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3.95 AVERAGE
3.95 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
slow-paced
Althoigh I can appreciate the skill of Wolfe's style, it just didn't work for me.
I've wanted to read this for ages, and now that I have, I don't know exactly what I've read. The book takes place in the far future on a planet that humans have colonized. The natives seem to have gone extinct, but there are rumors that they're still alive on the planet somewhere. What happened to the natives is at the heart of the mystery of the book. However, the book doesn't end with a definitive answer, just more questions. Part 2 of the book felt like a confusing dream within a dream where each paragraph needed multiple readings and still yielded murky results. A lack of resolution, plus 1/3 of the book being nearly unintelligible just didn't make me a fan. On the other hand, my husband read this at the same time and thought it was the best thing he'd read all year. We both had different interpretations of the nature of the clones, the floating aunt, the Shadow Children, and the starwalkers. I like mysteries, but I don't care that they persist when I'm done with the book. It's not like there was ever a sequel to explain it. I'm not sure I would read it anyway. For me, this was a dud, but plenty have loved it. It's just not my cup of tea.
A powerfully weird book, and a great example of Wolfe's style.
Most other sci-fi would explicitly show off the setting and landscape very early on, and make the internal conflicts clear.
Not so with Wolfe; he throws you in to the memoirs of someone starting as a small boy, and at first you're not sure where you are... it feels like a European French city or colony, but it becomes clear that we're on another planet (that has been colonized) and that all kinds of changes are a regular part of this world. Sentient computers, cloning, genetic manipulation, and a mystery or myth surrounding the people who may or may not have lived on the planet before earthlings came along.
That's just the first of three novellas inside this book, and there's a LOT I'm not covering there.
I won't synopsize the other two, because uncovering those stories and figuring them out is part of the appeal with this book. It's also not easy to synopsize! It ends definitively, but without a concise moral or lesson, requiring you to process what you've read and how it impacts you.
Regarding the setting and it's connection to colonization: reading this in 2022 in Canada, where we are grappling with reconciliation and transforming settler culture to engage ethically with indigenous culture, there is a lot to chew on here... the absorption of one culture by another, but the possible twists within that, are useful questions today.
Perhaps the need to uncover it's details, the shifting perspectives of narrators, and it's less-obvious setting are why this book isn't as famous as his New Urth series, but it's worth your time and effort!
Most other sci-fi would explicitly show off the setting and landscape very early on, and make the internal conflicts clear.
Not so with Wolfe; he throws you in to the memoirs of someone starting as a small boy, and at first you're not sure where you are... it feels like a European French city or colony, but it becomes clear that we're on another planet (that has been colonized) and that all kinds of changes are a regular part of this world. Sentient computers, cloning, genetic manipulation, and a mystery or myth surrounding the people who may or may not have lived on the planet before earthlings came along.
That's just the first of three novellas inside this book, and there's a LOT I'm not covering there.
I won't synopsize the other two, because uncovering those stories and figuring them out is part of the appeal with this book. It's also not easy to synopsize! It ends definitively, but without a concise moral or lesson, requiring you to process what you've read and how it impacts you.
Regarding the setting and it's connection to colonization: reading this in 2022 in Canada, where we are grappling with reconciliation and transforming settler culture to engage ethically with indigenous culture, there is a lot to chew on here... the absorption of one culture by another, but the possible twists within that, are useful questions today.
Perhaps the need to uncover it's details, the shifting perspectives of narrators, and it's less-obvious setting are why this book isn't as famous as his New Urth series, but it's worth your time and effort!
An incredible triptych meditating on colonialism and identity - how the colonising power always tries to stamp its identity on the future, and how colonised parties try to reassert their identities from underneath. Full review: https://fakegeekboy.wordpress.com/2021/06/24/sainte-annese-self-slip/
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
challenging
dark
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Loveable characters:
No
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
An incredible, if sometimes psychedelic and bewildering work of science fiction. Gene Wolfe is the master of unreliable narration. He inserts details that the careful reader will find can completely change what was taken to be obvious and true earlier in the work. A difficult read, but one I would recommend to anyone with any interest in Sci-Fi.