Scan barcode
A review by oedipa_maas
Void Star by Zachary Mason
5.0
A friend gave this to me, which doesn't happen as often as you might think. I didn't know anything about the book, or the author, but I trust my friend and so I began it early this year. The prose often read like poetry, dense and infused with symbolism and meaning and all that stuff that you rarely see in a genre like sci-fi. Because of that, I could not speed-read this book as I can for so many others, especially thrillers, fantasies, and (unfortunately) a lot of literary fiction.
And that's refreshing, if not a little annoying in regards to a book count goal or something stupid like that. (I've given up on numerical goals per year; who really cares in a world where things like Infinite Jest exist?)
Anyway, the book. It good. I think you would enjoy it if you like competently-written and plotted adventure stories that don't fall into the same predictable narrative. There was one plot point that I guessed would happen well before it did, but in a book so dense AND expansive, that's pretty impressive, and I give that bit a pass. The shape of the world and society in the future (I figure about 150-200 years out) is so expertly described and fleshed out, and I love books that take the reader to all kinds of interesting and diverse places throughout the real world.
A brief list of the things I loved that I'd like to remember fondly years down the line: the favela construction drones, the space elevator, the graffiti far below the city, "you mad bitch" (freakin lmao), Kern's fifth fight, the bootleg automobile laser, Thales figuring shit out, the magician scene, the themes of aging and memory, and Irina as a whole and at all times. I even liked Phillip, though I was suspicious of him the whole time.
All in all, it's a rewarding book full of things that make you think. I wish more sci-fi was this well written.
And that's refreshing, if not a little annoying in regards to a book count goal or something stupid like that. (I've given up on numerical goals per year; who really cares in a world where things like Infinite Jest exist?)
Anyway, the book. It good. I think you would enjoy it if you like competently-written and plotted adventure stories that don't fall into the same predictable narrative. There was one plot point that I guessed would happen well before it did, but in a book so dense AND expansive, that's pretty impressive, and I give that bit a pass. The shape of the world and society in the future (I figure about 150-200 years out) is so expertly described and fleshed out, and I love books that take the reader to all kinds of interesting and diverse places throughout the real world.
A brief list of the things I loved that I'd like to remember fondly years down the line: the favela construction drones, the space elevator, the graffiti far below the city, "you mad bitch" (freakin lmao), Kern's fifth fight, the bootleg automobile laser, Thales figuring shit out, the magician scene, the themes of aging and memory, and Irina as a whole and at all times. I even liked Phillip, though I was suspicious of him the whole time.
All in all, it's a rewarding book full of things that make you think. I wish more sci-fi was this well written.