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A review by siavahda
Divinity 36 by Gail Carriger
3.0
I pounced when I learned Carriger was going back to the same sci fi setting as Fifth Gender, which was a) one of the first books I ever reviewed for my blog and b) a TON of fun!
The Tinkered Starsong series (at least in this book) has no crossover whatsoever with Fifth Gender, but that’s fine, because we get new very lovable characters and fascinating worldbuilding (which is strange, but actually easier to understand, I think, than what we got in Fifth Gender). The music industry is now synonymous with religion – popstars are called gods, and their fans are worshippers. It’s an oddly easy premise to wrap your head around – let’s be fair, it’s not the biggest jump to imagine the music industry as a religion, is it? – but we don’t have to wrestle with it too much in this book, since Divinity 36 is the story of Phex, the main character, trying out to become a god. It’s nothing like X Factor or any of those shows – the industry/faith is controlled by an alien race called the Dyesi, who have an almost mathematical formula for creating new bands, aka ‘pantheons’; while they do consider how the public at large responds to new pantheons late in the training stage, who makes it into which pantheon and which pantheons ‘ascend’ to become demigods is absolutely not down to public voting.
One of the more interesting aspects of the music in this universe/set-up is that it’s visible; godsong is performed on or under special constructions called Domes, and different sounds create different colours and patterns on the domes – and on the Dyesi members of the pantheon, since the Dyesi’s skin also responds to sound with colours and patterns (presumably the inspiration for their coming up with the Dome technology in the first place). The pantheons that make it are the ones whose music creates beautiful (mostly according to Dyesi aesthetics) colours and patterns. So it’s not enough to be a good singer, even an amazing singer; you have to be able to manipulate the Dome tech pleasingly, in coordination with the other singing members of your pantheon (some pantheon members do not sing, and instead are a bit like what we’d think of as back-up dancers, except there’s nothing ‘back-up’ about them).
Is this groundbreaking, wildly addictive sci fi? No. It’s very soft – a huge amount of focus is on the other people, of various species, trying out for godhood alongside Phex, and the slow forming of potential pantheons as relationships and compatible skillsets come together. There’s something about the whole thing that feels very passive – maybe because Phex really isn’t in control of any part of the process he’s undergoing? – but that didn’t strike as a bad thing; instead, it all feels very gentle and easy, pretty perfect for when your brain is just not up to handling anything that requires a lot of work. Divinity 36 is a book you can just drift along with, and that’s pretty blissful in the right circumstances.
There’s what’s clearly the beginnings/groundwork being laid for a romance in later books that had me rolling my eyes – while I REALLY enjoyed the secondary characters around Phex, the ones who are part of his tentatively-forming pantheon, I couldn’t STAND the love interest. Thankfully, we don’t have to deal with him much, and maybe he’ll improve in the next books.
Phex himself is…an interesting character, but not in the usual sense: he’s interesting because he’s not interesting. Especially at first, Phex almost seems to have little to no personality, or drive, or passions; he very much just rolls with whatever’s going on, accepting what the universe throws at him without comment. And to be fair, this makes perfect sense to me, because his past involves the kind of childhood trauma (never gone into graphically) that could definitely result in an adult who’s just content to go along with anything that isn’t actively awful. I can see some readers finding this annoying, but over the course of the book Phex does reveal – or maybe develops? – more of a personality (I suggest ‘develop’ because it really does seem possible that he only starts to figure out who he is as a person once he’s surrounded by people he cares about, which is a situation he’s never been in before). I really liked watching Phex discover his desire to take care of others, and how that in turn develops into outright protectiveness. The person he is at the end of the book is…someone I was weirdly proud I got to see come into being.
If that makes any sense at all.
Highly recommended for anyone looking for a sci fi interesting enough to keep you invested, but that you don’t have to work at.
The Tinkered Starsong series (at least in this book) has no crossover whatsoever with Fifth Gender, but that’s fine, because we get new very lovable characters and fascinating worldbuilding (which is strange, but actually easier to understand, I think, than what we got in Fifth Gender). The music industry is now synonymous with religion – popstars are called gods, and their fans are worshippers. It’s an oddly easy premise to wrap your head around – let’s be fair, it’s not the biggest jump to imagine the music industry as a religion, is it? – but we don’t have to wrestle with it too much in this book, since Divinity 36 is the story of Phex, the main character, trying out to become a god. It’s nothing like X Factor or any of those shows – the industry/faith is controlled by an alien race called the Dyesi, who have an almost mathematical formula for creating new bands, aka ‘pantheons’; while they do consider how the public at large responds to new pantheons late in the training stage, who makes it into which pantheon and which pantheons ‘ascend’ to become demigods is absolutely not down to public voting.
One of the more interesting aspects of the music in this universe/set-up is that it’s visible; godsong is performed on or under special constructions called Domes, and different sounds create different colours and patterns on the domes – and on the Dyesi members of the pantheon, since the Dyesi’s skin also responds to sound with colours and patterns (presumably the inspiration for their coming up with the Dome technology in the first place). The pantheons that make it are the ones whose music creates beautiful (mostly according to Dyesi aesthetics) colours and patterns. So it’s not enough to be a good singer, even an amazing singer; you have to be able to manipulate the Dome tech pleasingly, in coordination with the other singing members of your pantheon (some pantheon members do not sing, and instead are a bit like what we’d think of as back-up dancers, except there’s nothing ‘back-up’ about them).
Is this groundbreaking, wildly addictive sci fi? No. It’s very soft – a huge amount of focus is on the other people, of various species, trying out for godhood alongside Phex, and the slow forming of potential pantheons as relationships and compatible skillsets come together. There’s something about the whole thing that feels very passive – maybe because Phex really isn’t in control of any part of the process he’s undergoing? – but that didn’t strike as a bad thing; instead, it all feels very gentle and easy, pretty perfect for when your brain is just not up to handling anything that requires a lot of work. Divinity 36 is a book you can just drift along with, and that’s pretty blissful in the right circumstances.
There’s what’s clearly the beginnings/groundwork being laid for a romance in later books that had me rolling my eyes – while I REALLY enjoyed the secondary characters around Phex, the ones who are part of his tentatively-forming pantheon, I couldn’t STAND the love interest. Thankfully, we don’t have to deal with him much, and maybe he’ll improve in the next books.
Phex himself is…an interesting character, but not in the usual sense: he’s interesting because he’s not interesting. Especially at first, Phex almost seems to have little to no personality, or drive, or passions; he very much just rolls with whatever’s going on, accepting what the universe throws at him without comment. And to be fair, this makes perfect sense to me, because his past involves the kind of childhood trauma (never gone into graphically) that could definitely result in an adult who’s just content to go along with anything that isn’t actively awful. I can see some readers finding this annoying, but over the course of the book Phex does reveal – or maybe develops? – more of a personality (I suggest ‘develop’ because it really does seem possible that he only starts to figure out who he is as a person once he’s surrounded by people he cares about, which is a situation he’s never been in before). I really liked watching Phex discover his desire to take care of others, and how that in turn develops into outright protectiveness. The person he is at the end of the book is…someone I was weirdly proud I got to see come into being.
If that makes any sense at all.
Highly recommended for anyone looking for a sci fi interesting enough to keep you invested, but that you don’t have to work at.