frumiousb

Many people who have taste that I trust loved this book.

The writing is actually very good.

The characters are well drawn and (mostly) believable.

I don't mind a good space tragedy.

I should have loved this book. At the very least, I should have liked this book.

But reader, dear reader, I must admit that I was bored while reading it. Heavy bored.

And now I feel even worse looking at the other reviews:
Classic in our time! You must have your attention span corroded by modern crud if you don't like this book! Best science fiction in decades! Best thing since Gravity's Rainbow. Why didn't this win the Hugo?

I don't really know why I was heavy bored. If I really think about it I can only come up with a few points that I didn't really like. The overall plot was part of the problem for me-- it felt too mechanical, inorganic somehow. Put together with the characters I ended up with the feeling of something that didn't quite gel. With so many ingredients mixed together, it needed to catch fire somewhere. And for me, it never did.

Maybe it's got nothing to do with the book. Maybe it's me. Maybe I'm just becoming too out of sorts with speculative fiction, all kinds. Perhaps my brain really has been warped by Peter F. Hamilton and his fat space operas. I don't know.

In short: many people liked this very much. I was not one of them. YMMV.

(I'll give Flynn another chance because I figure that there's got to be something there.)

in which I also do some half-baked thinking about genre fiction.

( what a book to begin the year! )

I apologize, but I'm about a month behind with book reviews. So I'm really going to be spamming for a week or so to try to catch up with myself.

( interesting )

Reader, I loved it. I was sick in bed when I read it and I spent a whole flu-sodden day obsessively reading it, and I was so so sorry when it was over. I was also sorry that the alternate universe didn't really insist because I wanted to go to the Rocky-Horror style showings of Richard the III. Most of all, I wanted to walk around in Jane Eyre.

I really had my doubts about Jasper Fforde. Some of my friends really loved his Thursday Next novels. Some of my friends write sermons of irritation about his Thursday Next novels. I rather dimly thought that I would find them too precious, but I have to stress that I did not really know what the books were about.

( big fun )

I must be getting soft in my old age. Or else the offer in epic fantasy has really improved in the last few years. In 2003, I was pretty much bored and annoyed by everything that I read in the area of epic fantasy-- to the point where I almost completely stopped reading it. This year there have actually been three books in the genre that I have actually enjoyed.

To my mind Inda is the best of the three. I like it enough that I am quite pleased with myself for buying The Fox at the same time that I picked up Inda. I'm planning to get started on that book during my trip to Sweden next week.

I won't recount the plot, because I generally do not recount the plot unless the book is so obscure that it seems of value. But a few words about what I really liked about the book:

First, one of my biggest gripes about High Fantasy is the way that extremely brutal and/or violent events seem to leave characters essentially untouched. I mean, they generally mourn or tear at their hair for a few pages-- but these tragedies seem to leave very little trace on the ultimate development of the character. In Inda I often had the sense of a very violent world, and one that was clearly leaving its traces on both the young and old. The characters were complex and capable of acting past the reader's first impression. At the same time Smith is respectful of the privacy of her characters-- I never had the sense that she told too much, or bent them in directions that felt too forced. The plot interacts with the characters, but it doesn't drive all the character change. That's an accomplishment in this kind of work, I think.

Second, the world-building is extremely rich. (At the beginning it was almost too rich and I did some frantic backing and forthing to figure out the naming conventions. But once I figured it out, it was fine.) There's real texture to the world. The military elements are detailed, but not tiresome. I actually used the maps that were provided with the book, and I next to never do that. Generally speaking, I'm not nearly as interested in the geography of the book's world as a map might imply I would be.

So those are the good things. There are no real bad things-- one or two things where I'm going to reserve judgment until I see where things develop in the next book. Most of my uncertainty is around the area of magic and magic users. The wise woman who evaluates community fitness for magic use sent my eyebrows towards my hairline, but I'll give it a pass until the next book. (Shades of Sheri S. Tepper.)

I was greatly amused to see reviews on Amazon and elsewhere complaining about the Secks! in the book. There is nothing graphic, really. As far as I can tell, the general objection seems to be that the world that Smith creates doesn't adhere to a heterosexual/monogamous ideal as fiercely as our real world's narrative fiction seems to do. But frankly it is so understated that I find it difficult to see it as a point of objection. But-- fair's fair and buyer beware. The book's world does not condemn gay people or safe consensual sex between nice young people who are *not* soulmates. So if this bothers you, probably you should pick up something else.

Good. That's a lot of words already for a review. I highly recommend it. If you like your other worlds densely crafted, then I doubly recommend it.

Looking forward to The Fox.