A review by lordenglishssbm
Synners by Pat Cadigan

2.0

I stopped reading about one-third of the way through, so take that as you will. The positive reviews I've read do say that it gets better after the point where I stopped, but I just had no confidence in the project.

Cadigan's world is intriguing, but her attempts to immerse the reader in it by throwing every concept at them all at once is confusing, and I can't help but think that this all could have been done better as a short story collection (this idea was only strengthened by the overabundance of viewpoint characters I struggled to differentiate from each other). She tries to thread the needle by having characters deal with commonplace problems, but if that's the main source of the drama then why was it necessary for the setting to be so confusing that the book's first third is effectively exposition?

I saw some glimpses of interesting ideas in Cadigan's world-building, but I never saw a good reason why she couldn't have zeroed in on them in a series of more controlled stories. I dunno. I'm open to the possibility that I whiffed on this one.