A review by hirvimaki
The Doors of Eden by Adrian Tchaikovsky

3.0

This is a tough one for me to review. Although I enjoy scifi, I'm not what you'd call a scifi connoisseur, and perhaps, at least in part, this book falls more into that camp. I enjoyed parts of it very much. And I did not enjoy other parts very much. The overture pulled me right in. I liked Tchaikovsky's characterizations and had almost immediate empathy for the main characters. There is enough mystery and intrigue to keep you moving forward, wanting to know more. And as the plot unfolds it is very exciting and engaging. And then it reaches this crescendo and it all just gets...too much. It's like the zaniness of What the Butler Saw, but this ain't funny. It felt like the literary equivalent of watching a Michael Bay action sequence. Not that it is bad, it is just...too much. It's hard to focus on any one thing because a million things are right there in front of you. And really, I know this is the point. Tchaikovsky is showing you the BIG picture. And it is really, really big. And right there, right in the chaos and tumult, he lost me. I became disappointed in both his science(fiction) and his philosophy. My level of let down was on par to the revelation that the Force is just a high count (20,000 per cell) of Midi-chlorians, thank you very much. Say goodbye to the mystery and the fun. If I were the sort of person that puts down a book when I sour a little (or a lot) on the direction it goes, I would have set it aside. But then I would have missed that ending. I really enjoyed that ending. This book went from a solid four stars to a star and half and back up to three stars. Which, if you do read it, you might agree is kind of fitting.