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blue_jules 's review for:
The Spare Man
by Mary Robinette Kowal
After loving the Lady Astronaut books, of course I had to read The Spare Man by Mary Robinette Kowal as well.
There's much to like about it: a SF mystery plot on a cruise space ship bound for Mars, where both recycling and different spin gravity levels play a role. A gender-neutral society where everyone's introduced with their pronouns and all physical characteristics (white, bald, fat, athletic, blue-haired...) are equally neutrally described. Recurring pub quiz trivia questions.
A disabled protagonist, whose disabilities are depicted realistically and are in part relevant to the plot. A lawyer whose colorful language sprouted #TeamFantine on Twitter. There's much to like, I wanted to like it, and I liked much about it.
But in the end, I have to say it wasn't for me.
Maybe it's just that I'm not a dog person and couldn't believe almost everyone in this book is. Maybe it's because the constant drinking weirded me out and made me uncomfortable.
But the main reason I couldn't get into it was that I just couldn't care enough about those rich people and their problems. The protagonist is a likable character who's gone through a lot, but I found myself much more interested in the lower tiers of that society: who works on a spaceship as a concierge and why? Who are the technicians, the bartenders, and the entertainers? We get tantalizing glimpses of them, but I really would have liked to see a "lower decks" view.
There's much to like about it: a SF mystery plot on a cruise space ship bound for Mars, where both recycling and different spin gravity levels play a role. A gender-neutral society where everyone's introduced with their pronouns and all physical characteristics (white, bald, fat, athletic, blue-haired...) are equally neutrally described. Recurring pub quiz trivia questions.
A disabled protagonist, whose disabilities are depicted realistically and are in part relevant to the plot. A lawyer whose colorful language sprouted #TeamFantine on Twitter. There's much to like, I wanted to like it, and I liked much about it.
But in the end, I have to say it wasn't for me.
Maybe it's just that I'm not a dog person and couldn't believe almost everyone in this book is. Maybe it's because the constant drinking weirded me out and made me uncomfortable.
But the main reason I couldn't get into it was that I just couldn't care enough about those rich people and their problems. The protagonist is a likable character who's gone through a lot, but I found myself much more interested in the lower tiers of that society: who works on a spaceship as a concierge and why? Who are the technicians, the bartenders, and the entertainers? We get tantalizing glimpses of them, but I really would have liked to see a "lower decks" view.