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3.53 AVERAGE
3.53 AVERAGE
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
It took some toe getting into this one. The world is so unique that you may not settle in easily but once you do you want to live there for a while.
adventurous
dark
funny
inspiring
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
slow-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
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
There was so much potential. Newitz definitely has some unique and socially-relatable ideas, but this should have been three books in a trilogy rather than three parts of one novel. The three main parts are separated by significant amounts of time (100+ years each), and while there are a few characters held over from one part to the next, and the parts were all interrelated via the plot, I felt that I didn’t have enough time to know any set of characters before jumping forward in time to the next set.
I wonder if the publisher was hesitant to release a trilogy of novels, either all at once or with gaps, because the beginning did take a while to make sense of what the overall direction and plot of the story would be.
Newitz also performs some lazy dialogue work that comes across more clunky and unbelievable than meaningful and authentic, and relies almost entirely on dialogue to move a majority of the plot.
Show, don’t tell.
I wonder if the publisher was hesitant to release a trilogy of novels, either all at once or with gaps, because the beginning did take a while to make sense of what the overall direction and plot of the story would be.
Newitz also performs some lazy dialogue work that comes across more clunky and unbelievable than meaningful and authentic, and relies almost entirely on dialogue to move a majority of the plot.
Show, don’t tell.
This was good but... dense.
It's almost like this is 3 or 4 books all together in one volume.
This became more political than I was expecting. It's clear how it gets there and it's not a complaint, it's just that the book about a space ranger and her flying moose friend becomes a story about copyright and that all people should be treated equally, even if those people are in the bodies of cats or trains.
It's definitely a thought provoking book, but it's also just rather odd. I liked that there's a throughline of the "generations" of this planet and that even though it covers thousands of years some of the same characters at the start are still around near the end.
The audiobook, which is how I read it, is also a bit of a unique experience since there are a lot of robots who will "play triumphant nusic" or "play a fart sound" and those sounds become part of the audiobook playback, which is fine when it's something pleasant, but the alarm sounds were... making it a little hard to focus on the story.
This was good, but it's not quite what I was expecting. Or rather it was, there's a fair amount of Hard Sci-Fi stuff and it's mixed with a lot of character development. Usually you see either one or the other and it was a nice change.
It's almost like this is 3 or 4 books all together in one volume.
This became more political than I was expecting. It's clear how it gets there and it's not a complaint, it's just that the book about a space ranger and her flying moose friend becomes a story about copyright and that all people should be treated equally, even if those people are in the bodies of cats or trains.
It's definitely a thought provoking book, but it's also just rather odd. I liked that there's a throughline of the "generations" of this planet and that even though it covers thousands of years some of the same characters at the start are still around near the end.
The audiobook, which is how I read it, is also a bit of a unique experience since there are a lot of robots who will "play triumphant nusic" or "play a fart sound" and those sounds become part of the audiobook playback, which is fine when it's something pleasant, but the alarm sounds were... making it a little hard to focus on the story.
This was good, but it's not quite what I was expecting. Or rather it was, there's a fair amount of Hard Sci-Fi stuff and it's mixed with a lot of character development. Usually you see either one or the other and it was a nice change.
Whoa. This book was an amazing ride. It engaged readers' galaxy brain (a term it jubilantly used) the whole way through. It starts out as a lushly optimistic, beautifully imagined far-future science fiction which you slowly (or not-so-slowly) discover is actually a dystopia where everyone is owned and some people's mental acuity/verbal skills is artificially limited. The rest of the book is a joyful, imaginative journey through solutions, implications and revolutions. I wanted way, way more of this.
I read this book immediately after reading [a:Annalee Newitz|191888|Annalee Newitz|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1608627466p2/191888.jpg]'s book [b:Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age|53122357|Four Lost Cities A Secret History of the Urban Age|Annalee Newitz|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1580793108l/53122357._SY75_.jpg|73351375], which was an awesome time to read it. You could see their fascination and research with ancient cities coming through: Sometimes explicitly as in Spider City's Cahokia-evoking mounds. It turned my brain in entirely new directions and was a garden of fascinating ideas.
Newitz credited [a:Kim Stanley Robinson|1858|Kim Stanley Robinson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1376955089p2/1858.jpg] in the acknowledgements, and it is his work that this most reminded me of, with elements of [a:David Brin|14078|David Brin|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1352956147p2/14078.jpg], [a:Becky Chambers|22659598|Becky Chambers|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] and the grandest elements of the old grand masters of SF.
I absolutely adored Scrubjay the train.
The lack of the fifth star is arguable. I had trouble with the idea of the Great Bargain. I'm sure I was meant to. It felt like all the animals were treated as just humans in other bodies rather than people and beings with entirely different umwelts. This is not Newitz's fault. They've been researching urban evolution and the history of civilization and probably do not have time to do that, write amazing books, live a reasonable life and keep up with all the research coming out about how differently different organisms view the world. Again, that's not Newitz's fault. After I finished their archaeology book, I immediately jumped to [a:Ed Yong|4124738|Ed Yong|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1573241090p2/4124738.jpg]'s [b:An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us|59575939|An Immense World How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us|Ed Yong|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1652105350l/59575939._SY75_.jpg|92905730] so it was freshly on my mind.
That said, this was a wonderfully fun and absorbing book.
I read this book immediately after reading [a:Annalee Newitz|191888|Annalee Newitz|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1608627466p2/191888.jpg]'s book [b:Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age|53122357|Four Lost Cities A Secret History of the Urban Age|Annalee Newitz|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1580793108l/53122357._SY75_.jpg|73351375], which was an awesome time to read it. You could see their fascination and research with ancient cities coming through: Sometimes explicitly as in Spider City's Cahokia-evoking mounds. It turned my brain in entirely new directions and was a garden of fascinating ideas.
Newitz credited [a:Kim Stanley Robinson|1858|Kim Stanley Robinson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1376955089p2/1858.jpg] in the acknowledgements, and it is his work that this most reminded me of, with elements of [a:David Brin|14078|David Brin|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1352956147p2/14078.jpg], [a:Becky Chambers|22659598|Becky Chambers|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] and the grandest elements of the old grand masters of SF.
I absolutely adored Scrubjay the train.
The lack of the fifth star is arguable. I had trouble with the idea of the Great Bargain. I'm sure I was meant to. It felt like all the animals were treated as just humans in other bodies rather than people and beings with entirely different umwelts. This is not Newitz's fault. They've been researching urban evolution and the history of civilization and probably do not have time to do that, write amazing books, live a reasonable life and keep up with all the research coming out about how differently different organisms view the world. Again, that's not Newitz's fault. After I finished their archaeology book, I immediately jumped to [a:Ed Yong|4124738|Ed Yong|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1573241090p2/4124738.jpg]'s [b:An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us|59575939|An Immense World How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us|Ed Yong|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1652105350l/59575939._SY75_.jpg|92905730] so it was freshly on my mind.
That said, this was a wonderfully fun and absorbing book.
challenging
hopeful
medium-paced
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Very interesting and super weird. It's like Kim Stanley Robinson and Louise Erdrich had a book baby. Early on, there's this sentence: "Your head had to be buried deep in your ass to say a flying, talking moose with a weird gang of aeronaut drone friends wasn't smart enough to be a person." So yes, it's about terraforming a planet to be Pliestoscene Earth-like (with the implication that human society has moved far beyond needing planets to be like Earth - the lead terraforming director even wins an annual award similar to the Grammys for her work on this planet). But it's also about bioengineered beings who are "decanted" instead of born, and who can have parents that are completely different species. The purpose of parents is to teach you how to be a person, and there are all different kinds of people, including talking Moose and flying trains who are grown from some sort of organic trellis. It's about different kinds of personhood, self-governance vs. corporate governance, and responsibility for the land. As you can tell it's all about big ideas, and less about developing characters. There are three sections of the book hundreds of years apart, with different characters in each one, so it's hard to get to know any of the characters deeply. It also came across as deeply neurodivergent - at a couple of points, the author even uses the term "mouth words" (as distinct from texting, which is the only way some beings on this planet communicate). This is a term I've mainly heard in the Autism community, and it was a pleasant surprise.
Stars missing for not being quite propulsive enough to keep me engaged - if it takes me more than a week or two to finish a book, I know it's lacking something. Also - the minimal character development. Destry and Whistle were done pretty well, but I had a hard time later in the book. Still, well worth reading.
Stars missing for not being quite propulsive enough to keep me engaged - if it takes me more than a week or two to finish a book, I know it's lacking something. Also - the minimal character development. Destry and Whistle were done pretty well, but I had a hard time later in the book. Still, well worth reading.
This book is certainly epic in scope, with big ideas and a slow, conscientious pace that’s people-centric. However, I really wish the characters had been more fleshed out, since at its heart this is a story about the people who build, maintain, and love a planet.
There were some really clever and thoughtful ideas in this story, especially at the very beginning and end. I loved how characters and ideas meandered through the narrative, the fierceness of the protesters, the care the ERT and others showed their planet, and the innate weirdness (especially the flying moose, which I just loved!). But the Terraformers sometimes missed the forest for the trees, and it lags quite slowly in places.
All in all, this is a brilliant book to consider through the lens of Indigenous theory and the Land Back movement. It’s queer, thoughtful, and maybe just a little bit cozy. Also, it has some of the most enby names I’ve read in a while.
This ARC was provided by Tor and Edelweiss. All thoughts are my own.
There were some really clever and thoughtful ideas in this story, especially at the very beginning and end. I loved how characters and ideas meandered through the narrative, the fierceness of the protesters, the care the ERT and others showed their planet, and the innate weirdness (especially the flying moose, which I just loved!). But the Terraformers sometimes missed the forest for the trees, and it lags quite slowly in places.
All in all, this is a brilliant book to consider through the lens of Indigenous theory and the Land Back movement. It’s queer, thoughtful, and maybe just a little bit cozy. Also, it has some of the most enby names I’ve read in a while.
This ARC was provided by Tor and Edelweiss. All thoughts are my own.