Reviews

Air by Geoff Ryman

sandin954's review

5.0

A thought provoking science fiction tale that was nominated for a Nebula and won the Arthur C. Clarke Award for best novel. One of the better depictions of how technology can so utterly change and sometimes destroy old ways of life. I found the main character, Chung Mae, fascinating. A true heroine who is definitely not perfect. The descriptions of life in a small Third World village were also quite believable. The story meandered a bit in the middle and there were a couple of plot points that seemed extraneous but the technology never became overwhelming and overall I thought it was a very good read.

kortirion's review

4.0

I really liked this book about the effects of technology on impoverished communities. BUT the whole pregnancy storyline was just too off-puttingly weird.

emjay24's review against another edition

1.0

Air was not what I expected. In a small town where television is the big technology, someone runs a test on Air, the newest thing that is bigger than the internet, that makes the world even more interactive, and is hooked up directly to your brain through the actual air. During the test run, some things go wrong. Some people die, and the main character ended up in the brain of her elderly friend as she died, and now her friend’s memories, etc. are in her. What a plot, but the way it’s executed is pretty dull. I wanted to like it, but the style of writing and story wasn’t for me, and I gave up.

vitalioreads's review against another edition

4.0

my rating: 70/100

started it with low expectations turned out surprised

mrswythe89's review against another edition

5.0

oh my god oh my god oh my god. I want to say AMAZING in capital letters, but that might look like ordinary fannish squee, and it is not because this is such an important book, such a good, serious, interesting book. I want to make everyone I know read it. omg.

The ending was seriously bizarre**, but apart from that, wow. Wow. I am basically going to go out and buy everything Geoff Ryman has ever written now.


**I should say that I'm basically pretending that the stomach-baby didn't happen. I am helped by the fact that I read this at about 2 am and for a moment thought that I must have just made the stomach-baby up out of crazy sleep deprivation. (Can you actually have a baby the size of your hand? What???) It's like Geoff Ryman just kinda went crazy with the pregnancy subplot and maybe some people who actually knew shit were like "wait, you can't have a baby from your stomach, there's all acid in there and shit, the uterus is there for a reason and the reason is that foetuses are kinda sensitive and need all that amniotic fluid and stuff" but Geoff Ryman was like "no, wait, okay, but it's SYMBOLIC" and the people were like "oh okay then."

Apart from that it was amazing. Perhaps you can think of it as the one flaw Muslim artisans were said deliberately to introduce into their work, because only God is perfect.

brdgtc's review

3.0

It took me a very long time to get into Air and while I enjoyed it (especially Mae's character) some things really annoyed me, especially the use of email text to further plot points (lazy!) and the pregnancy (a pet peeve of mine in general because it is also lazy storytelling, but I really didn't get the point of this plot element in particular).

jelundberg's review

5.0

A revolutionary communications technology causes upheaval in the third-world fictional country of Karzistan, and Chung Mae is the only person who can prepare the people of her town for the full implementation of Air in a year's time. Ryman tackles issues such as globalization, the treatment of the third world by the first world, and rapidly advancing technological and social change. All that, and an absolutely compelling character study of a fashion expert in a fictional country at the conjunction of China and Kazakhstan (which shares cultural and religious ties with both Asia and the Middle East).

varmint3's review

3.0

Interesting story, but I didn't quite get the baby (distracting from the main theme I think...). A much bigger distraction, though, was the type - I couldn't tell if the errors were intentional and related to the Format or if the typesetting was just piss-poor - either way, it made a challenging story even more difficult to read!

buffyb's review against another edition

This book just didn't hold my interest. So I had to let it go. It has an interesting premise, but I felt that it was more of a soap opera than the sci fi I was expecting.

highfiveasquid's review against another edition

4.0

Enjoyed it immensely but definitely scratched my head a bit at some of the magical realism that was heavy in the tail end of this one.

A really interesting premise and structure. The main character's journey was so raw and effecting.

Wish I could understand that ending...