Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.84 AVERAGE
3.84 AVERAGE
adventurous
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Peter Clines is fast becoming one of my favourite writers. After 14 and The Fold, which married contemporary Sci-fi and humour with the Lovecraftian mood and aesthetics genre, Paradox Bound does the same with a genre I didn't think I'd enjoy, the US Road trip (with a pinch of gunslinger Western for added flavour). Some subtle (and other not so subtle) historical figure cameos, will bring a slight smile instead of eye rolling, meaning they work perfectly as garnish without distracting from the main story. The starring duo just click together, and the "science" behind the paradox aspects while never fully explained, doesn't even need to, because it fits the narrative perfectly. Summing up, I'm definitely looking forward to buying more books by Clines, in the not-so-distant future.
There’s a reason this book took me a year to read. I like Cline’s style and his premises are intriguing, but this one trudged along slower than a water-powered time machine. Oof.
2.5
2.5
This is the book I was hoping to read when I first heard vague mention of Neil Gaiman's "American Gods" [a very polarizing novel which tends to either inspire or disappoint each reader who comes across it - your mileage may vary]. Not because the two books share the same subject matter of course. There are no immigrant gods in Paradox Bound. Well...not literally. But, the idea of a unique mythology that begins and ends with the country of the United States - that is present in both books, and I wanted to see what it looked like. Two hundred or so years is actually a very short time for a country to develop a mythos - note for instance the fact that the admittedly very interesting mythos of the Native Americans is so widely regarded as more precisely "mystical" than anything the US. as a country has to offer, despite the efforts of say...Nicolas Cage. And rightly so, since the former was here for so very very long before the latter. But it is a very interesting thing to say that here is a group of people who regard any mythos connected to their collective identity with less interest than many belonging to neighboring or previous nations. It is mostly because pinning down any American mythos is still very very difficult to do.
Neil Gaiman tried. His book suggested our mythos is the old "melting pot" story - other mythoi are brought by all those arriving as immigrants and twisted up together in new and interesting ways. In this case, in the form of immigrant and often refugee gods. This sounded super interesting to me when I first heard about it, and remains a very interesting perspective on the feeling of being a displaced immigrant in the US [though personally I prefer "The Golem and the Jinni" if I'm going for an examination of that topic specifically]. What "Gods" unfortunately did not do well for me was the bit where the gods were supposed to get an "interesting twist" when they were all brought together. Instead, it seemed as if what the gods found in the US was....bleak despair. Again, very interesting from an immigration perspective, but not what I had been imagining when I first heard of the book. Still good to have read it, but I wanted to find that other book out there. The one that actually examined the mythos that was developing here now that all this has happened. Gaiman's book suggested the only thing that the immigrating gods didn't bring with them were: a touch of hope, a whole bunch of despair when they realized they didn't fit in, the "new gods" obsessed with the things the new country 'was obsessed with' [media, celebrity, technology, and drugs], and a touch of hope for a new day at the end. Which is definitely how the US can look, from one perspective. It's a rough perspective, just as those newly arrived here have an unfairly rough time, and that should not be forgotten. But....
All groups in the US except for the natives are immigrants. We hear that a bunch. It's not wrong. But there are many INDIVIDUALS in the country who are native to this nation, not just in terms of being born here, but in being entirely OF here. Their family does not have or maintain a mythos from a "home" nation - this place IS their only real cultural touchstone in that way. Who are they? In many ways, they are Gaiman's imaginings after the "battle" has been lost and the old gods have faded away. If you want to think of it only in those terms. But that's a little rough on the actual people who are like that. I certainly don't feel as if I am such a person, having lost all touchstones and now only obsessed with media, tech, and drugs. I mean, oh boy does the country have problems with those, but they are not our new touchstones, not MY touchstones. But, can I point to the ones that are? For me, yes, some of them. But for the group of like individuals in the whole nation - probably not, it is still to unsure. Maybe a book is coming along soon that can point to one possible solution, can suggest a pinning down. Enough of those, and maybe we'll find something. It's not old gods unchanged. It's not media and tech. It's not stupid people chanting USA again and again, or screaming about the superiority of the nation over others - those are the cries of people searching for touchstones and meanwhile repeating empty words. Cowboy hats might come close for some, but not for huge swaths of people that now grow up in entirely urban environments, nor for those whose ancestors would not have been wearing the hats at that time. Which probably leads to another reason it's hard to pin down group touchstones: we've only actually "been" more fully a melting pot after say, the sixties, and we're still working on it.
This is the longest I've gone through a book review without saying much about the book. But that's just it. I have. In his book, Clines actually does not wind up pinning down a seriously distinct mythos for the US. And I think that's the point. In this book, everyone is searching. Searching for something that perhaps was even there all along. The word paradox is in the title. A big touchstone of the American mythos is.....the search for the American mythos. Perhaps a little unsatisfying in and of itself, but honest. And something to think about. We're at the point where we can imagine what it will look like once we've found it - I've seen some sci-fi books that do that well, and presumably more and more of those will be published, seemingly to be a nearer and nearer possible future as we converge on it in reality. But for now: the search is where we are.
Clines does manage to pin down what I think are some essential elements. The faceless men and wacky bureaucracy definitely point to some strange and uniquely American....things. Not all of them pretty or nice, for sure, but not as unambiguously disparaging as the "media, tech, drugs" suggestions I mentioned before, which I actual think are more part of the world touchstone collection at this point, rather than just being 'a factor of' the nation. But also there are things like ghost towns, bad houses, and similar that crop up in this book which feel again, like they have real relevance to the mythos of a large group. And then, there's the biggest one: the road. The open country. For a nation that has the third biggest population and the third biggest square footage, with some of that area very desolate or undeveloped as compared to other nations of comparable tech.....it makes sense that the large, open travel space has a huge place in our mythos. Strangely, I think this one applies to urban folk too, because even if we don't stop in it to stay, very few people do not at least observe it as they drive from city to city. We always know that it's there - that even though we like our city, we're surrounded by swaths of open area we could drive though. Even more so in the central and western portions of the nation of course. It makes sense.
The book. The book is also good to my mind in other ways. I enjoy the characters, their eccentricities, and their camaraderie. I'm sure some will find them too one-note, as some always do, and the protagonist does have the unfortunate trait of having waaaaay too much beginner's luck. He's just starting out on the search, yet you know he'll in some way finish it by the end of the novel. But, it has to be a gimmie on some level - there might have been better ways to do it, but I don't know what they are, and this seems like the most reasonable way to tell the story. The book also has a lot of time travel, something I always enjoy, and a strangely high amount of hope, even in the face of some of its darker elements. I am okay with this, especially in comparison to the bleakness of American Gods. I can admit that you can find both in the real world, but I happen to like reading about one more than the other, though I will not shy away from either. Ah, also, the darker elements in this book go through a weird transformation at the end. That....feels strange, and I will have to think about it for a while. But, at the same time, it points to more in our mythos - that much is dependent upon THE RULES. That if you manage to tweak them a bit, suddenly, enemies might become friends. Or at least, not enemies. It's almost as if THE RULES and THE RHETORIC were themselves the enemy/obstacle everyone were fighting against in their own way. Something I think I might identify with a lot.
As with all books, you can read this just for fun, or for "what [you think] it's saying". For pleasure or for symbolism. Some books throw one or other in your face, I don't think this one does.
It's a good book - and I'm looking forward to more by this author.
Neil Gaiman tried. His book suggested our mythos is the old "melting pot" story - other mythoi are brought by all those arriving as immigrants and twisted up together in new and interesting ways. In this case, in the form of immigrant and often refugee gods. This sounded super interesting to me when I first heard about it, and remains a very interesting perspective on the feeling of being a displaced immigrant in the US [though personally I prefer "The Golem and the Jinni" if I'm going for an examination of that topic specifically]. What "Gods" unfortunately did not do well for me was the bit where the gods were supposed to get an "interesting twist" when they were all brought together. Instead, it seemed as if what the gods found in the US was....bleak despair. Again, very interesting from an immigration perspective, but not what I had been imagining when I first heard of the book. Still good to have read it, but I wanted to find that other book out there. The one that actually examined the mythos that was developing here now that all this has happened. Gaiman's book suggested the only thing that the immigrating gods didn't bring with them were: a touch of hope, a whole bunch of despair when they realized they didn't fit in, the "new gods" obsessed with the things the new country 'was obsessed with' [media, celebrity, technology, and drugs], and a touch of hope for a new day at the end. Which is definitely how the US can look, from one perspective. It's a rough perspective, just as those newly arrived here have an unfairly rough time, and that should not be forgotten. But....
All groups in the US except for the natives are immigrants. We hear that a bunch. It's not wrong. But there are many INDIVIDUALS in the country who are native to this nation, not just in terms of being born here, but in being entirely OF here. Their family does not have or maintain a mythos from a "home" nation - this place IS their only real cultural touchstone in that way. Who are they? In many ways, they are Gaiman's imaginings after the "battle" has been lost and the old gods have faded away. If you want to think of it only in those terms. But that's a little rough on the actual people who are like that. I certainly don't feel as if I am such a person, having lost all touchstones and now only obsessed with media, tech, and drugs. I mean, oh boy does the country have problems with those, but they are not our new touchstones, not MY touchstones. But, can I point to the ones that are? For me, yes, some of them. But for the group of like individuals in the whole nation - probably not, it is still to unsure. Maybe a book is coming along soon that can point to one possible solution, can suggest a pinning down. Enough of those, and maybe we'll find something. It's not old gods unchanged. It's not media and tech. It's not stupid people chanting USA again and again, or screaming about the superiority of the nation over others - those are the cries of people searching for touchstones and meanwhile repeating empty words. Cowboy hats might come close for some, but not for huge swaths of people that now grow up in entirely urban environments, nor for those whose ancestors would not have been wearing the hats at that time. Which probably leads to another reason it's hard to pin down group touchstones: we've only actually "been" more fully a melting pot after say, the sixties, and we're still working on it.
This is the longest I've gone through a book review without saying much about the book. But that's just it. I have. In his book, Clines actually does not wind up pinning down a seriously distinct mythos for the US. And I think that's the point. In this book, everyone is searching. Searching for something that perhaps was even there all along. The word paradox is in the title. A big touchstone of the American mythos is.....the search for the American mythos. Perhaps a little unsatisfying in and of itself, but honest. And something to think about. We're at the point where we can imagine what it will look like once we've found it - I've seen some sci-fi books that do that well, and presumably more and more of those will be published, seemingly to be a nearer and nearer possible future as we converge on it in reality. But for now: the search is where we are.
Clines does manage to pin down what I think are some essential elements. The faceless men and wacky bureaucracy definitely point to some strange and uniquely American....things. Not all of them pretty or nice, for sure, but not as unambiguously disparaging as the "media, tech, drugs" suggestions I mentioned before, which I actual think are more part of the world touchstone collection at this point, rather than just being 'a factor of' the nation. But also there are things like ghost towns, bad houses, and similar that crop up in this book which feel again, like they have real relevance to the mythos of a large group. And then, there's the biggest one: the road. The open country. For a nation that has the third biggest population and the third biggest square footage, with some of that area very desolate or undeveloped as compared to other nations of comparable tech.....it makes sense that the large, open travel space has a huge place in our mythos. Strangely, I think this one applies to urban folk too, because even if we don't stop in it to stay, very few people do not at least observe it as they drive from city to city. We always know that it's there - that even though we like our city, we're surrounded by swaths of open area we could drive though. Even more so in the central and western portions of the nation of course. It makes sense.
The book. The book is also good to my mind in other ways. I enjoy the characters, their eccentricities, and their camaraderie. I'm sure some will find them too one-note, as some always do, and the protagonist does have the unfortunate trait of having waaaaay too much beginner's luck. He's just starting out on the search, yet you know he'll in some way finish it by the end of the novel. But, it has to be a gimmie on some level - there might have been better ways to do it, but I don't know what they are, and this seems like the most reasonable way to tell the story. The book also has a lot of time travel, something I always enjoy, and a strangely high amount of hope, even in the face of some of its darker elements. I am okay with this, especially in comparison to the bleakness of American Gods. I can admit that you can find both in the real world, but I happen to like reading about one more than the other, though I will not shy away from either. Ah, also, the darker elements in this book go through a weird transformation at the end. That....feels strange, and I will have to think about it for a while. But, at the same time, it points to more in our mythos - that much is dependent upon THE RULES. That if you manage to tweak them a bit, suddenly, enemies might become friends. Or at least, not enemies. It's almost as if THE RULES and THE RHETORIC were themselves the enemy/obstacle everyone were fighting against in their own way. Something I think I might identify with a lot.
As with all books, you can read this just for fun, or for "what [you think] it's saying". For pleasure or for symbolism. Some books throw one or other in your face, I don't think this one does.
It's a good book - and I'm looking forward to more by this author.
I don't know how this ended up on my "to read" list. I normally hate time travel books, especially the ubiquitous, "Where are we?" "Don't you mean when are we?" But despite all that, it really was a fun book.
After meeting a strange woman on the side of the road 3 times, Eli realizes she's in danger and needs to go and warn her, but upon finding her, he learns that she not only comes from another time, but now he must travel with her to save himself! Many time travel paradoxes abound as they search together for the American Dream and try to outrun the faceless men.
I enjoyed this book. The characters were fun, the premise was fun and yes, I may have shed a tear at one point. Does this change my feelings about time travel books? No. But there are always exceptions to every rule.
After meeting a strange woman on the side of the road 3 times, Eli realizes she's in danger and needs to go and warn her, but upon finding her, he learns that she not only comes from another time, but now he must travel with her to save himself! Many time travel paradoxes abound as they search together for the American Dream and try to outrun the faceless men.
I enjoyed this book. The characters were fun, the premise was fun and yes, I may have shed a tear at one point. Does this change my feelings about time travel books? No. But there are always exceptions to every rule.
Read Completed 11/16/23 | 2.5 stars, but rounding up because it was disappointing but not bad
PARADOX BOUND was a (very) watered down AMERICAN GODS by Neil Gaiman with a little time travel. The AMERICAN GODS vibes were the only things holding my attention and I kept hoping for some plot development, but we really didn't get it.
The premise of the book is that Eli meets a mysterious woman, and he encounters her multiple times from when he's a child to his current adult age. She looks like she's from the past, driving an old car, but there's something else about her. Long story short, Eli joins Harry (short for Harriet) on her quest to find & protect the American Dream (because it's a real, tangible thing) and they can slip through time based on certain points in the country where the timelines grow stagnant and blur.
So the actualization of the American Dream becoming a real item gave me those AG feels (and it was given to the Founding Fathers by an Egyptian god, which sadly we only really hear in passing and don't get to know much about), and there's a sinister force of Faceless Men chasing after the good guys. I just.... I WANTED to like this. It's a neat concept, unique, different from other time travel books and a fun spin on a historical tie. I just never could get into it, mostly because I didn't know what the heck I was reading. The world-building and plot were minimal. There were a lot of things I had to take at face value because we were told but didn't really get to learn about in detail. I don't know why things happened, how they happened, and why everything was so important.
Eli was a good enough character, and as always, Ray Porter did a fantastic job narrating the audiobook to bring him to life. If I hadn't been listening to the audio, I don't know if I would have stuck with this book for very long. Harry was just fine. She was all special snowflake and I don't know... some things about her just screamed character and not real person (yes, she IS a character but I want to feel lost in the story).
Really, the plot just didn't do it for me and I didn't feel like it was developed enough. Very cool concept, some people really loved it, but this fell pretty flat for me.
PARADOX BOUND was a (very) watered down AMERICAN GODS by Neil Gaiman with a little time travel. The AMERICAN GODS vibes were the only things holding my attention and I kept hoping for some plot development, but we really didn't get it.
The premise of the book is that Eli meets a mysterious woman, and he encounters her multiple times from when he's a child to his current adult age. She looks like she's from the past, driving an old car, but there's something else about her. Long story short, Eli joins Harry (short for Harriet) on her quest to find & protect the American Dream (because it's a real, tangible thing) and they can slip through time based on certain points in the country where the timelines grow stagnant and blur.
So the actualization of the American Dream becoming a real item gave me those AG feels (and it was given to the Founding Fathers by an Egyptian god, which sadly we only really hear in passing and don't get to know much about), and there's a sinister force of Faceless Men chasing after the good guys. I just.... I WANTED to like this. It's a neat concept, unique, different from other time travel books and a fun spin on a historical tie. I just never could get into it, mostly because I didn't know what the heck I was reading. The world-building and plot were minimal. There were a lot of things I had to take at face value because we were told but didn't really get to learn about in detail. I don't know why things happened, how they happened, and why everything was so important.
Eli was a good enough character, and as always, Ray Porter did a fantastic job narrating the audiobook to bring him to life. If I hadn't been listening to the audio, I don't know if I would have stuck with this book for very long. Harry was just fine. She was all special snowflake and I don't know... some things about her just screamed character and not real person (yes, she IS a character but I want to feel lost in the story).
Really, the plot just didn't do it for me and I didn't feel like it was developed enough. Very cool concept, some people really loved it, but this fell pretty flat for me.
Lots of fun with some Neil Gaiman style mixed in with a little Grant Morrison and some good Peter Clines fun.
Reminds me of classic Stephen King with Faceless Men and characters skidding through history. Enjoyed the story from beginning to end.
fast-paced