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rgeorge's review against another edition
1.0
All that I had the say after reading this book was "WHAT THE!!". This book is about a bunch of disconnected and incomplete stories about different generations.
This was disappointing.
This was disappointing.
sarahthornton's review against another edition
4.0
Strange book, slightly uncomfortable to read but cohesive and with a strong finish.
stefhyena's review
4.0
This ticked a lot of my boxes and yet was very unpredictable almost to the point of being confusing...but too well written to lose me entirely.
So those boxes: strong female characters that reference other female characters, heterosexuality that does not erase everything interesting about female character, spirituality without being straight-forward, good blend of dystopian and hopeful themes (for most of the book).
I have to say it lost me at the end (after Tiffany's central section). WTF happened? Even then there were some interesting details (about how those characters learn someone's culture) but WTF? I did not feel it was a strong ending. Not sure if it was meant to be humorous, dark or just plain old unexpected but it didn't seem to fit with the rest of the book which was read as finely crafted and going somewhere. I can forgive the lack of explaining things (for example I don't understand why we needed the earliest section but I can cope with that).
Anyway there was so much that was interesting about how complex relationships are. I liked many details about "Nick" and what his likes and especially dislikes are (showing how repressive religion was actually playing into his hands). I wasn't sure what to think about the rabbi, he was enigmatic but I had hoped more punch from him at some point. There was so much agency portrayed in the first section/story and then I thought that was going to be a theme, but the next story was about lack of agency and then two about agency but at the end...the thing....(I don't want to spoil it)
Happy for someone to argue that there was some point to it ending like that. I would read more of this series if that were a thing.
So those boxes: strong female characters that reference other female characters, heterosexuality that does not erase everything interesting about female character, spirituality without being straight-forward, good blend of dystopian and hopeful themes (for most of the book).
I have to say it lost me at the end (after Tiffany's central section). WTF happened? Even then there were some interesting details (about how those characters learn someone's culture) but WTF? I did not feel it was a strong ending. Not sure if it was meant to be humorous, dark or just plain old unexpected but it didn't seem to fit with the rest of the book which was read as finely crafted and going somewhere. I can forgive the lack of explaining things (for example I don't understand why we needed the earliest section but I can cope with that).
Anyway there was so much that was interesting about how complex relationships are. I liked many details about "Nick" and what his likes and especially dislikes are (showing how repressive religion was actually playing into his hands). I wasn't sure what to think about the rabbi, he was enigmatic but I had hoped more punch from him at some point. There was so much agency portrayed in the first section/story and then I thought that was going to be a theme, but the next story was about lack of agency and then two about agency but at the end...the thing....(I don't want to spoil it)
Happy for someone to argue that there was some point to it ending like that. I would read more of this series if that were a thing.
sarahthornton's review
4.0
Strange book, slightly uncomfortable to read but cohesive and with a strong finish.
smcleish's review against another edition
3.0
Originally published on my blog here in May 2001.
The Faust legend is the inspiration for this science fiction novel. It begins in the sixties, when a middle aged professor at a minor university sells his soul to the devil for a younger body and takes up a new life as a drug dealer in the San Francisco hippie culture. His story is quite a straightforward version of the legend; it is the role of the virtuous Margaret that he meets in California which forms the main part of the novel. The devil, in the form of student Nick Harrison, wants to destroy Margaret, but is unable to; when she becomes pregnant, he thinks he has won, but she just points out that this is the nineteen sixties and has the child. From this point, the novel consists of a series of episodes in the lives of Margaret's descendants as Nick tries to attack them. The longest is the previously published novella [b:Resurrection|1342800|Resurrection|Katharine Kerr|http://www.goodreads.com/assets/nocover/60x80.png|1332393], about Margaret's great granddaughter Tiffany. This has a paranoid plot like a [a:Philip K. Dick|4764|Philip K. Dick|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1264613853p2/4764.jpg] story: Tiffany is recovering from a few moments of clinical death when she begins to realise that she is no longer in the same reality as that in which she grew up.
The episodes which make up Freezeframes are perhaps a little too disjointed for it to feel that it is a unified whole, but its main problem is that it has too many ideas. The best of these is the concept of the devil undertaking a personal vendetta against Maggie's family in a world which barely believes in him, but we also have telepathic contact by alien invaders and alternate worlds (both favourites of Dick). The main stories are interesting in themselves, and the novel is well written, but it remains unsatisfying.
The Faust legend is the inspiration for this science fiction novel. It begins in the sixties, when a middle aged professor at a minor university sells his soul to the devil for a younger body and takes up a new life as a drug dealer in the San Francisco hippie culture. His story is quite a straightforward version of the legend; it is the role of the virtuous Margaret that he meets in California which forms the main part of the novel. The devil, in the form of student Nick Harrison, wants to destroy Margaret, but is unable to; when she becomes pregnant, he thinks he has won, but she just points out that this is the nineteen sixties and has the child. From this point, the novel consists of a series of episodes in the lives of Margaret's descendants as Nick tries to attack them. The longest is the previously published novella [b:Resurrection|1342800|Resurrection|Katharine Kerr|http://www.goodreads.com/assets/nocover/60x80.png|1332393], about Margaret's great granddaughter Tiffany. This has a paranoid plot like a [a:Philip K. Dick|4764|Philip K. Dick|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1264613853p2/4764.jpg] story: Tiffany is recovering from a few moments of clinical death when she begins to realise that she is no longer in the same reality as that in which she grew up.
The episodes which make up Freezeframes are perhaps a little too disjointed for it to feel that it is a unified whole, but its main problem is that it has too many ideas. The best of these is the concept of the devil undertaking a personal vendetta against Maggie's family in a world which barely believes in him, but we also have telepathic contact by alien invaders and alternate worlds (both favourites of Dick). The main stories are interesting in themselves, and the novel is well written, but it remains unsatisfying.
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