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gildius's review against another edition
challenging
dark
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
thechemicaldetective's review against another edition
3.0
Compelling opening and some beautiful writing - a dark and nihilistic novella. Not for me, I lost interest half way through: after a great build up, everything happens in the middle and the long slow tail was hard to keep coming back to. Glad to have read it - an unusual and timely sketch on the grim realities of exploration but would hesitate to recommend.
dee9401's review against another edition
5.0
A dark, experimental, literate sci-fi novel that just dazzled me. An amazing and deep work, both passionate and philosophical, visceral and cerebral. The style was like a modern way of doing an epistolary novel, through her vocoder entries. I felt her hallucinations toward the end, remembering my own from fevers past.
theaurochs's review
4.0
Re-read for a book club! You can see my full original review below the dotted line. Not a huge amount has changed in my view of it, but there is definitely something lost in terms of shock value. A second read helped me be much more critical towards the protagonist, who is very much a flawed character, but her flaws allow for the great interactions and explorations of faith and death that we get. My book club consensus was generally that the first half of the book is better than the second, which I generally agree with; the first half could have been expanded to more fully engage with the themes. But the brevity gives it a certain delicious punc, and very much suits the style.
Still full of beautiful prose, still a challenging and philosophically charged read despite the short length.
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Now then. This is the sort of revelatory, mind-expanding stuff that I do usually ask my five star books to give me.
An escape pod from a damaged ship crash lands on beautiful and mysterious planet, away from all civilisation. The survivors; a rag-tag group of strangers who must band together to survive. We've heard this one a million times, right?
Right. So imagine how you think that story is going to go. This book will absolutely not go that way.
Russ' writing is confrontational and unapolagetic- using the styling of dictation from a single character, which lets us deep into her mind as events start to unfold and characters start to unravel.
This is a powerful tale about personal choice and bodily autonomy in the face of a perceived 'greater good'. What if someone disagrees with the assessment of what that greater good is? How can you deal with them? Are the trappings of civilisation worth holding on to in the face of unsurmountable difficulties?
It is a meditation on the ways we can face death- death of the self, of ideals, and of entire societies. It is a deep study of the thought process of suicide specifically, and despair at the meaninglessness of life. Camus would have a field day.
It's also a poweful feminist manifesto- I realise Russ herself might not appreciate me bringing this up but unfortunately will still live in a world where crappy books (and crappy sci-fi in particular) relegate women to at best side-characters and at worst damsels in distress and baby factories. This book is a scathing critique of early action-adventure style books from which it takes its central premise, and the anger is justified and felt.
Great book- excellent and challenging, ethereal yet completely down-to-earth. Well worth a read.
Still full of beautiful prose, still a challenging and philosophically charged read despite the short length.
----------
Now then. This is the sort of revelatory, mind-expanding stuff that I do usually ask my five star books to give me.
An escape pod from a damaged ship crash lands on beautiful and mysterious planet, away from all civilisation. The survivors; a rag-tag group of strangers who must band together to survive. We've heard this one a million times, right?
Right. So imagine how you think that story is going to go. This book will absolutely not go that way.
Russ' writing is confrontational and unapolagetic- using the styling of dictation from a single character, which lets us deep into her mind as events start to unfold and characters start to unravel.
This is a powerful tale about personal choice and bodily autonomy in the face of a perceived 'greater good'. What if someone disagrees with the assessment of what that greater good is? How can you deal with them? Are the trappings of civilisation worth holding on to in the face of unsurmountable difficulties?
It is a meditation on the ways we can face death- death of the self, of ideals, and of entire societies. It is a deep study of the thought process of suicide specifically, and despair at the meaninglessness of life. Camus would have a field day.
It's also a poweful feminist manifesto- I realise Russ herself might not appreciate me bringing this up but unfortunately will still live in a world where crappy books (and crappy sci-fi in particular) relegate women to at best side-characters and at worst damsels in distress and baby factories. This book is a scathing critique of early action-adventure style books from which it takes its central premise, and the anger is justified and felt.
Great book- excellent and challenging, ethereal yet completely down-to-earth. Well worth a read.
katnissevergreen's review against another edition
4.0
"To die on a dying Earth - I'd live if only to weep."
category_fury'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? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
soscarlettm's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
rocketiza's review against another edition
3.0
I enjoyed this a lot until the latter part of the book which seemed to drag on without really giving the reader as much as it should have.
tasharobinson's review against another edition
2.0
I picked this up because I ran across a webcomic praising it to the skies, and claiming it was a satirical feminist twist on the old "surviving a spaceship crash and restarting civilization on a new world" trope, where the men immediately wanted to repopulate the planet, and the women stood up to them and claimed autonomy over their bodies. That sounded amazing, and I wanted to see where that premise went.
But that's not what the book is about at all. It's about a group that survives a spaceship crash and then has to deal with the fact that one of their number is a crazy, bitter nihilist who resents their every effort at survival. The book does change up the usual trope, but it focuses on that nihilist's point of view fairly exclusively, without making her particularly comprehensible to people who don't share her views. The characters largely seem like familiar types, but they behave so oddly that roughly every other page was a "Wait, what?" moment for me. And then there are these flashes of lucidity that seemed like they'd go somewhere fascinating — like when the youngest, strongest man realizes he can just hit the woman who's leading the party, and win the latest argument that way, and all the survivors have to decide what to do about it — but those lines of inquiry just peter out entirely. The last half of the book feels stretched out and arbitrary, and doesn't do much with the protagonist to justify her choices, or the story's direction.
But that's not what the book is about at all. It's about a group that survives a spaceship crash and then has to deal with the fact that one of their number is a crazy, bitter nihilist who resents their every effort at survival. The book does change up the usual trope, but it focuses on that nihilist's point of view fairly exclusively, without making her particularly comprehensible to people who don't share her views. The characters largely seem like familiar types, but they behave so oddly that roughly every other page was a "Wait, what?" moment for me. And then there are these flashes of lucidity that seemed like they'd go somewhere fascinating — like when the youngest, strongest man realizes he can just hit the woman who's leading the party, and win the latest argument that way, and all the survivors have to decide what to do about it — but those lines of inquiry just peter out entirely. The last half of the book feels stretched out and arbitrary, and doesn't do much with the protagonist to justify her choices, or the story's direction.
lark_spur's review against another edition
4.0
If you like Russ's work you will like this. Very heady stuff.