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sofsofbinks 's review for:
The Black Tides of Heaven
by Neon Yang
I have really mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand the world building is really interesting with some innovative intakes regarding gender and so on. On the other hand the world building serves deliberately as a background to the story, which wouldn't be a problem for me if the story it served were more consistent. I'm all for a discreet, almost mysterious background worldbuilding but I usually need to be taken in by the story as a counterpart. Unfortunately the mix didn't work for me this time.
Let me explain : the story doesn't revolve around much adventure, there is some, sure, but it's also treated as a background and as a purpose for reflexion around relationships and one's place in the world. I'm ok with not having to go through a great epic adventure, but I felt like even the relationships and character building didn't really let me in on the character psychology, and I often felt like I was kept at arm's length by the principal character, kind of guessing what he was feeling, or where he was coming from, but not really connecting, which I thought didn't serve the promising theme the book was developing.
I thought the book attempted something similar to Jo Walton's Among Others, with regards to a mysterious background being the pretext to tell a very personal story, but I connected way better to Jo Walton's characters and story. I would also recommend, in the same vein, China Mieville's This Census Taker...
I'm still giving it a three stars, for the promising debut it is, and I'm looking forward to reading the second book, as I understand the two go hand in hand, and I'm hoping to find some 'closure' in that second book. We'll see
Let me explain : the story doesn't revolve around much adventure, there is some, sure, but it's also treated as a background and as a purpose for reflexion around relationships and one's place in the world. I'm ok with not having to go through a great epic adventure, but I felt like even the relationships and character building didn't really let me in on the character psychology, and I often felt like I was kept at arm's length by the principal character, kind of guessing what he was feeling, or where he was coming from, but not really connecting, which I thought didn't serve the promising theme the book was developing.
I thought the book attempted something similar to Jo Walton's Among Others, with regards to a mysterious background being the pretext to tell a very personal story, but I connected way better to Jo Walton's characters and story. I would also recommend, in the same vein, China Mieville's This Census Taker...
I'm still giving it a three stars, for the promising debut it is, and I'm looking forward to reading the second book, as I understand the two go hand in hand, and I'm hoping to find some 'closure' in that second book. We'll see