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A review by archaeomancer
Ancestral Night by Elizabeth Bear
adventurous
challenging
emotional
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
This book is absolutely incredible, except in the middle where it starts to drag quite a bit, but the ending hits home, and the cleverness and research that has gone into the rest of the book was enough for me to rate it highly!
The author has seemingly researched an endless array of topics; anthropology, psychology, quantum mechanics, linguistics, computer science, sociology, governmental science, it was absolutely incredible. The depth of psychological awareness and group behavior in particular was astounding! Even just in little throwaway sentences there would be just such exquisite scientific facts rolled into their every day lexicon, but not in a way that hit you over the head. It felt like natural speech patterns and educational parameters had evolved in such a way that such things were just commonplace now. I highly enjoyed that. And I really enjoyed the discussions about sense of self and agency, and how it all came together in the end.
However, the middle portion dragged so much I almost stopped reading. While I'm glad I didn't, and this is slight spoilers but very vague, the main character and another person are in a situation together, and while the main character is trying to take the lead in psychological manipulation, it is patently obvious they will not do well at that and in fact be manipulated themselves. This is fair for this character; she has a history of being extremely receptive to such things and has very few protective boundaries in place to prevent this, despite her best efforts. While I don't think it was out of character, that doesn't mean it wasn't frustrating watching her and this person talk themselves in circles for in-story weeks. It worked for the story and the characters, I just wish it had been a little shorter.
The author has seemingly researched an endless array of topics; anthropology, psychology, quantum mechanics, linguistics, computer science, sociology, governmental science, it was absolutely incredible. The depth of psychological awareness and group behavior in particular was astounding! Even just in little throwaway sentences there would be just such exquisite scientific facts rolled into their every day lexicon, but not in a way that hit you over the head. It felt like natural speech patterns and educational parameters had evolved in such a way that such things were just commonplace now. I highly enjoyed that. And I really enjoyed the discussions about sense of self and agency, and how it all came together in the end.
However, the middle portion dragged so much I almost stopped reading. While I'm glad I didn't, and this is slight spoilers but very vague, the main character and another person are in a situation together, and while the main character is trying to take the lead in psychological manipulation, it is patently obvious they will not do well at that and in fact be manipulated themselves. This is fair for this character; she has a history of being extremely receptive to such things and has very few protective boundaries in place to prevent this, despite her best efforts. While I don't think it was out of character, that doesn't mean it wasn't frustrating watching her and this person talk themselves in circles for in-story weeks. It worked for the story and the characters, I just wish it had been a little shorter.