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carollynnrivera 's review for:
The Book of Strange New Things
by Michel Faber
A book in which nothing happens at all. I'm a bit confused by reviews where people mention loving the plot. I would like to ask them to describe it. Here's my summation: Pastor goes to foreign planet. Preaches to aliens. Reads messages from wife on earth and disasters happening there. End. If you read the book jacket, you can skip the book. There is no actual point to all this, no real character development, no reason to care, no conflict, no "sides" to pick, no issues to get behind, no questions, no consequences, no threat other than vague references to wars and floods on earth which have less to do with plot development and more to do with whining filler.
Missed opportunities:
Explore the new faith of aliens vs loss of faith of man in an existential way.
Explore the dark side of colonizing another planet, human ambitions vs native population.
Explore strengths and weaknesses of relationships, separation issues, human companionship through the characters on opposite ends of the universe.
Explore end-of-world themes, facing mortality.
Explore sinister motivations of big corporation.
Explore hidden motives, secrets, ethics, gray areas between morality and survival.
Instead the author gave us a missing persons report on two characters we don't know and have no reason to care about, neither of which is entirely explained or resolved or related to anything. We get vague secrecy and odd behavior that does not contain any actual secrets or reasons for the oddity. We get a cliché "noble alien" trope in which the native population reflects their purity in an agrarian nature and unquestioning love for Jesus. We get a marriage that doesn't dissolve so much as serve as a foil for the rest of the tedium of being blissfully happy on a pure planet with noble aliens.
Green rain and melon flavored water and some sort of anthropomorphic "atmosphere" that keeps trying to touch the pastor's balls (yeah, that happens) does not make for a good story. Nor should it even be called sci-fi. Being set on another planet doesn't automatically make something sci-fi.
I would get it if people loved this for the religious overtones but even that was underwhelming, pointless and arbitrary. This was 500 pages of the author telling us "this is this and that is that." Shame on whoever wrote the book jacket for making this sound even remotely compelling. The moral of the story is: nothing in this book matters. Nobody's actions, nobody's thoughts, not even God. It was all background noise that someone called "creative" because aliens. And Jesus.
I've read a lot of crappy books but I only get cranky when one like this promises something big and doesn't even try to deliver.
Missed opportunities:
Explore the new faith of aliens vs loss of faith of man in an existential way.
Explore the dark side of colonizing another planet, human ambitions vs native population.
Explore strengths and weaknesses of relationships, separation issues, human companionship through the characters on opposite ends of the universe.
Explore end-of-world themes, facing mortality.
Explore sinister motivations of big corporation.
Explore hidden motives, secrets, ethics, gray areas between morality and survival.
Instead the author gave us a missing persons report on two characters we don't know and have no reason to care about, neither of which is entirely explained or resolved or related to anything. We get vague secrecy and odd behavior that does not contain any actual secrets or reasons for the oddity. We get a cliché "noble alien" trope in which the native population reflects their purity in an agrarian nature and unquestioning love for Jesus. We get a marriage that doesn't dissolve so much as serve as a foil for the rest of the tedium of being blissfully happy on a pure planet with noble aliens.
Green rain and melon flavored water and some sort of anthropomorphic "atmosphere" that keeps trying to touch the pastor's balls (yeah, that happens) does not make for a good story. Nor should it even be called sci-fi. Being set on another planet doesn't automatically make something sci-fi.
I would get it if people loved this for the religious overtones but even that was underwhelming, pointless and arbitrary. This was 500 pages of the author telling us "this is this and that is that." Shame on whoever wrote the book jacket for making this sound even remotely compelling. The moral of the story is: nothing in this book matters. Nobody's actions, nobody's thoughts, not even God. It was all background noise that someone called "creative" because aliens. And Jesus.
I've read a lot of crappy books but I only get cranky when one like this promises something big and doesn't even try to deliver.