Bronwen

Not author's best work

Revisado: 11-10-17

lame story. usually great author, would recommend other books. this one is not worth reading

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Ridiculous title, worthy story

Revisado: 05-12-16

i really enjoyed this book. I wouldn't have picked it up off the shelf (so to speak) because it looks super tacky. Silly title, clichéd image, even the premise seems dubious. but it was recommended to me and I'm glad it was.

i enjoyed the fragmented, collection of mini stories, structure. the narrator did a good job giving each character a distinct personality.

while in no way ground breaking, this book did create and satisfyingly explore an intriguing scenario. the scenario felt well grounded, so that when it stretched belief at times it never broke it and the resulting experience was delightfully engrossing. i happily entered the only slightly altered reality of the book and stayed there for the whole journey.

The core concept might call to mind William Gibson's 'Wintermute' but this world is, at least before the war, very close to our own. and so the extrapolation of events feels unnervingly believable.

I love scifi for it's ability to explore thought experiments such as how would a 'Robopocalypse' really go down if it happened now, and in doing so explore humanity itself, in all it's heroic glory and ugliness as well. because for all the robots and artificial intelligence, scifi is really about understanding our own humanity.

so if you can look past the jacket, you will be plenty rewarded.

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rich world barely skimmed

Revisado: 05-12-16

The steampunk fantasy world the author creates is truly interesting which is why i was disappointed with the lack of depth in which it was explored.
Alot of the mechanics of the world aren't fully justified and even when there were thin attempts to explain the way things are lot of the time i felt like the author was just saying 'because i said so, thats why'. it only bothered me because key points such as the political structure seemed totally arbitrary. and one of the characters even points out that this particular city is unusual, so it seems like it doesn't even conform to the rules of it's own world.
the story, too, didn't really seem to gel for me. it felt like disparate elements. and the ending felt very rushed and unsatisfying. the climax felt messy and arbitrary because i couldn't feel like the politics had any foundation in reason, so everyone's political motives seemed one dimensional and I just don't know why I should care about any if it, there wasn't enough investment.
the real reason I'm being so critical is because there were some really interesting concepts. I'm glad to have experienced this book, but more for the fact that now I have a colourful steampunkish magic world i can explore in my own imagination, rather than for the story itself.

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