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mdpenguin's review against another edition
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
I didn't realize that this was a collection of short stories, so at first I was having a hard time getting into it because the expected central plot never materialized. Once I figured it out, though, I liked it a lot. The stories do work incredibly well together and do build into a strong portrait of several people tied together and the city/world they live in. It also tied into a few other of Tidhar's books that I've read in a way that wasn't overbearing but made it feel a little more familiar and connected. Overall, it read like a cross between Philip K. Dick and Bruno Schulz, with writing better than the former but not to the level of the latter. Like Dick we got a gritty but functional world, with hints of unreality and a focus on the outcasts. Like Schulz we got a rather surreal world painted for us from the perspective of a series of family-oriented stories. Overall, I really liked it and might pick it up again sometime later to give the first few stories the attention they deserve.
lkrivitz's review against another edition
3.0
Beautiful prose and great cyberpunk setting, but the characters did not really engage my interest. May be due to the fact that this was a bunch of short stories reworked into a novel.
yuyine's review against another edition
3.25
Central station est un roman où le personnage principal, la ville elle-même, se dessine à travers 13 récits liés mais indépendants à la fois qui dessinent la fresque de ce lieu, de sa vie multiculturelle, de son histoire mais aussi de l’univers immense où elle s’inscrit. Foisonnant, palpitant et vertigineux, le récit manquait malheureusement pour moi d’un fil rouge plus solide où d’une émotion plus forte pour ne pas me laisser de côté. Je vous conseille cependant sa lecture mais seulement si votre fatigue n’est pas trop intense car il nécessite de s’accrocher un peu.
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ohclaire's review against another edition
4.0
I really like the structure of this novel! It reads more like a short story collection, but the througharc is the world
erinflight's review against another edition
4.0
This is a strange, dreamlike story about a sci-fi future populated by decaying robots, machine-human minds, information vampires, and mechanical gods humans created for themselves.
The chapters skip around, both in time and space, with different narrators. I had trouble keeping track of the names, so I think I missed some of the connections between the different narratives. But, either way, they mostly don't tie together directly, and a lot of the threads don't really ever form complete stories.
This isn't a plot driven book. It's more of a collection of moments and individual people's stories, in a bittersweet version of the future.
I liked it, I'm not sure I followed it particularly well.
None of the individual ideas within the book struck me as particularly original (which is true of the majority of sci-fi), but the combination felt genuinely fresh for some reason I can't quite put my finger on.
The chapters skip around, both in time and space, with different narrators. I had trouble keeping track of the names, so I think I missed some of the connections between the different narratives. But, either way, they mostly don't tie together directly, and a lot of the threads don't really ever form complete stories.
This isn't a plot driven book. It's more of a collection of moments and individual people's stories, in a bittersweet version of the future.
I liked it, I'm not sure I followed it particularly well.
None of the individual ideas within the book struck me as particularly original (which is true of the majority of sci-fi), but the combination felt genuinely fresh for some reason I can't quite put my finger on.
innovatorium's review against another edition
1.0
The book does not have a narrative or a plot. It simply describes, in too much laborious detail, people in a futuristic society. It has the feel of a book created from many short stories, unsuccessfully merged into a book, like Frankenstein was created from different body parts. This is actually indicated at the end of the book where extended copyright to most of the chapters are described.
The praise that other authors have given the book does not match the content, so I wonder how much of it they have actually read, or if they simply got commission from the publisher to write positive reviews.
The author does have some skill in writing descriptions and has managed to conjure an interesting society. This alone would have qualified for two stars. But the lack of any plot and disregard for what makes a story interesting makes this a book that cannot be recommended.
The praise that other authors have given the book does not match the content, so I wonder how much of it they have actually read, or if they simply got commission from the publisher to write positive reviews.
The author does have some skill in writing descriptions and has managed to conjure an interesting society. This alone would have qualified for two stars. But the lack of any plot and disregard for what makes a story interesting makes this a book that cannot be recommended.
zanosgood's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0