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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
Writing a dystopian novel in the late 1970s wasn't an easy task. You'd have to say something 1984, Brave New World, and Lord of The Flies hadn't said. This book doesn't.
On top of it, it's just so damn clumsily written half the time. Thin characters, confusing descriptions of environments and action scenes, polemic dialog.
Levin can be a very engaging writer. Here, he leaves his economical, small-allegory skills at the door and attempts an epic history set in a complex and alien world. He fails.
On top of it, it's just so damn clumsily written half the time. Thin characters, confusing descriptions of environments and action scenes, polemic dialog.
Levin can be a very engaging writer. Here, he leaves his economical, small-allegory skills at the door and attempts an epic history set in a complex and alien world. He fails.
1) Likes: the scanners, the boats, the maps, the programmers, the dishes, the bracelets, the food, the paperweights, the rain, the juxtaposition of violence and a peaceful status quo
2)Dislikes: the situation of the women(but what's new there, and this is 'old'), the weird repeated déjà vu that happens when you've read too many generations' of derivative works and find it dims the sheer novelty of earlier ground breaking speculative fiction, a few threads are left too dangling for me, the notion that value of human life and personal ethics can be so easy-come-easy-go while guilt remains
2)Dislikes: the situation of the women(but what's new there, and this is 'old'), the weird repeated déjà vu that happens when you've read too many generations' of derivative works and find it dims the sheer novelty of earlier ground breaking speculative fiction, a few threads are left too dangling for me, the notion that value of human life and personal ethics can be so easy-come-easy-go while guilt remains
Overall, I liked this book quite a bit. It was lacking in the character development department, but it seems like that wasn't the author's purpose in the book, so in a way I don't mind. There was a portion towards the end which dragged a bit for me, but it really picked back up in the last dozen or so pages, which is why I gave it 4 stars instead of 3. Really, it should be 3.5. It is very similar to [b:1984|5470|1984|George Orwell|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1292266223s/5470.jpg|153313], but not as good. I did find it to be better than [b:Brave New World|5129|Brave New World|Aldous Huxley|http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41SJW829TEL._SL75_.jpg|3204877], or maybe it's just that I enjoyed it more. I found its point of view of the society more suited to me. It also has definite similarities to [b:Anthem|667|Anthem|Ayn Rand|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1157143423s/667.jpg|287946], only well written and much more developed. Less a mini-manifesto and more of an actual book.
Read this as a recommendation, and I am not sure how i feel about it. It was good, but the ending was lacking, and I wanted more ending.
This novel was clearly the primary inspiration for the RPG "Paranoia", so fans of that game will want to read it for that reason alone.
As an SF dystopia it stands up pretty well. The author holds back and tells the story dispassionately, leaving it up to the reader to decide what's good and bad, who's right and who's wrong. The technology is given little attention -- antigrav gets introduced from nowhere, perhaps invented during the decades the story covers? The portrayal of the computer stands up surprisingly well for a book written in 1969.
What hasn't aged well is the sexual politics of the protagonist's relationships with women, and in particular the rape scene. I'd like to think that it was a thoughtful portrayal of two humans who are coming off of decades of drugged docility and finding it impossible to deal with their hormonal urges, but in truth it's just a fairly typical late 60s "he rapes her and she falls in love with him" subplot. Irrelevant to the overall plot, so I'd suggest skipping a page or two there.
Also questionable is the racial angle -- are we supposed to find the Family's brown interbred uniformity horrifying compared to the diversity and outright racism of the humans outside UniComp's reach? Like many questions raised by the book, the author doesn't spell out the answer, and to a modern eye it's a tricky question to answer.
As an SF dystopia it stands up pretty well. The author holds back and tells the story dispassionately, leaving it up to the reader to decide what's good and bad, who's right and who's wrong. The technology is given little attention -- antigrav gets introduced from nowhere, perhaps invented during the decades the story covers? The portrayal of the computer stands up surprisingly well for a book written in 1969.
What hasn't aged well is the sexual politics of the protagonist's relationships with women, and in particular the rape scene. I'd like to think that it was a thoughtful portrayal of two humans who are coming off of decades of drugged docility and finding it impossible to deal with their hormonal urges, but in truth it's just a fairly typical late 60s "he rapes her and she falls in love with him" subplot. Irrelevant to the overall plot, so I'd suggest skipping a page or two there.
Also questionable is the racial angle -- are we supposed to find the Family's brown interbred uniformity horrifying compared to the diversity and outright racism of the humans outside UniComp's reach? Like many questions raised by the book, the author doesn't spell out the answer, and to a modern eye it's a tricky question to answer.