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A review by trish204
The Idiot Gods by David Zindell
2.0
From GR's blurp:
Quite simply the best book about a whale since Moby Dick.
FYI: That book wasn't about a whale which goes to show what the writer of the blurp knows ... and which, strangely, sets the tone for this entire novel. Slight rant ahead.
Ok, so I know by now (after googling Zindell) that the author is all about "spiritual understanding". The problem with that? It's horseshit. *clears throat* Sorry, but it is. Pseudo-intellectual stuff meant to make you understand the world. Here's the thing: it's not rocket science! Humans can do beautiful things and they can do terrible things. Ironically, so can orcas.
The largest dolphin on this planet is incredibly smart and can be heartwarmingly kind - but they also have sadistic hunting techniques where they unnecessarily toy with their prey for hours. Just like bottlenose dolphins sometimes help swimmers when sharks are around and almost always brutally rape their fellow males (younger, weaker ones) if they don't get females.
What I'm trying to say is that no species is just one thing.
Though animals, in general, are definitely not quite as bad as humans. Maybe how close they get to being as bad as humans (see the two aforementioned examples) depends on the same form of intellect (no, not the same "level" as many call it because I will never believe that there are "dumb animals").
This author, however, tried to paint the old picture of everything human = absolutely bad vs everything animals = absolutely rainbows-and-unicorns.
Don't get me wrong, the book's premise was fantastic: the world seen through the eyes of an orca, the orca trying to help humans become better despite what was done to him.
Arjuna, the orca, is captured for "Sea Circus" (we all know what that stands for) when eagerly making "first contact" with homo sapiens. Eventually, after lots of torture, some humans help him escape and he learns several human languages as well as a lot of literature (though most of the presented reading material was also pompous if you ask me because those authors didn't have the answers to life, the universe and everything either).
And many examinations, or questions, were indeed interesting. However, the author has a propensity for babbling and continuing on and on and on when he's already made his point.
At first I did like that he shows good humans along with the bad ones and I certainly loved Arjuna taking on that Christian fundamentalist asshole, but that whole trip around the ocean to go from hatred to attempting to save us humans? It could and should have been much shorter if you ask me.
On top of this having been a densely philosophical book (not in a good way), the author was also trying to use actual science, probably in an attempt to make this book look nerdy. However, he's doing it in a forced way, which then made me roll my eyes even more.
The observations in this book are nothing new: pollution of nature, torture of animals for humans' amusement etc. I agree that those are the worst sides of humans (together with one or two other things). The "why" behind it all might also be a great way to start a conversation and/or introduce some ideas about how to be better in the future. But like I said: the author clubbed the conversation to death, then stomped on it before setting it on fire and then pissing on it to put out the flames. *sighs*
So now we're coming to the core problem I had with this book and indeed its author: he's heavily promoting the idea that saving someone, whether human or animal, is merely exerting power over them and therefore demeaning. *bangs head against the wall*
Moreover, the entire book screams of the author's hatred for himself and especially his species (or he took the wrong kind of drugs and got too immersed in his characters' POVs) as if we were only capable of hatred, murder and destruction (oh, the irony).
Until Arjuna eventually wants to help us change - which would also be demeaning (and maybe even impossible) by the author's logic, but he seemed to have forgotten that by that point. *doh*
Some call this author "beautifully poetic" - I don't see it. Instead, his writing comes off as pretentious and while his personal convictions shouldn't be any of my business, he made them my business by drowning me in a flood of hate that almost turned to self-pity. Meh. Me no likey.
So yeah, it wasn't the worst thing ever due to some of the presented musings about a couple of linguistic aspects but it was infuriatingly arduous.
Quite simply the best book about a whale since Moby Dick.
FYI: That book wasn't about a whale which goes to show what the writer of the blurp knows ... and which, strangely, sets the tone for this entire novel. Slight rant ahead.
Ok, so I know by now (after googling Zindell) that the author is all about "spiritual understanding". The problem with that? It's horseshit. *clears throat* Sorry, but it is. Pseudo-intellectual stuff meant to make you understand the world. Here's the thing: it's not rocket science! Humans can do beautiful things and they can do terrible things. Ironically, so can orcas.
The largest dolphin on this planet is incredibly smart and can be heartwarmingly kind - but they also have sadistic hunting techniques where they unnecessarily toy with their prey for hours. Just like bottlenose dolphins sometimes help swimmers when sharks are around and almost always brutally rape their fellow males (younger, weaker ones) if they don't get females.
What I'm trying to say is that no species is just one thing.
Though animals, in general, are definitely not quite as bad as humans. Maybe how close they get to being as bad as humans (see the two aforementioned examples) depends on the same form of intellect (no, not the same "level" as many call it because I will never believe that there are "dumb animals").
This author, however, tried to paint the old picture of everything human = absolutely bad vs everything animals = absolutely rainbows-and-unicorns.
Don't get me wrong, the book's premise was fantastic: the world seen through the eyes of an orca, the orca trying to help humans become better despite what was done to him.
Arjuna, the orca, is captured for "Sea Circus" (we all know what that stands for) when eagerly making "first contact" with homo sapiens. Eventually, after lots of torture, some humans help him escape and he learns several human languages as well as a lot of literature (though most of the presented reading material was also pompous if you ask me because those authors didn't have the answers to life, the universe and everything either).
And many examinations, or questions, were indeed interesting. However, the author has a propensity for babbling and continuing on and on and on when he's already made his point.
At first I did like that he shows good humans along with the bad ones and I certainly loved Arjuna taking on that Christian fundamentalist asshole, but that whole trip around the ocean to go from hatred to attempting to save us humans? It could and should have been much shorter if you ask me.
On top of this having been a densely philosophical book (not in a good way), the author was also trying to use actual science, probably in an attempt to make this book look nerdy. However, he's doing it in a forced way, which then made me roll my eyes even more.
The observations in this book are nothing new: pollution of nature, torture of animals for humans' amusement etc. I agree that those are the worst sides of humans (together with one or two other things). The "why" behind it all might also be a great way to start a conversation and/or introduce some ideas about how to be better in the future. But like I said: the author clubbed the conversation to death, then stomped on it before setting it on fire and then pissing on it to put out the flames. *sighs*
So now we're coming to the core problem I had with this book and indeed its author: he's heavily promoting the idea that saving someone, whether human or animal, is merely exerting power over them and therefore demeaning. *bangs head against the wall*
Moreover, the entire book screams of the author's hatred for himself and especially his species (or he took the wrong kind of drugs and got too immersed in his characters' POVs) as if we were only capable of hatred, murder and destruction (oh, the irony).
Until Arjuna eventually wants to help us change - which would also be demeaning (and maybe even impossible) by the author's logic, but he seemed to have forgotten that by that point. *doh*
Some call this author "beautifully poetic" - I don't see it. Instead, his writing comes off as pretentious and while his personal convictions shouldn't be any of my business, he made them my business by drowning me in a flood of hate that almost turned to self-pity. Meh. Me no likey.
So yeah, it wasn't the worst thing ever due to some of the presented musings about a couple of linguistic aspects but it was infuriatingly arduous.