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roadtripreader's review
dark
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
If there's one thing the Anderson Project series did achieve successfully - it's put Richard Anderson's art in the spotlight. The cover, the actual painting is so eerie and prickly and almost weirdly familiar that I had to go and do an excavation on the world wide web and find his art. Turns out he is not some ancient from hundreds of years ago. So, I spent the better part of this exercise in getting rid of reading slump, studying so many pieces of art and then coming back to this painting.
REBORN
Thankfully, the book slump I was falling into earlier has subsided. Reborn jarred me right out of it with that entire sequence between the human detective and the Tawnin alien with two sets of arms, no mouth, and just sheer terror in the idea of standing next to one let alone coupling with one. The question of humans having multiple personalities as argued by the aliens is unsettling. If you exorcise the memories of a murderer and leave only the memories of normality, does it really make the person different and no longer a murderer? Well, whatever rage and intent led to murder is not tied to memories but inside the human mind and chemically inextricable, the murderer may not remember killing someone but that entire chemical explosion of rage or cold calculating intent will come together again and again and the human will respond memory or not - so the Tawnin are full of it. I mean, the police officer proved that point. No matter how many times he was reborn, he was still always lead by his thirst for vengeance.
SPACE BALLET
The science of dreams is explored and taken levels above with the second story and really goes in a direction I did not see coming especially after reading reborn, it made sense on the surface that the image depicted the obvious UFO and Alien backstory. This one is unique in that it is entirely human, and entirely. Precognition through dreams. Who hasn't had a dream that seems strangely if not frightfully prophetic? I enjoyed the scientific endeavor and the other "ultimate intimacy" in which students entered each other's dream to better understand the meanings it could hold.
BLAH BLAH .... THE LET DOWN
The trio of short stories would be a perfect encapsulation of the images were it not for number 3, which I have dubbed "Dawn of the Planet of the Parrots". There is something long-winded about the author that in 32 pages, I felt like I had read a 200 hundred page novel - not in the wow this is very informative and full of little nuggets of gold but rather in the ...god when will it end. We get it, the parrot is Caesar and the rest of the African Greys are the troop that take over the world. Or whatever.
REBORN
Thankfully, the book slump I was falling into earlier has subsided. Reborn jarred me right out of it with that entire sequence between the human detective and the Tawnin alien with two sets of arms, no mouth, and just sheer terror in the idea of standing next to one let alone coupling with one. The question of humans having multiple personalities as argued by the aliens is unsettling. If you exorcise the memories of a murderer and leave only the memories of normality, does it really make the person different and no longer a murderer? Well, whatever rage and intent led to murder is not tied to memories but inside the human mind and chemically inextricable, the murderer may not remember killing someone but that entire chemical explosion of rage or cold calculating intent will come together again and again and the human will respond memory or not - so the Tawnin are full of it. I mean, the police officer proved that point. No matter how many times he was reborn, he was still always lead by his thirst for vengeance.
SPACE BALLET
The science of dreams is explored and taken levels above with the second story and really goes in a direction I did not see coming especially after reading reborn, it made sense on the surface that the image depicted the obvious UFO and Alien backstory. This one is unique in that it is entirely human, and entirely. Precognition through dreams. Who hasn't had a dream that seems strangely if not frightfully prophetic? I enjoyed the scientific endeavor and the other "ultimate intimacy" in which students entered each other's dream to better understand the meanings it could hold.
BLAH BLAH .... THE LET DOWN
The trio of short stories would be a perfect encapsulation of the images were it not for number 3, which I have dubbed "Dawn of the Planet of the Parrots". There is something long-winded about the author that in 32 pages, I felt like I had read a 200 hundred page novel - not in the wow this is very informative and full of little nuggets of gold but rather in the ...god when will it end. We get it, the parrot is Caesar and the rest of the African Greys are the troop that take over the world. Or whatever.
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