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3.52 AVERAGE
3.52 AVERAGE
Let me start by saying that Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is one of my favorite books of all time. And I loved The Girl Who Navigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making. This book should have been right up my alley. Unfortunately, it tries a little too hard to be absurd. There’s very little plot and a whole lot of asides with way too many commas and way too much extraneous information. I didn’t care all that much about the main characters because we never really get to know them. I did laugh a few times but overall I was pretty disappointed.
Despite the fact that I didn’t finish this audiobook, I found it very enjoyable. The writing is quick-witted, sly, and really funny. It’s been compared to Douglas Adams, but I think this is better. It’s modern and more emotionally deep.
I didn’t finish this not because it wasn’t good or entertaining, but because my head just wasn’t in the place to fully give it the attention it deserved. I’ll put it back on my to-read list and revisit it hopefully sooner rather than later.
I didn’t finish this not because it wasn’t good or entertaining, but because my head just wasn’t in the place to fully give it the attention it deserved. I’ll put it back on my to-read list and revisit it hopefully sooner rather than later.
I like Eurovision, I like fun space stories - let's go? But no.
It just seemed that despite the exciting premise there just wasn't enough plot so the solution was to just use so. many. words. in. every. sentence. I could only read this one chapter at a time.
I did appreciate some fun words that seemed to come from Estonian (but might also be a coincidence).
It just seemed that despite the exciting premise there just wasn't enough plot so the solution was to just use so. many. words. in. every. sentence. I could only read this one chapter at a time.
I did appreciate some fun words that seemed to come from Estonian (but might also be a coincidence).
- the glamrock Eurovision/Hitchhiker’s gendersplat lovechild I didn’t know I needed and it is glorious
- Earth is the Australia of intergalactic Eurovision: don’t know why we’ve been invited but since we’re here now, let’s very much not come last
- the dense writing style is not usually to my taste (I’m a minimal description, fast plot, snappy dialogue sort of reader) but as with the Fairyland series, the underlying sense of humour and imaginativeness and unbridled pleasure in spinning a tale wins me over and draws me in
- Earth is the Australia of intergalactic Eurovision: don’t know why we’ve been invited but since we’re here now, let’s very much not come last
- the dense writing style is not usually to my taste (I’m a minimal description, fast plot, snappy dialogue sort of reader) but as with the Fairyland series, the underlying sense of humour and imaginativeness and unbridled pleasure in spinning a tale wins me over and draws me in
It was predictable. It was unnecessarily long. It didn't really get to the actual point until two-thirds of the way in. It introduced a variety of intergalactic species through the lens of previous Metagalactic Grand Prix, and I only was able to keep a few of the ten or fifteen species straight. Glam-rock isn't really my thing, nor is Eurovision, and the Hitchhiker's references were there, but not humorous.
Valente always writes beautifully about the nitty-gritty truths of the universe in a way that makes them very relatable, very melancholic, and very appealing. And there's a lot of that in here. But in a much, much more rambling sense than I'm used to seeing from her. Usually they come in the form of short little lessons, all neatly wrapped up in a moralistic bow, that is immediately crushed because morals mean nothing even in the most saintly cases. Here, they just tend to ramble on and on and while I get the point they're trying to make about the universe/character/instance, it was just all too rambly.
Clippy would helpfully ask us "You seem to have multiple run-on sentences in this document. Would you like some help on how to fix them?"
It's esoteric as all get out, reads great to vaporwave, takes its logic principles from Looney Tunes, has a time-travelling red panda, and is set in a not-so-distant future where everything and nothing is the same as it is now.
Whereas [b:Radiance|18490533|Radiance|Catherynne M. Valente|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1412283972s/18490533.jpg|26174247] was a surreal nostalgic reminisce about a silent era that never ended, Space Opera was a nihilistic preview of our loud era proved as pointless, barely a whisper, and only just squeaking by in intergalactic terms.
Really, find a type of music that makes you strongly emotionally nostalgic and/or melancholic and listen to that while reading the last third or so of the book. It's a trip.
(Cross posted on my blog.)
Valente always writes beautifully about the nitty-gritty truths of the universe in a way that makes them very relatable, very melancholic, and very appealing. And there's a lot of that in here. But in a much, much more rambling sense than I'm used to seeing from her. Usually they come in the form of short little lessons, all neatly wrapped up in a moralistic bow, that is immediately crushed because morals mean nothing even in the most saintly cases. Here, they just tend to ramble on and on and while I get the point they're trying to make about the universe/character/instance, it was just all too rambly.
Clippy would helpfully ask us "You seem to have multiple run-on sentences in this document. Would you like some help on how to fix them?"
It's esoteric as all get out, reads great to vaporwave, takes its logic principles from Looney Tunes, has a time-travelling red panda, and is set in a not-so-distant future where everything and nothing is the same as it is now.
Whereas [b:Radiance|18490533|Radiance|Catherynne M. Valente|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1412283972s/18490533.jpg|26174247] was a surreal nostalgic reminisce about a silent era that never ended, Space Opera was a nihilistic preview of our loud era proved as pointless, barely a whisper, and only just squeaking by in intergalactic terms.
Really, find a type of music that makes you strongly emotionally nostalgic and/or melancholic and listen to that while reading the last third or so of the book. It's a trip.
(Cross posted on my blog.)
Earth is invited to a galaxy-wide ‘Eurovision’ and hijinks ensue.
The writing style is a little too wild. More like.. wacky journalism instead of a novel? Very stream of consciousness, little dialogue. I've liked Valente's short stories in the past, but I'm not in the right headspace for this.
It feels like the author was heavily inspired by Douglas Adams, my all-time favourite author. This may suggest that I have a high standard for books of a similar genre, but honestly, I'm pretty easily impressed by odd humour. When done well, I love douglas-adams-esque books far too much. But this...this book, in my opinion, was not done well. It just...it felt like it tried way too hard to be Douglas Adams, every single step of the way.
I unfortunately found this book very, very boring despite the incredibly interesting concept. The prose was inexplicably dense in a way that the story simply didn't merit, and it never seemed to actually pick up the pace, even when more intense events happened.
The sentences felt unbearably long, twisted, convoluted, unlike anything comparable I've read before. So to see if they truly were long, or if it just felt like it due to the decently uninteresting nature of the writing style, I grabbed three other novels of a similar scifi humour genre and counted the first 103 sentences in each (the length of the first chapter of Space Opera). In hindsight I should have done the full first chapter for each book and not worried about differences in dataset size to actually make a semi-fair experiment (or as fair as it can be with a sample size of four random books the researcher dubbed 'similarly vibed', counted by hand, and didn't give to anyone else who could spot human error) but oh well. Perhaps I'll recount someday, but that day is not today.
Interestingly enough, the average sentence length isn't different at all from the rest of the books in my sample. But you can see, with the very long tail in Space Opera's box and whisker graph, which sentences I was getting lost in. 143 words!! ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY THREE!! That's too many words to shove into one single sentence!
My real grievances with this book lie elsewhere, and you can make a masterpiece no matter the sentence size. But it irked me, and I made a graph, so I might as well have some fun with my mild incredulity over sentence length instead of actually being insightful and unpicking the lengthy problems I had with this book.
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The three other books I mentioned are:
- [b:How to Get a Girlfriend (When You're a Terrifying Monster)|61056810|How to Get a Girlfriend (When You're a Terrifying Monster) (Monster Girlfriend, #1)|Marie Cardno|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1652053110l/61056810._SY75_.jpg|96226118], a fun, fluffy lighthearted read with plenty of oddities and a shapeshifting amalgamous mass (what's not to love!)
- [b:The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy|13|The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1-5)|Douglas Adams|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1404613595l/13._SY75_.jpg|135328] my favourite book of all time. pure insanity wrapped up in a sensible overcoat. If you have not read this already, I can't recommend it highly enough.
- [b:The Unspeakable Unknown|40068066|The Unspeakable Unknown|Eliot Sappingfield|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1529982679l/40068066._SY75_.jpg|62099909] the second book in a great, great series about eldritch beings, a madcap genius boarding school, and ensuing hijinks. I happened to have the second book on hand, but not the first. I would wholeheartedly recommend this series, too :)
I unfortunately found this book very, very boring despite the incredibly interesting concept. The prose was inexplicably dense in a way that the story simply didn't merit, and it never seemed to actually pick up the pace, even when more intense events happened.
The sentences felt unbearably long, twisted, convoluted, unlike anything comparable I've read before. So to see if they truly were long, or if it just felt like it due to the decently uninteresting nature of the writing style, I grabbed three other novels of a similar scifi humour genre and counted the first 103 sentences in each (the length of the first chapter of Space Opera). In hindsight I should have done the full first chapter for each book and not worried about differences in dataset size to actually make a semi-fair experiment (or as fair as it can be with a sample size of four random books the researcher dubbed 'similarly vibed', counted by hand, and didn't give to anyone else who could spot human error) but oh well. Perhaps I'll recount someday, but that day is not today.
Interestingly enough, the average sentence length isn't different at all from the rest of the books in my sample. But you can see, with the very long tail in Space Opera's box and whisker graph, which sentences I was getting lost in. 143 words!! ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY THREE!! That's too many words to shove into one single sentence!
My real grievances with this book lie elsewhere, and you can make a masterpiece no matter the sentence size. But it irked me, and I made a graph, so I might as well have some fun with my mild incredulity over sentence length instead of actually being insightful and unpicking the lengthy problems I had with this book.
-------------
The three other books I mentioned are:
- [b:How to Get a Girlfriend (When You're a Terrifying Monster)|61056810|How to Get a Girlfriend (When You're a Terrifying Monster) (Monster Girlfriend, #1)|Marie Cardno|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1652053110l/61056810._SY75_.jpg|96226118], a fun, fluffy lighthearted read with plenty of oddities and a shapeshifting amalgamous mass (what's not to love!)
- [b:The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy|13|The Ultimate Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1-5)|Douglas Adams|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1404613595l/13._SY75_.jpg|135328] my favourite book of all time. pure insanity wrapped up in a sensible overcoat. If you have not read this already, I can't recommend it highly enough.
- [b:The Unspeakable Unknown|40068066|The Unspeakable Unknown|Eliot Sappingfield|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1529982679l/40068066._SY75_.jpg|62099909] the second book in a great, great series about eldritch beings, a madcap genius boarding school, and ensuing hijinks. I happened to have the second book on hand, but not the first. I would wholeheartedly recommend this series, too :)
Couldn’t do it. The superfluous adjectives in the first two chapters were driving me insane. I flipped to the middle and it was more of the same so this is just going back to the library unread.
Wordplay fun, but overblown, so story kinda slow and not very engaging.