Take a photo of a barcode or cover
sagejenn47 's review for:
All the Birds in the Sky
by Charlie Jane Anders
Fantasy and science fiction are usually shelved together because they represent alternate realities, even though both genres have very different histories and characteristics. In All the Birds in the Sky, Anders asks: what if these two genres met? What if they had conflicting ideas about staving off the end of the world? And what if, in the midst of this conflict, a friendship grows between a scientist and a witch?
The story itself was sometimes confusing (do you think Anders would really come to my house and explain it using sock puppets?), in part because of the weird science and magic involved and in part because events were sometimes told out of sequence--referred to, then filled in later. The tone went back and forth between angst-ridden scenes that reminded me of Lev Grossman and darkly humorous passages that made me laugh out loud. I sometimes had trouble liking many of the characters, but I would usually come around eventually.
What I loved most were the larger themes of science and magic. Magic, in a way, became the more certain, reliable path, although it seemed like an esoteric religion--one that required ritual, discipline, and a certain amount of separation from the rest of humanity in order not to become too dangerous or powerful (although, paradoxically, it required establishing relationships--trickster or healing--in order to work at all). Science in this novel required faith--it involved a lot of speculation and guesswork--and was also dangerous in its calculations. The larger questions of how to solve big problems, what is in humanity's best interest, what is in nature's best interest, and how to deal with worst-case scenarios, were fascinating and worth thinking about even in our own ordinary lives.
The story itself was sometimes confusing (do you think Anders would really come to my house and explain it using sock puppets?), in part because of the weird science and magic involved and in part because events were sometimes told out of sequence--referred to, then filled in later. The tone went back and forth between angst-ridden scenes that reminded me of Lev Grossman and darkly humorous passages that made me laugh out loud. I sometimes had trouble liking many of the characters, but I would usually come around eventually.
What I loved most were the larger themes of science and magic. Magic, in a way, became the more certain, reliable path, although it seemed like an esoteric religion--one that required ritual, discipline, and a certain amount of separation from the rest of humanity in order not to become too dangerous or powerful (although, paradoxically, it required establishing relationships--trickster or healing--in order to work at all). Science in this novel required faith--it involved a lot of speculation and guesswork--and was also dangerous in its calculations. The larger questions of how to solve big problems, what is in humanity's best interest, what is in nature's best interest, and how to deal with worst-case scenarios, were fascinating and worth thinking about even in our own ordinary lives.