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3.52 AVERAGE
3.52 AVERAGE
Several folks recommended this to me, and I enjoyed it, but I didn't love it. It was reminiscent of HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy, with frequent humorous asides to info dump relevant history, but if anything this seemed painfully dense with those info dumps, and a bit thin on actual story. I've already forgotten the name of Decibel Jones' bandmate who was there for the majority of the story, though that may have something to do with listening to the book, so I never saw the name, only heard it. Ort? Urt?
The book had witty prose, some very clever plot points, and nerdy references a'plenty. Valente is now on my "might read her next book" list.
The book had witty prose, some very clever plot points, and nerdy references a'plenty. Valente is now on my "might read her next book" list.
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
This was intriguing and joyful and the audiobook narrator did the most incredible job. It was a quick listen and one of those audiobooks that I feel was meant to be read at over 2x speed...the energy in the narration is witty and punchy. I felt entertained the whole way through.
This is the story of the world ending...because the universe does not feel humans can be considered "sentient" beings. The only way to save humanity from utter destruction is a Eurovision-style musical competition among members of the entire universe.
This was a lot of fun!
This is the story of the world ending...because the universe does not feel humans can be considered "sentient" beings. The only way to save humanity from utter destruction is a Eurovision-style musical competition among members of the entire universe.
This was a lot of fun!
Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide meets Libba Bray’s Beauty Queens meets the Eurovision Song Contest. What a wild ride!
A wild, bedazzled ride. The language was very refreshing and the logic of Valente's universe? I'm 100% on board.
I read this book as it was the first of the Book Club reads chosen for my IRL Book Club and I think it was a really interesting read to have as a Book Club title as it gave a good scope for discussion. This story is incredibly mad, and it's been described before as Eurovision in Space, which certainly it does have echoes of.
We follow a main character called Dess who I really didn't like. He's a washed-up ex-superstar and he's kind of down on his luck by the time we meet him. However, that quickly changes when he becomes the guy who could save the whole Earth from annihilation...
This book is reminiscent but not quite as polished as Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers. There are definite cross-overs on style and on humour, but I think the lyricism that Valente writes with becomes a little confusing at some points and she goes on an awful lot of tangents too!
I'd have to admit that I liked the ideas Valente has, she shows us so many different alien races and areas and views, but I only saw such a small snippet that I couldn't connect where I wanted to. It's full of ideas, but none felt thoroughly fleshed out.
Overall, it's a great book for discussion but it's not a favourite of mine as it focused more on the glitz and chaos than it did on the characters themselves... but then, that is very Eurovision :) 3*s
We follow a main character called Dess who I really didn't like. He's a washed-up ex-superstar and he's kind of down on his luck by the time we meet him. However, that quickly changes when he becomes the guy who could save the whole Earth from annihilation...
This book is reminiscent but not quite as polished as Douglas Adams' Hitchhikers. There are definite cross-overs on style and on humour, but I think the lyricism that Valente writes with becomes a little confusing at some points and she goes on an awful lot of tangents too!
I'd have to admit that I liked the ideas Valente has, she shows us so many different alien races and areas and views, but I only saw such a small snippet that I couldn't connect where I wanted to. It's full of ideas, but none felt thoroughly fleshed out.
Overall, it's a great book for discussion but it's not a favourite of mine as it focused more on the glitz and chaos than it did on the characters themselves... but then, that is very Eurovision :) 3*s
Space Opera was a fun book, but I wanted to like it more than I did. It is light, humorous SF written in the style of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, but with a musical bent. I did laugh out loud at times, but Catherynne Valente has a fondness for exceedingly long sentences. Some of them were long enough that, for me at least, it was occasionally necessary to start them over again to make sure that I really knew what they were about. This had the habit of pulling me out of the narrative and made the book less enjoyable than it should have been.
The first thing I noticed about the book was that it was trying way too hard to mimic The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but missed important components, and also didn't implement the attempt very well in my opinion.
Most importantly, Space Opera had a kind of disdain (if not outright contempt) for well...all life, human or alien that I found very unpalatable, and for something that really seemed to me to be trying to be Hitchhiker, it did not belong.
But also it seemed like every other sentence had approximately 53 asides, and while I'm a fan of complex sentence structures, asides, and footnotes, there were several times when I forgot where the sentence was going in particular, and I'm not entirely convinced the author didn't also forget where it was going, but it was so long I didn't want to go back and try to get through it again.
Most importantly, Space Opera had a kind of disdain (if not outright contempt) for well...all life, human or alien that I found very unpalatable, and for something that really seemed to me to be trying to be Hitchhiker, it did not belong.
But also it seemed like every other sentence had approximately 53 asides, and while I'm a fan of complex sentence structures, asides, and footnotes, there were several times when I forgot where the sentence was going in particular, and I'm not entirely convinced the author didn't also forget where it was going, but it was so long I didn't want to go back and try to get through it again.
It's like Douglas Adams and Becky Chambers had a cocktail party for Eurovision and over-catered on the edibles... Glam trash brilliance in parts. A little overdone in others. But, I have to say, I loved it...
funny