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A review by jnikolova
Theatre of the Gods by M. Suddain
3.0
Also available on the WondrousBooks blog.
Theatre of the Gods is yet another book that I would not buy for myself and only got to reading because I borrowed it from someone. It reaffirmed my previous belief that I'm just not into space stuff (be it books or movies). So, in a way, this is one of those "It's not you, it's me" scenarios.
The book was well written, with interesting tidbits of ads, songs, Easter eggs etc. It also tried to be funny, without making very outward ha-ha jokes, and while it succeeded in some places, in others it was more like "Oh, okay, I see what you tried to do there". I've noticed that the satirical humor is a trend among the sci-fi books I tend to pick up. Another example is Stanislaw Lem's The Star Diaries, which I found much funnier and original.
What I dislike about sci-fi, though, is how focused it becomes on making space fun and misses out on character development. Theatre of the Gods was not the worst in this aspect, it had interesting backstories for the characters, and at least attempted to have nice relationships between them, although they rang a bit hollow to me. It does seem to be the trend though - 70% space and explaining of the futuristic concept of the book, 20% adventures, 10% trying to build characters one cares for.
And when it comes to the adventures, this was what I liked the most. After I got through the immensely boring first part where a lot of space nonsense is happening, the rest of the parts were more adventure-driven, with some character-focus, and those read more like a fairytale/fantasy book, so I read them much more quickly and with more interest.
If you're into sci-fi, I would wholeheartedly recommend this book to you, though. I think that for real fans it could be a great gem. Just not my personal thing.
Before I forget, homunuculus.
Theatre of the Gods is yet another book that I would not buy for myself and only got to reading because I borrowed it from someone. It reaffirmed my previous belief that I'm just not into space stuff (be it books or movies). So, in a way, this is one of those "It's not you, it's me" scenarios.
The book was well written, with interesting tidbits of ads, songs, Easter eggs etc. It also tried to be funny, without making very outward ha-ha jokes, and while it succeeded in some places, in others it was more like "Oh, okay, I see what you tried to do there". I've noticed that the satirical humor is a trend among the sci-fi books I tend to pick up. Another example is Stanislaw Lem's The Star Diaries, which I found much funnier and original.
What I dislike about sci-fi, though, is how focused it becomes on making space fun and misses out on character development. Theatre of the Gods was not the worst in this aspect, it had interesting backstories for the characters, and at least attempted to have nice relationships between them, although they rang a bit hollow to me. It does seem to be the trend though - 70% space and explaining of the futuristic concept of the book, 20% adventures, 10% trying to build characters one cares for.
And when it comes to the adventures, this was what I liked the most. After I got through the immensely boring first part where a lot of space nonsense is happening, the rest of the parts were more adventure-driven, with some character-focus, and those read more like a fairytale/fantasy book, so I read them much more quickly and with more interest.
If you're into sci-fi, I would wholeheartedly recommend this book to you, though. I think that for real fans it could be a great gem. Just not my personal thing.
Before I forget, homunuculus.