Scan barcode
A review by nodalec
MARTians by Blythe Woolston
1.0
Ugh. Okay, so the pros first. It's a short book and and prose is quirky. In fact, the writing was good enough that I was willing to finish the book despite the fact that I really disliked EVERYTHING about it.
The cons: everything else. There is absolutely no character development, there is no plot, the climax is strange, and most events seem to happen randomly, many with no relation to the character at all. I think a lot of this is based on the idea that Woolston tried incredibly hard to make a main character who was truly not special, and in a sense, succeeded. But it makes for an uninteresting plot.
My biggest problem though (well, one of two) was the world building. I think there's a premise of overcrowding in the world (there's a huge emphasis on "sexual responsibility"), but the world doesn't feel overcrowded. The basis seems to be that people are slaves to consumerism and the book comes of as SUPER anti-libertarian, which...i mean, is fine I guess, but then no one acts the right way.
EVERYONE seems to be poor except for an elite few, so I don't know who the target audience is for their low-quality marketing. The ads that are interspersed in the book are painfully shoddy (very 1950s, not indicative of what ad culture is like today, much less in a society that's supposed to be COMPLETELY based around it).It doesn't make sense that Zoe floats from place to place in Allmart(stocking one day, pets one day, guns another), which doesn't make sense either because a truly good salesperson needs expert knowledge in their area of what and where things are.
There's a weird amount of misogyny in the newscasts (ridiculously high amounts of harassment) that no one seems to care/notice despite the fact that there is nothing else in the society to indicate that harassment/misogyny is considered culturally appropriate (most people that are mentioned in power are females too). These are just a few examples, but almost everything that happens in Allmart doesn't make sense if you've read anything at all about marketing (or managing people, for that matter).
It might make A LITTLE sense if Allmart had no competition and was a monopoly for everything that you bought, but it has a direct competitor next door, which completely changes how a business would run.
The second GIGANTIC problem with this book is the complete lack of a reason to read it. There is no character development and no plot. There's some stuff about tuna, the newscasts...none of them actually add to plot or to character development. And Zoe herself...would be a really interesting character if she was supposed to be a robot who was programmed to act human. Then this book, written the exact same way, might have been worth one more store. But she wasn't.
.
The entire book seems to be a vehicle for the author to show how much they think libertarianism wouldn't work and how awful consumerism is but then forgot to add a plot or characters worth caring about.
tl;dr: it's the kind of book I'd recommend to someone to show how not to do a plot or character development. Otherwise, there is a ton of dystopian lit that is far superior.
The cons: everything else. There is absolutely no character development, there is no plot, the climax is strange, and most events seem to happen randomly, many with no relation to the character at all. I think a lot of this is based on the idea that Woolston tried incredibly hard to make a main character who was truly not special, and in a sense, succeeded. But it makes for an uninteresting plot.
My biggest problem though (well, one of two) was the world building. I think there's a premise of overcrowding in the world (there's a huge emphasis on "sexual responsibility"), but the world doesn't feel overcrowded. The basis seems to be that people are slaves to consumerism and the book comes of as SUPER anti-libertarian, which...i mean, is fine I guess, but then no one acts the right way.
EVERYONE seems to be poor except for an elite few, so I don't know who the target audience is for their low-quality marketing. The ads that are interspersed in the book are painfully shoddy (very 1950s, not indicative of what ad culture is like today, much less in a society that's supposed to be COMPLETELY based around it).It doesn't make sense that Zoe floats from place to place in Allmart(stocking one day, pets one day, guns another), which doesn't make sense either because a truly good salesperson needs expert knowledge in their area of what and where things are.
There's a weird amount of misogyny in the newscasts (ridiculously high amounts of harassment) that no one seems to care/notice despite the fact that there is nothing else in the society to indicate that harassment/misogyny is considered culturally appropriate (most people that are mentioned in power are females too). These are just a few examples, but almost everything that happens in Allmart doesn't make sense if you've read anything at all about marketing (or managing people, for that matter).
It might make A LITTLE sense if Allmart had no competition and was a monopoly for everything that you bought, but it has a direct competitor next door, which completely changes how a business would run.
The second GIGANTIC problem with this book is the complete lack of a reason to read it. There is no character development and no plot. There's some stuff about tuna, the newscasts...none of them actually add to plot or to character development. And Zoe herself...would be a really interesting character if she was supposed to be a robot who was programmed to act human. Then this book, written the exact same way, might have been worth one more store. But she wasn't.
Spoiler
Zoe has been taking a drug that makes her more complacent, more obedient, less sexual, and she stops about halfway through the book. But...there's no change. Except that she cries more. But her thoughts don't change, her actions don't change...it was a completely meaningless act that did not matter, except to show how awful this world was to the author.The entire book seems to be a vehicle for the author to show how much they think libertarianism wouldn't work and how awful consumerism is but then forgot to add a plot or characters worth caring about.
tl;dr: it's the kind of book I'd recommend to someone to show how not to do a plot or character development. Otherwise, there is a ton of dystopian lit that is far superior.