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renoku's review
2.0
I honestly did not like this book, to start off. The concept, while interesting in its premise, is completely not researched and underdeveloped. The history of the dystopia is revealed in what feels like a sudden burst of textbook literature, and it honestly takes away from what could have been building suspense. That's not even going into the details of the history itself. It almost feels like the author just looked up the textbook definition of sociopathy and then applied it to their philosophy of science vs religion. In truth, the battle between religion and science is interesting, if only for the fact that the author almost completely denies both. A.I.s are the enemies. God is the enemy. Having faith is terrible, but emotion is required to survive in this novel. Isn't emotion a manifestation of faith, however? The book seems to contradict itself in its philosophies and then takes itself way too seriously. It's basically shoving atheism in the reader's face, and in the way that honestly feels like legitimate sociopathy. And it also completely ignores any other religions outside of the three main monotheistic religions. Let's not even mention the conflict that Hinduism often has with Buddhism, or the extreme philosophical disagreement that Confucianism has had with Taoism throughout history that America doesn't pay attention to simply because it's an "Eastern thing". As I said: underdeveloped and not researched. There isn't even any mention of the popular opinion of most followers of religion, only that of the extremists. It seems to assume that everyone eventually becomes a radical, and that after the catalyst of the dystopia, religion is just completely abandoned. This is not only unrealistic on a sociological level, but viewed from an extremely narrow lens. None of the characters feel any doubt in their beliefs at all, and they all seem to conform to the same opinion. That is: the author's opinion. The representation in this book is extremely poor.
Of course, I didn't realize before I read this book that most of C.J. Anderson's writing is actually completely against religion in all forms (Read: monotheism, because apparently Sikhism doesn't qualify. Either that or Anderson just forgot to even mention it. Whatever.), so that's partially my mistake for reading it in the first place...
I give this book two stars because it's definitely better than some of the one-star books I've read. The plot is interesting, if completely underdeveloped and rushed. I almost want to read the second book, if only to see what happens, but I don't think I'd be able to stomach the overwhelming cynicism and depression that permeates the pages, as well as deal with the ridiculousness of the concept since it seems to be based off of a freshman-year biology course. However, the writing style is eloquent, if lacking some description between dialogues and mental monologues. It feels as if there is little description that creates atmosphere outside of the general informative tone that makes the book read like an extended research paper.
Also there is an extreme lack of quotation marks, which distracts from the writing as a whole and disrupts the tense of the writing completely.
Go ahead and read this if you have a mind for cynical philosophy and lack of character development. However, for anyone else it might just piss you off more than it entertains, or make you roll your eyes at its unconscious irony.
Of course, I didn't realize before I read this book that most of C.J. Anderson's writing is actually completely against religion in all forms (Read: monotheism, because apparently Sikhism doesn't qualify. Either that or Anderson just forgot to even mention it. Whatever.), so that's partially my mistake for reading it in the first place...
I give this book two stars because it's definitely better than some of the one-star books I've read. The plot is interesting, if completely underdeveloped and rushed. I almost want to read the second book, if only to see what happens, but I don't think I'd be able to stomach the overwhelming cynicism and depression that permeates the pages, as well as deal with the ridiculousness of the concept since it seems to be based off of a freshman-year biology course. However, the writing style is eloquent, if lacking some description between dialogues and mental monologues. It feels as if there is little description that creates atmosphere outside of the general informative tone that makes the book read like an extended research paper.
Also there is an extreme lack of quotation marks, which distracts from the writing as a whole and disrupts the tense of the writing completely.
Go ahead and read this if you have a mind for cynical philosophy and lack of character development. However, for anyone else it might just piss you off more than it entertains, or make you roll your eyes at its unconscious irony.
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