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mardzipan 's review for:
The Doors of Eden
by Adrian Tchaikovsky
2.75 stars.
The Doors of Eden was a pretty deceptive book going into it. I was won over by the interludes by Professor Ruth Emerson and was really expecting some hard science on evolutionary biology. Sadly, a lot of the book wasn't like that.
There's perhaps three overarching stories that you're going to get from this novel. The first is the story of Mal and Lee, their cryptid hobby and how that unwittingly leads to the inciting incident at the beginning of the novel with Mal's disappearance; the second, and my least favourite, is the M15 espionage storyline that follows a James Bond-wannabe, Julian Sabreur, and a whole cast of other "agents" (this really ends up being the bulk load of the novel and I really wasn't a fan of it); and the third is the epic scope this novel ends up taking towards the end where the heavier sci-fi elements begin to weld the storylines and strange species together.
The first thing I'd like to admit is that The Doors of Eden does have a fascinating concept (arguably, a few) embedded in it. Specifically, in the interlude titled The Humans, the ending literally made my hair stand on end and gave me intense goosebumps. I haven't really had a reaction from reading a book like this this year.
Next, Tchaikovsky's writing clearly comes from someone who knows his stuff. He is deep in the subculture of sci-fi. Albeit his references to Narnia were very quickly overdone, I personally enjoyed the small nods to Flatland, Doctor Who, Star Trek etc.
Yet, in spite of these plus points, there were just too many other weak aspects of The Doors of Eden that I just couldn't look past. The characters, for instance, really didn't have much room to develop enough agency. The LGBT reps did feel like checklists in a cast of characters that aspired to be diverse. The "villain" of the entire story, for me, felt too much like a caricature or representation of nationalistic ideals. And especially in the middle, characters felt like pawns being moved from place to place rather than characters with clear motives and pursuits. I believe there was even a part in the middle where one of the characters just stated outright, "What is going on?" And it resonated with me deeply.
This isn't to say that the sci-fi elements were difficult to understand. If anything, I felt it was the exact opposite. The multiverse aspects were eventually explained (personally, a little too late) but, for the most part, quantum physics and anthropology should have been integrated more to scaffold the wooliness of the entire plot in the middle. It just got really bizarre in a not good way. Some of the explorations of other civilisations, personally, were a little too bland and somehow not alien enough.
Part of it, I think, is that this book suffered from being situated too much in the United Kingdom which seemed a bit incongruent to the message it ultimately aimed to achieve at the end of the novel.
Because of the messy middle, I was dangerously close to getting in a reading slump and had to speed-read the rest of the book. Again, not a good sign.
I'm willing to read more from Tchaikovsky (partially 'cause I have to for my buddy reads this month). But this was just not the book for me. Interesting general concept, but I really really didn't like the execution. So it's a really really low three stars from me.
The Doors of Eden was a pretty deceptive book going into it. I was won over by the interludes by Professor Ruth Emerson and was really expecting some hard science on evolutionary biology. Sadly, a lot of the book wasn't like that.
There's perhaps three overarching stories that you're going to get from this novel. The first is the story of Mal and Lee, their cryptid hobby and how that unwittingly leads to the inciting incident at the beginning of the novel with Mal's disappearance; the second, and my least favourite, is the M15 espionage storyline that follows a James Bond-wannabe, Julian Sabreur, and a whole cast of other "agents" (this really ends up being the bulk load of the novel and I really wasn't a fan of it); and the third is the epic scope this novel ends up taking towards the end where the heavier sci-fi elements begin to weld the storylines and strange species together.
The first thing I'd like to admit is that The Doors of Eden does have a fascinating concept (arguably, a few) embedded in it. Specifically, in the interlude titled The Humans, the ending literally made my hair stand on end and gave me intense goosebumps. I haven't really had a reaction from reading a book like this this year.
Next, Tchaikovsky's writing clearly comes from someone who knows his stuff. He is deep in the subculture of sci-fi. Albeit his references to Narnia were very quickly overdone, I personally enjoyed the small nods to Flatland, Doctor Who, Star Trek etc.
Yet, in spite of these plus points, there were just too many other weak aspects of The Doors of Eden that I just couldn't look past. The characters, for instance, really didn't have much room to develop enough agency. The LGBT reps did feel like checklists in a cast of characters that aspired to be diverse. The "villain" of the entire story, for me, felt too much like a caricature or representation of nationalistic ideals. And especially in the middle, characters felt like pawns being moved from place to place rather than characters with clear motives and pursuits. I believe there was even a part in the middle where one of the characters just stated outright, "What is going on?" And it resonated with me deeply.
This isn't to say that the sci-fi elements were difficult to understand. If anything, I felt it was the exact opposite. The multiverse aspects were eventually explained (personally, a little too late) but, for the most part, quantum physics and anthropology should have been integrated more to scaffold the wooliness of the entire plot in the middle. It just got really bizarre in a not good way. Some of the explorations of other civilisations, personally, were a little too bland and somehow not alien enough.
Part of it, I think, is that this book suffered from being situated too much in the United Kingdom which seemed a bit incongruent to the message it ultimately aimed to achieve at the end of the novel.
Because of the messy middle, I was dangerously close to getting in a reading slump and had to speed-read the rest of the book. Again, not a good sign.
I'm willing to read more from Tchaikovsky (partially 'cause I have to for my buddy reads this month). But this was just not the book for me. Interesting general concept, but I really really didn't like the execution. So it's a really really low three stars from me.