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dromedaryreader's review
adventurous
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
zanosgood's review
adventurous
challenging
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
hammard's review
1.0
I was incredibly disappointed by Jem. Now I love the Pohl I have read so far, particularly the way he explores areas of the futures other writers would not consider and giving us humans doing nasty things to each other because of the society they are in. However, whilst all this does exist in the text, this is not the Pohl I love. Instead this felt like Pohl imitating Arthur C. Clarke. His attempt to do "bigger picture" science fiction makes the whole story unfocused and diffused. And, as such, the unlikability of the characters ends up playing against him as there is not enough time to explore their personalities and so it is hard to care for such a wide range of unpleasant people.
I have been reading a lot of SFF fiction from 1979 of late so I may be suffering from burn out but this is so unbelievably of its time. This extrapolation of the future of the world can only have come out of the late 70s and the "human's fail at Utopia" is only second in overused plots to "my alien artifact is bigger than your alien artifact". Rather than doing anything new it is just a very standard plot with a very dated worldview and such a thinly veiled satire with a rather trite message (humans are bad, the current political divides are bad, colonialism is bad).
Combining these issues together we get this narrator who keeps making really unpleasant remarks and even names and situations are set up in problematic ways. There is a point where I begin to question, how much is being satirical and how much is simply being horrible?
I can see if you like interesting Alien Races (ala Stapledon's Starmaker) you would probably find the world of Jem quite interesting. But to me it was just too much of a heavy-handed mirror to the contemporary earth society to really manage to develop beyond that to me.
This is a shame as a really good Pohl is something I look forward to, but this is far from that.
I have been reading a lot of SFF fiction from 1979 of late so I may be suffering from burn out but this is so unbelievably of its time. This extrapolation of the future of the world can only have come out of the late 70s and the "human's fail at Utopia" is only second in overused plots to "my alien artifact is bigger than your alien artifact". Rather than doing anything new it is just a very standard plot with a very dated worldview and such a thinly veiled satire with a rather trite message (humans are bad, the current political divides are bad, colonialism is bad).
Combining these issues together we get this narrator who keeps making really unpleasant remarks and even names and situations are set up in problematic ways. There is a point where I begin to question, how much is being satirical and how much is simply being horrible?
I can see if you like interesting Alien Races (ala Stapledon's Starmaker) you would probably find the world of Jem quite interesting. But to me it was just too much of a heavy-handed mirror to the contemporary earth society to really manage to develop beyond that to me.
This is a shame as a really good Pohl is something I look forward to, but this is far from that.
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