You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.58 AVERAGE
3.58 AVERAGE
What a weird and wonderful book!
All the Birds in the Sky mashes together magic and crazy science to create a whole that’s odd and unique and utterly engaging. We first meet the lead characters Patricia and Laurence as outcast kids — bullied, friendless, and with home lives that just scream abuse. When they finally meet, they provide each other with refuge and support, but ultimately part ways until a seemingly random reconnection as adults.
The story switches perspectives between both characters, showing us the life of Patricia the witch, cursing and healing people, always being cautioned against the #1 sin for witches, Aggrandizement… and Laurence, the genius mad scientist working on anti-gravity and the possible salvation — or destruction — of the planet.
The writing is often quite funny, although the subject matter can get pretty heavy, what with the impending end of the world and all. The witches and the scientists have plans to save everyone, but each plan may also bring the apocalypse. Patricia and Laurence battle their own factions as well as each others’ in order to avert disaster, even while dealing with their own inner turmoil and competing interests and emotions.
This book truly brings together science fiction and fantasy in a way very few do. If you enjoy oddball fiction with a science-y, magical flair, check out All the Birds in the Sky!
PS – Bonus points to Charlie Jane Anders for making excellent use of San Francisco — not just the obvious tourist attractions, but all the odd little corners and neighborhoods that make SF so SF!
All the Birds in the Sky mashes together magic and crazy science to create a whole that’s odd and unique and utterly engaging. We first meet the lead characters Patricia and Laurence as outcast kids — bullied, friendless, and with home lives that just scream abuse. When they finally meet, they provide each other with refuge and support, but ultimately part ways until a seemingly random reconnection as adults.
The story switches perspectives between both characters, showing us the life of Patricia the witch, cursing and healing people, always being cautioned against the #1 sin for witches, Aggrandizement… and Laurence, the genius mad scientist working on anti-gravity and the possible salvation — or destruction — of the planet.
The writing is often quite funny, although the subject matter can get pretty heavy, what with the impending end of the world and all. The witches and the scientists have plans to save everyone, but each plan may also bring the apocalypse. Patricia and Laurence battle their own factions as well as each others’ in order to avert disaster, even while dealing with their own inner turmoil and competing interests and emotions.
This book truly brings together science fiction and fantasy in a way very few do. If you enjoy oddball fiction with a science-y, magical flair, check out All the Birds in the Sky!
PS – Bonus points to Charlie Jane Anders for making excellent use of San Francisco — not just the obvious tourist attractions, but all the odd little corners and neighborhoods that make SF so SF!
I actually really liked this book. I thought it was really unique in the way it combined nerdy science stuff with magic.
The beginning was solid and so whimsical, but for me, the book did slow down a lot when it basically became a rehash of "The Magicians." I wasn't super into that book because of the unlikeable , throwaway characters who were basically terrible human beings, but I did find these characters more pleasant to read about (maybe because we saw them growing up). Though of course, they did have their downfalls as well, like scouring San Fran to find the latest hipster dining venue when everyone else in the world is dying.
And of course the romantic in me enjoyed the resolution at the end. This book defies genres, which is why I think I find it so attractive. That, and all the hippie tree loving!
The beginning was solid and so whimsical, but for me, the book did slow down a lot when it basically became a rehash of "The Magicians." I wasn't super into that book because of the unlikeable , throwaway characters who were basically terrible human beings, but I did find these characters more pleasant to read about (maybe because we saw them growing up). Though of course, they did have their downfalls as well, like scouring San Fran to find the latest hipster dining venue when everyone else in the world is dying.
And of course the romantic in me enjoyed the resolution at the end. This book defies genres, which is why I think I find it so attractive. That, and all the hippie tree loving!
adventurous
emotional
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I'd give this 3.5 stars if Goodreads had the ability. This was a well written book with some beautiful prose that had a very clever beginning and an interesting conclusion, that was bogged down by a rambling middle. For a scifi fantasy mashup, I was disappointed that a lot of the magic and science took a back seat for a hundred pages of indie/hipster restaurants and twee relationship drama and ~locally sourced hamburgers~.
medium-paced
Couldn’t quite get into the central romance, and I don’t know that the magic vs. science conflict was all that well developed either. Or maybe I just don’t care enough about San Francisco.
I wanted this to have a bigger focus on the world building and less of a focus on the romance of the characters, but regardless I still enjoyed reading it and tore through it fairly quickly.
i think this book is like a 3.5? or a 3.75? the payoff at the end was really cool (very donna haraway) but a lot of the book was kind of a slog and the characters were not as developed as you would think they would be for a book with a plot that's all about learning and changing your perspective. however the magic system was really fun and reading this felt like watching someone untangle something very complex which was fun! not my fave, not the worst!
Weird and beautiful, Charlie Jane Anders gifts us with a fairy tale for our future. As the world implodes under a battle between science and magic in Anders' tale, the only route forward is to embrace both the differentness in ourselves and those things which terrify us by their foreign-ness in others. The story of Patricia and Laurence is all of our stories, and her odd blending of science-fiction and fantasy underscores the premise that we can only survive by embracing both the magic and the realism in life and love.
adventurous
dark
funny
mysterious
fast-paced