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Cage of Souls
Group Reads Discussions 2021
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"Cage of Souls" Discuss Everything *Spoilers*
I'll do this here because I don't want to be a sourpuss in the first impressions thread. So I've read several books by AT, and I've enjoyed all of them. I'm not an absolute AT fangirl like some of you are :) but I've never been bored reading an AT book. Yes they're long and sometimes slow, but I've never had problems concentrating, they've been interesting and I've wanted to know what happens next.But this one? It's killing me. I've been listening to this on and off for over two weeks, and I can only do about 15min at a time, it's so tedious. I'm around the 2 hour mark (at 2x) and that means 10 hours left :S I want to make it through this, but here's my question: Is it just my extremely blergh April (continuing into May) mood, or is this book hella boring? I've seen several people say this is their favorite AT, so what's wrong?!
If this wasn't the May VBC pick I'd just leave it for later, but I need to either give up on it (essentially a DNF, meaning I'll let it play but not even try to concentrate) or try to listen to it properly.
I've started part 2, I'm not sure where I am exactly as the Storytel audio doesn't have chapters (another reason why it feels so long an tedious), so can I expect a change for something more interesting soon, or am I doomed?
Mod
I did enjoy the last 2/3 more but it was touch and go. The end was a bit strange as well.
Thanks Hank! That helps, since I've already made it through the first part and maybe something will start happening soon. I'll make a spreadsheet to calculate how many minutes I have to get through each day to finish it by VBC! :D
I'm a huge AT fan and this one didn't do it for me either. I'm reading The Tiger and the Wolf right now and to me, it's much better.
@Anna: I feared that the book wouldn't go well with a lot of readers, that's why I was kind of super anxious when it won the poll ^^'. It is my favourite Tchaikovsky and I absolutely love the atmosphere he's creating here. If the first part didn't do it for you the rest won't do either.
it did get better towards the end
Hmmm... I'm not sure what to think now :D I guess I won't give up yet. I don't have time to read anything at all next week, so I'll decide based on how I feel when I pick it back up the week after that.Thanks everyone!
Omg Anna - WE AGREE!I'm 62% through it and I'm bored. out. of. my. mind. I was intrigued to begin with, but then the storyline just seems to jump from one thing to another. He brings up a lot of ideas that are all potentially interesting but the he does nothing with them?? (view spoiler)
It's like 12 year old Adrian sat down in recess and thought "IMMA WRITE ABOUT A GUY ON A PRISON ISLAND COS THAT WOULD BE COOL!" And then he thought, "THERE'S WEIRD MONSTERS COS THAT'S COOL" and then "BUT ALSO OUR MAIN CHARACTER WENT TO SCHOOL COS BRAINS IS COOL" *scribble* "OH AND PS THE SUN IS IMPLODING AND THE EARTH IS DYING" *scribble scribble* "ALSO ENTER STRONG WOMAN COS STRONG WOMEN ARE COOL" *scribble* "BUT ALSO ENTER MYSTERIOUS SCARY WOMAN COS THAT'S ALSO COOL". He's basically just writing what he wants in the moment and it's getting to annoy me now.
It's just not a very cohesive story imo. I just want ONE plotline that isn't abandoned or that I feel is going somewhere, gaaaah!
😂Dawn is this a first?! Besides Murderbot obvs.
I just quickly skimmed the first 4 chapters to remind myself about the book. That part was pretty good even though the main character was kinda difficult to like.
Lol, I never saw it that way. It's one of my favorites of all time! What's different is that it's not so much a typical genre fiction book but more written like a literary fiction novel or memoir, and just tells one person's life story (and the last days of humanity and how it came to that end). All the different parts do come together in the end and all contribute to the end of the world (and possibly the beginning of a new one). It's all relevant.
Mod
Hank wrote: "I found the world interesting but Adrian not so much. I think I like my heros a bit more heroic and less bumbling happenstance. I was endlessly curious about the jungle, the reason for only one rem..."Stefan Advani was one of the reasons this book stood out to me. He is such an antihero, everything happens to him and the real heroes are his mates, without them he wouldn't survive a day. He somewhere said it along the lines of that there was a Stefan shaped hole every time the goings got tough. 'Heroes' with agenda I get in every other book, so I found this take quite refreshing.
Yes, exactly! I've recently read an article about restrictive gender stereotypes in fiction and they argued that the "strong, capable, fearless" protagonist is just as much an overused stereotype as the damsel in distress, because hardly anyone is like that in real life. I really liked that Stefan was just a geek and not a fighter. He does actually overcome fear and hesitation several times to do what is right in some situations, even when it brings him into lots of trouble. He may also be downplaying his own contributions out of modesty, after all we only get his own narration and perspective. But whether he really is mostly a sidekick or not, I loved it. The bumbling happenstance hero is far too rare! 😄
Mod
However....personally, I can't get past my desire for characters to actively try to influence their own lives. Either by attempting heroic deeds, attempting to get stronger/smarter/faster/tougher so they can then attempt to make a contribution or at least cooking dinner.
I think it is the same source of my loathing for damsels in distress, stop being part of the problem and start being part of the solution.
I agree that the world itself is interesting. Especially the jungle could have been made more of. To me the main character is not very appealing. Probably the writer thought I’ll make him a bibliomanic so my readers can relate to him easily ;-) A lot that happens is too reflective to my taste, e.g. “but the next day something even worse happened”.
20%-ish, p. 110The question or motif of body modding is starting to creep up on me, especially now that we've met the governor and his partner, who uses the women prisoners as a personal body-mod farm. Yikes! Interested in seeing where that particular situation, or the concept in general, is going.
On Stefan as a protagonist: for a while, "agency" was a truism of writing advice and so, so many reviews would ping on its lack as a flaw in a published book. To me, Stefan's adaptation to his circumstances is interesting in its own right. He's "succeeding" in his own way, by finding a means to simply survive (with the occasional near miss of a random death to add spice).
I can understand why some would find it boring - and if I were reading I think I might find myself skimming. However the narration is quite good - narrator does great range of voices, and even the unpleasant parts are told so matter of factly they don’t bother me. Just right to let wash over me while gardening or puzzling. It WILL take a while though, like 22 hours? Long.
Hi all, just rejoined the group and also just finished this book this week. I really liked Children of Time and whatever else I read by AT, but this book outlasted my patience. Well written, very atmospheric, but I am not a fan of prison settings or gratuitous violence or torture. Whilst I appreciated the writing, the book as such bored me. From the middle I heavily skimmed. It was that or a DNF. I liked the last 10% and I am sure I missed some great stuff in the latter half. Alas, this was not for me.
Overall I enjoyed it. It would have been a better book if the first half had been a lot shorter (there are so many scenes in the prison that don't really add anything to the main story). Also, it would have brought more balance between: the prison/Shadrapar/the underworld/the ending. I became hooked only in the second half.
It felt more like a journey through dead/dying civilisations, where many mysteries are laid out and only a very few are unravelled by the end of the book. I personally like these kind of stories, where the writer leaves you wondering at all the little secrets he scattered around. It certainly did not feel like a character (or action) driven book, more like an exploratory journal.
Mod
I really loved the concept of the world, but I did have a hard time with the inconsistency. We went from 10ish billion to 100,000 people? What happened there? How does anything like electricity work with some extinction level event like that? He focuses on the sun dying but says "maybe only a million or ten years left" which, yes, in star-years is retirement age, but right now ecological experts say we have about ~150 at current consumption levels and even THAT close, we still fight about how dire things are.
I think I wish he hadn't Many-Colored-Landed this and had just chosen two or three of his favorite things to develop more.
Allison wrote: "I wish he hadn't Many-Colored-Landed this"*snort*
I'm still exactly where I was ten days ago when I posted, and I honestly don't think I'll be getting back to this anytime soon. I feel reading slumpy in general, and that's not a good time to try and force myself to read something that was already boring me. I'll keep it on my TBR for a later date, because I haven't evolved to being able to DNF group books yet.
Beginning of Part III'm not getting the sense of "throwing **** at the wall" that some others have gotten from this book, but "killing a dude with the powers of my MIND" threw me out of the story big-time. I honestly don't mind psy-powers as an element in SF (or actual magic, as in Gideon), but would have liked to have as much of a world building basis for it as we did for the prison, the swamp creatures, etc.
I'm getting bored, too, Anna. The "summary of my early life" stuff in Part II's first chapter is draining my reading energy after a couple of paragraphs. Maybe I should start skipping or skimming...
I'm sorry this isn't working for so many members, and I'm definitely sorry it isn't working for me! :D
Beth, that's exactly the part where I gave up!
I do think the past life story was the most boring. Around the halfway mark we get into the jungle and I find that much more interesting!
Was able to get to the end and I did enjoy it. I believe it had some holes like "When did he have time to write everything down during all that roller coaster phase of the story?" but for the other potential flaws in the story, I explained it to my self that it was the Stefan Advani guy doing the writing, and seeing how he is not a professional writer, so I could understand.
33%. I cannot stand Stephan. I find him tremendously irritating. I also agree that there are so many interesting possibilities; though I don’t hold out much hope that they are explored, based on the previous comments. Audio narrator is excellent, though.
Yes to everything Dawn said. And now I’m going to go on a bit of a rant. If you liked the book, maybe scroll to the bottom where I mention a few things I actually liked. :)Stefan actively pissed me off. He has that self-effacing modesty vibe, but he just happens to be SO important to every female character in the book. Even in the end, the one he basically just called ugly and big, calls him out for reducing her to just that while hinting at them sharing more. We get to hear whole diatribes about the lovely, brilliant and powerful women who absolutely need him for his protection or his mind or his questionable skills. But Hermione is just the brute caricature. And HE CALLS HIMSELF OUT ON IT, but doesn’t actually rectify it. Infuriating.
All of the women are caricatures. Faith is the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Rosanna is the fiery academic (who got fridged.) Kiera is the charming debutante. Elerra is the powerful evil queen. Hermione is the ogress. They are all one dimensional. Kiera comes close to having actual depth but in the end is just a receptacle for Advani’s jealousy and pouty entitlement.
This should have been about five different completely unconnected books. Tell the story of the Underworld. Tell the story of the Floating Prison. Tell the story of the wild jungle and the web-children. Tell the story of the dying sun. Tell the story about the manufactured people. Tell the story about unlocking mind powers. Just don’t tell them all at the same time with an obnoxious, unreliable and meandering narrator.
And can I just tell you, that with everything that happened in this damn book, how annoyed I am that the last few pages still had room for petty romantic jealousy and wounded male pouting?
The time jumps were annoying. Particularly because he keeps telling us “but I’ll tell you about that later.” Then shut up about it now!
Too many things left incomplete. And yeah, I get it, in a personal narrative we don’t always get to know what happens. I have no clue what happened to the roommate I had in college. So why would Advani know what happened in all aspects of this world? But I don’t want to read books like that. I want the words I put my time into reading to have a point. I don’t want there to just be a lot of them for the sake of a longer page count or to fit in all the super cool ideas that flitted through the author’s brain. Kill just a few of your damn darlings.
This was my second AT. I also disliked the other one I read. So I think I’m tapping out on him.
Ok. So I didn’t hate EVERYTHING. I adored Thelwel. Father Sulplice was also delightful. The web-children had some real promise. The world, had it been more focussed, was really quite cool. There were a lot of really good ideas and interesting story lines.
but you might like the Tales of the Apt series - strong female characters in those books
This is the third time I read something from this author that sounds totally amazing in the premise, but the execution is completely something else in such a let down way. This story had its moments, but I still don't understand what he was trying to do and what's anything got to do with the sun dying, other than being set in the distant future.
I've now read it for the third time and I'm still totally in love (apparently my taste is severely off from most of our group's readers). I adore the narrator's voice, Advani's as well as the David Thorpe's who reads the audiobook. And quite honestly I could go on listening to it for weeks. I wouldn't have minded if it had been double the length. sorry - not sorry.
Same for me, Gabi - this book was so brilliant and perfect and Stefan was such a fun unreliable narrator. And so literary! I can't even imagine how it could not work for anyone. 🤷♀️
I've a couple of thoughts I'd like to hear others' opinions on.I listened to the audiobook an found that the reading (the narrator really reminded me of the actor Julian Rhind-Tutt) had a light, sardonic quality that prevented the events being overly bleak, which I thought it might be without that.
I generally loved this, with a couple of caveats. I agree with the mind powers being a weird insert that really didn't seem to fit the rest of the story, and I also thought that Gaki (Gaaki? Gacki?) was a weird character oddly used. Did he have some weird powers? How was he able to get out of his cell and walk through the jungle as though it wasn't there? That made no sense. Then, with the big stand-off at the end,
look away now, this is the spoiler thread
I thought his defeat was such a deus ex machina. Gaaki was this stupidly adept ubermensch and the his defeat was strangely unsatisfying. Along with almost all of humanity dying off-screen, I really felt disappointed, but then I thought the author rescued it. Along with his Children duology, I thing AT's vision is very much that it doesn't necessarily matter if humanity survives, as long as intelligence survives. That, for me, was the take away for this novel and I found it oddly comforting. But maybe I'm weird.
Mod
Eva, I agree with your analysis
It sounds like it's got so much going for it, provocative ideas, anti-hero, world as main character... but I can't face all the stomach-churning brutality etc. Or the length. Take out all the blow-by-blow descriptions of how awful people are to each other and get to the points, ok.Thank you all for affirming that I'm right to dnf this.
Btw, the used paperback copy I bought (! that'll teach me to spend money on books!) has an oft' broken spine up to about 2/3, then the rest is intact... either the previous reader finally gave up, or read the last in one big sitting....
Mod
There are a lot of ideas in this story and some of them aren't explored or explained but I think that Tchaikovsky puts an acceptably coherent narrative to it all.
I'm looking forward to VBC and will save my defence of this book for that. :)
And I in my turn, am looking forward to your defense, Ryan. :)
I did it! I finished! Now I can read the ending discussion
Phew. Finished. This was my first AT, I had one of his in my library stack last year and couldn’t face down the size. Honestly, were it not for this group, I likely would have given up midway when my audiobook expired. That said, the audiobook narrator was really excellent. He gave life to the snark and carried me on.
I liked the idea of the web children. But even more I liked that the mega-whatever would have an intelligence that would perceive humans as vermin.
I was frustrated by the many plot possibilities that were just dropped. *what was the animal from the depths in the basement of the island?
I enjoyed reading this book and appreciate the selection, because I probably wouldn't have chosen it on my own. I had previously read AT's Children of Time and was anticipating a similar writing style, but once I realized this book was styled more like Gulliver's Travels, I adjusted to its slower pace. I know that some folks didn't like the "killing people with the power of your mind" thing, but I kind of interpreted that as a comment on how brilliant human innovations are often just as likely to kill people as to save them, in their application. Overall, I thought it was a weirdly hopeful book about how living creatures will adapt and continue, even if humans don't, and that's actually OK. A way to cope with visions of a climate changed earth in the not so very distant future, maybe?
Mod
I found the audiobook narrator added a lot to the character of Stefan! The British intonation made the jokes and self-depreciation evident that I couldn’t get from the text. As a long time PBS TV watcher, the tone set by the audiobook made the author’s intent much clearer. Discworld apocalypse! I liked it.
Still reading but I just had to check the spoilers to see what others thought about it.Just made it to Part Three and it has been work. It is so tedious. I was optimistic the the flash back in Part Two would be a relief form the gloomy first part but I just found it boring.
Will keep on because of the time I've invested so far.
Finished it yesterday, and I completely agree that it's an amalgam of way too many ideas, many of which are far from fully developed.But I think that's why I liked it so much. It's like a sourcebook for a role-playing game written by Charles Dickens.
This is the first AT book I've read. Sounds like it's not very similar to his other work?
At chapter 35, "Battle for the Underworld"Unfortunately not holding my interest. I continue to soldier on.
Surprised that Greygori (The Transforming Man) is using the generator to fight for the Underworlders, I thought he betrayed them and made an agreement those Angels would be coming down because he was angry about losing Faith.
There's a powerful family sending in people to duel with Peter, the Udeims? Was I supposed to know who they were before the duelist showed up? I don't remember them. Don't have an e-book so I can't run a search on the name.
Was I reading the same book as most others on this thread? I did not find the book slow at all and it had me completely engaged to the end. I didn't find it overlong at all. This is my favourite read of this year and is a book I will be coming back to. I suppose that is the beauty of books, that opinions can be so different to the reader.
I quite enjoyed it too, @Alex_Godwin. But I see I completely forgot to comment on this thread (I got to it quite late after the convo had died down) and I just read a Bonnie’s comment right before yours and thought, “what? I don’t remember that at all?!?” Maybe I should listen to it again one day and enjoy it all over again. I do remember it having so many elements that it was a little hard to follow as an audio book. And I was disappointed by the lack of more info about the Russian.
SciFi and Fantasy Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
Children of Time (other topics)The Tiger and the Wolf (other topics)
1. How does this compare to others by the author you may have read?
2. What worked or didn't for you?
3. Overall thoughts?
Non-spoiler thread here: First impressions