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A review by carduelia_carduelis
Central Station by Lavie Tidhar
Did not finish book.
I tried with Central Station, I really did. I was pretty excited about starting it too. The blurb is fantastic, its author is from Israel but has lived in South East Asia, Oceania, and Africa, and its published locally by an independent press, PLUS it came with a tonne of awards. All in all, a very strong starter!
The problem is that it's pretentious drivel, just one token sci-fi idea after another. There is integrated AI, symbionts, androids, robots, space travel, time and memory manipulation, test-tube and vat grown babies, ghosts in the shell, lost loves, data vampires, pidgin English, songs and poems, a drug scandal, a forbidden love, war crimes, on and on and on.
Having a bunch of ideas is nothing new in the genre but these ideas are usually integrated into a sci-fi story in two ways: either to ascertain the consequences of that new science or technology on life as we know it, or to just explore its implementation for fun. Neither of these things happen with any of the Concepts-with-a-capital-C in central station.
Instead, Tidhar takes a lot of pleasure in setting up picturesque little moments with some of these choice characters, that never really go anywhere. I've seen reviews around saying that this is literary science fiction and it is if you're looking for pretentious vignette fiction to compare to.
The dialogue is also appalling:
Real people, as opposed t characters in some literary kindergarten, do not talk like that.
I read 150 pages of this book and I'm no closer to caring, understanding, or seeing an end to this story. A disappointing DNF.
The problem is that it's pretentious drivel, just one token sci-fi idea after another. There is integrated AI, symbionts, androids, robots, space travel, time and memory manipulation, test-tube and vat grown babies, ghosts in the shell, lost loves, data vampires, pidgin English, songs and poems, a drug scandal, a forbidden love, war crimes, on and on and on.
Having a bunch of ideas is nothing new in the genre but these ideas are usually integrated into a sci-fi story in two ways: either to ascertain the consequences of that new science or technology on life as we know it, or to just explore its implementation for fun. Neither of these things happen with any of the Concepts-with-a-capital-C in central station.
Instead, Tidhar takes a lot of pleasure in setting up picturesque little moments with some of these choice characters, that never really go anywhere. I've seen reviews around saying that this is literary science fiction and it is if you're looking for pretentious vignette fiction to compare to.
The dialogue is also appalling:
"She knew him on Mars. In Tong Yun City."
"I... see"
"You see nothing, You are blind like a worm."
...
"I do not want ... I do not want her to hurt you."
"I am a grown up, I can take care of myself"
"Like you ever could!"
Real people, as opposed t characters in some literary kindergarten, do not talk like that.
I read 150 pages of this book and I'm no closer to caring, understanding, or seeing an end to this story. A disappointing DNF.