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cryptidgenderman's review against another edition
1.0
in total, this took me six days to read. it must’ve been the longest six days of my entire life. I never write reviews on Goodreads, but this is just too long for my book journal. The only reason I managed to get all the way through was just for me to know that I read it all the way and I still hated it. I never rate books 1 star because I am afraid to say that I’ve wasted my money or my time, but this book deserves it. this has such an interesting plot and it could’ve gone so far with it, but it just didn’t which is probably the most disappointing thing.
It should not take a book 300+ pages for it to finally catch my interest. And of course by interesting, I don’t mean captivating I mean, somewhat rememberable of which there were five scenes in total. when it wasn’t being rememberable, It was being problematic and if it wasn’t being problematic, It was being confusing.
I have read the 557 pages of this book, and I still have no idea how this world works or What it’s like. All I know is that the multiple mentions of the failed experiment being referred to as autistic didn’t sit right with me. another thing that answer right with me was the way that she writes women. Apparently she supposed to be this feminist writer, but personally I found the world as she’s created is so sexist.
The characters were annoying as hell, and not to mention that one of them was a whole ass paedophile. The writing was not good and if it weren’t for my reading goal, I would not have read this in 1 million years/would’ve DNF’d it after page 1. You would not catch me, remembering what the hell even happened in the book. And I personally love POV chapters but Malhaz did not deserve her own chapters. They were useless and Joseph story didn’t make any sense.
this is obviously not to defer anyone from reading it but personally I’m throwing this off my bookshelf as soon as I can .
It should not take a book 300+ pages for it to finally catch my interest. And of course by interesting, I don’t mean captivating I mean, somewhat rememberable of which there were five scenes in total. when it wasn’t being rememberable, It was being problematic and if it wasn’t being problematic, It was being confusing.
I have read the 557 pages of this book, and I still have no idea how this world works or What it’s like. All I know is that the multiple mentions of the failed experiment being referred to as autistic didn’t sit right with me. another thing that answer right with me was the way that she writes women. Apparently she supposed to be this feminist writer, but personally I found the world as she’s created is so sexist.
The characters were annoying as hell, and not to mention that one of them was a whole ass paedophile. The writing was not good and if it weren’t for my reading goal, I would not have read this in 1 million years/would’ve DNF’d it after page 1. You would not catch me, remembering what the hell even happened in the book. And I personally love POV chapters but Malhaz did not deserve her own chapters. They were useless and Joseph story didn’t make any sense.
this is obviously not to defer anyone from reading it but personally I’m throwing this off my bookshelf as soon as I can .
rebeccacider's review
2.0
Read this on a lark because I am halfway through writing my own human/robot love story and wanted to see how this classic work tackled it. Normally reading fiction similar to what you're writing is a terrible idea, but my story is well enough established that I decided to indulge my curiosity.
I enjoyed the B-plot of this novel, in which one of the characters retells the story of the Golem of Prague. The main narrative lost my interest about halfway through.
Before I picked up the title, I came across controversy about whether literary writers like Piercy, Atwood, etc. write "real" SF/F. I wrestled with this question for a while before setting it aside as irrelevant. There's plenty of successful genre fiction written for a general or literary audience. Piercy's cyberpumk-inspired world isn't very original, but I don't think original worldbuilding makes or breaks a story. She infodumps on every other page, but some genre writers do that all the time (especially in cyberpunk!)
So the reason I didn't care for this book isn't because it's bad science fiction (it might be, but whatever). It's because the characters stopped surprising me and the central ideas of the book didn't take me anywhere I hadn't been before.
I enjoyed the B-plot of this novel, in which one of the characters retells the story of the Golem of Prague. The main narrative lost my interest about halfway through.
Before I picked up the title, I came across controversy about whether literary writers like Piercy, Atwood, etc. write "real" SF/F. I wrestled with this question for a while before setting it aside as irrelevant. There's plenty of successful genre fiction written for a general or literary audience. Piercy's cyberpumk-inspired world isn't very original, but I don't think original worldbuilding makes or breaks a story. She infodumps on every other page, but some genre writers do that all the time (especially in cyberpunk!)
So the reason I didn't care for this book isn't because it's bad science fiction (it might be, but whatever). It's because the characters stopped surprising me and the central ideas of the book didn't take me anywhere I hadn't been before.
bluepuppy's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
informative
reflective
sad
tense
fast-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? Yes
4.75
Fantastic novel set in post-apocalyptic America following a romance between a human woman and a cyborg created to protect her community from corporate raider, while interweaving a secondary narrative of the creation of a golem in 17th century Prague. Also examines themes such as gender roles, political systems and the destruction of the environment.
darbyart's review
5.0
EXCELLENT book! If you like anything set in the future - this book was very interesting. It is set in a futuristic earth and I love the details of the Earth she describes. I love the free towns and the corp towns leave little to be desired. If you like history also you will like this book as it does go through Jewish history of 1600 Prague. The story of Judah Loew ben Bezalel the Maharal of Prague who created a golem.
jennykeery's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
pumpkinpie4me's review
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Adult/minor relationship, Antisemitism, Death of parent, Infertility, Murder, Death, and Pedophilia