Genre trash littering the road on my journey to find literary science fiction.
This book is just bad craft, bottom line. It's horribly written, the pol...moreGenre trash littering the road on my journey to find literary science fiction.
This book is just bad craft, bottom line. It's horribly written, the politics seem precious and the wink-wink attitude he takes towards mentioning certain political movements just pissed me off. If you want to write a political book, great - but at least be intellectually honest with me and come out and own it.
Also, it's offensive. He wouldn't know a teenage girl if one came up to him and kicked him in the head. Seriously, he'd be like, "wow, what was THAT?!?!" His teenage girl main character was not recognizable as anything other than the male-constructed social ideal of a teenaged woman: she was compliant, non-threatening, and still beautiful and smart. Bah.
His two other story/character threads were left hanging, as they never came to any sort of fruition. I get that it's a trilogy (I won't be reading the rest) but even still, that's just lazy. He can go read some Zadie Smith and then work out how story threads are meant to happen, you know, by actual, talented writers.
For someone who seems so anti-corporate (ok, that's cool but...) - he certainly drops enough brand names owned by corporate entities to appear as though his novel is a paid advertisement. Trust me, you don't need to lean on others' brand names to appear relevant.
Finally, it was mean-spirited, exclusive, and shallow. I won't gratify it with detailed descriptions, but needless to say he makes it very clear which types of people he sees as having some kind of diminished humanity, and he feels no shame about further enforcing this lesser-than status through his writing. So not only did I glean from this that he is a bad writer, but also that he is just an asshole.
What a complete and utter waste of time. EDIT: One last point, and I'm totally aware I'm going to get skewered for it by trufans. But - placing an inherent moral value on various legal concepts is just stupid and naive. Open sourcing isn't inherently good, and intellectual property isn't inherently bad. Newsflash: We live in a world chock full of complex moral concepts. But by portraying it this way as if there were no other possible interpretation, he just comes off as poorly educated and simple. And what's worse, he comes off as though he genuinely feels like his readers are stupid. And that's just insulting.(less)
This book was utter crap. Seriously. Just because you use big fancy words and write about sex every other page doesn't make you intelligent or edgy. I...moreThis book was utter crap. Seriously. Just because you use big fancy words and write about sex every other page doesn't make you intelligent or edgy. I honestly cannot believe this book was nominated for a Hugo. What a statement about the sad state of fantasy literature.(less)
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