of the bees, and a multitude of ancient myths linking bees, the gods, and the souls of men.
A stark tale of family tragedy, an ecological activist's primer, a narrative of a slow apocalypse of human making, an indictment of man's inability to think beyond his own needs and desires, an examination of death and and the potentials for rebirth, this novel functions on many levels, and exquisitely so.
peregrine's review
4.0
One-sentence recommendation: Read if you want slow-paced, meditative, atmospheric eco-SF with mythological roots.
The book alternates between chapters in first person from the perspective of Orvo, a beekeeper mourning his dead son Eero, and excerpts from Eero's animal rights blog, against the background of a near future in which the disappearance of the bees has started leading to catastrophic crop failure and food shortages. The blog sections are the passionate and opinionated writings of a young person, while Orvo's chapters are meditative and almost dream-like, and capture heartbreakingly well the feeling of a middle-aged man alone moving slowly through a mire of grief. The juxtaposition works extremely well (and I think a lot of credit needs to be given to the English translator, Lola Rogers, for the effectiveness of this even though translation).
The straightforwardness of the prose makes this a relatively fast read, despite its slow pace and lack of action (characteristics which, to be clear, I hold in its favor.)
Spoilers ahead:
The book ponders on the nature of death, the individual, and the place and responsibilities of humans in the world around them without quite providing definitive answers, which I like (though it definitely comes down against an anthropocentric view of nature). The blurb characterizes the book as a retelling of the Orpheus myth, which I didn't really see until near the end. While Orpheus' quest to regain Eurydice always felt fundamentally selfish to me, Orvo's attempt to bring back his son, while selfish at the beginning, eventually becomes selfless as he gives up the possibility of seeing Eero again himself in order to leave a natural "paradise" unspoiled by humans for the bees and for Eero. By bringing Eero to Other Place, Orvo doesn't quite live up to his own philosophy about the unimportance of an individual life compared to the well-being of the whole "hive", but by cutting off the gateway there, he puts the good of a much greater whole, the untouched ecology of another world, above the good of himself and even the rest of humanity.
The book alternates between chapters in first person from the perspective of Orvo, a beekeeper mourning his dead son Eero, and excerpts from Eero's animal rights blog, against the background of a near future in which the disappearance of the bees has started leading to catastrophic crop failure and food shortages. The blog sections are the passionate and opinionated writings of a young person, while Orvo's chapters are meditative and almost dream-like, and capture heartbreakingly well the feeling of a middle-aged man alone moving slowly through a mire of grief. The juxtaposition works extremely well (and I think a lot of credit needs to be given to the English translator, Lola Rogers, for the effectiveness of this even though translation).
The straightforwardness of the prose makes this a relatively fast read, despite its slow pace and lack of action (characteristics which, to be clear, I hold in its favor.)
Spoilers ahead:
The book ponders on the nature of death, the individual, and the place and responsibilities of humans in the world around them without quite providing definitive answers, which I like (though it definitely comes down against an anthropocentric view of nature). The blurb characterizes the book as a retelling of the Orpheus myth, which I didn't really see until near the end. While Orpheus' quest to regain Eurydice always felt fundamentally selfish to me, Orvo's attempt to bring back his son, while selfish at the beginning, eventually becomes selfless as he gives up the possibility of seeing Eero again himself in order to leave a natural "paradise" unspoiled by humans for the bees and for Eero. By bringing Eero to Other Place, Orvo doesn't quite live up to his own philosophy about the unimportance of an individual life compared to the well-being of the whole "hive", but by cutting off the gateway there, he puts the good of a much greater whole, the untouched ecology of another world, above the good of himself and even the rest of humanity.
moomooasaur's review
5.0
This book was an absolute fantastic read.
If you’re jumping into this book thinking it’s just about the bees, then you’re wrong. It’s so much more than that. You travel through several of Orvo’s days, delving into the past of what makes him the man he is, and the recent tragedy that has befell him. He’s definitely a tragic character, one that doesn’t have all the answers, but that’s why I love him.
You’re not only getting the viewpoint of fifty-year-old Orvo but also his son (who I believe/assume was in his 20’s). Orvo’s connection to the environment is through his bee’s and the bee’s impact on the environment, but his son was an extremist, and I found his blog post to be so thrilling to read and also dissect. When they first start, you can see that Eero is passionate about his beliefs, and as the book goes on you can see them transform into something so much more, with his inclusion in the animal rights group, and even the comments on his blog and how his group interacts and feeds off each other online. It was so wonderful.
When the element of the fantastic was first introduced I was a bit skeptical of Sinisalo, but it definitely worked after it got explained. I wasn’t sure if I was going to love it and thought that it was going to be the breaking point of me reading past the halfway point, but I’m glad I stuck with it. It was simply a stunning world.
This book took me through so many twist and turns, despite it lasting a mere 219 pages. It was unpredictable for me, which seems to be a rare occurrence in books, and I think that’s because it was super character driven and not plot. Every time I tried to guess something, I was wrong, and I think that’s what kept me so engaged while also filling me with a sense of dread.
My favorite part of this novel that made me have to put the book down for a few minutes before inevitably picking it back up again because I was feeling a personal void was at page 200 (once we hear of the Colony Collapse spreading cross-continentally). I don’t want to copy it all here, especially for people who haven’t read the book, because it was so absolutely resonant, impactful, and filled me with such a sense of dread and sadness about the inevitability of the planet.
The one problem I have with this novel is the fact that the ending was super unsatisfying. There were some spots after the page 200 mark that I thought would have been a satisfying ending, but it kept going and then ended in a way that seemed a bit out of character, especially for Orvo.
Overall, I couldn’t recommend this book more.
If you’re jumping into this book thinking it’s just about the bees, then you’re wrong. It’s so much more than that. You travel through several of Orvo’s days, delving into the past of what makes him the man he is, and the recent tragedy that has befell him. He’s definitely a tragic character, one that doesn’t have all the answers, but that’s why I love him.
You’re not only getting the viewpoint of fifty-year-old Orvo but also his son (who I believe/assume was in his 20’s). Orvo’s connection to the environment is through his bee’s and the bee’s impact on the environment, but his son was an extremist, and I found his blog post to be so thrilling to read and also dissect. When they first start, you can see that Eero is passionate about his beliefs, and as the book goes on you can see them transform into something so much more, with his inclusion in the animal rights group, and even the comments on his blog and how his group interacts and feeds off each other online. It was so wonderful.
When the element of the fantastic was first introduced I was a bit skeptical of Sinisalo, but it definitely worked after it got explained. I wasn’t sure if I was going to love it and thought that it was going to be the breaking point of me reading past the halfway point, but I’m glad I stuck with it. It was simply a stunning world.
This book took me through so many twist and turns, despite it lasting a mere 219 pages. It was unpredictable for me, which seems to be a rare occurrence in books, and I think that’s because it was super character driven and not plot. Every time I tried to guess something, I was wrong, and I think that’s what kept me so engaged while also filling me with a sense of dread.
My favorite part of this novel that made me have to put the book down for a few minutes before inevitably picking it back up again because I was feeling a personal void was at page 200 (once we hear of the Colony Collapse spreading cross-continentally). I don’t want to copy it all here, especially for people who haven’t read the book, because it was so absolutely resonant, impactful, and filled me with such a sense of dread and sadness about the inevitability of the planet.
The one problem I have with this novel is the fact that the ending was super unsatisfying. There were some spots after the page 200 mark that I thought would have been a satisfying ending, but it kept going and then ended in a way that seemed a bit out of character, especially for Orvo.
Overall, I couldn’t recommend this book more.
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