michi's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
4.0
jazzypizzaz's review against another edition
5.0
Easily the most fascinating book & the richest reading experience, I've had all year -- it's one that I know I could reread again and again, and would get entirely new things out of each time. Much of the time I had no idea what was going on or why it was relevant, or at least knew I was only getting a few layers of the context at most, but each sentence was, in turn: a bafflement, a delight, an oddity, a thrill, an obscurity, and this was more than enough to dazzle. Few sentences within seem like they could exist in any other book. It was, more than most anything I've read (or so it seems right now, in the afterglow), like reading a book written from an alternate universe (the one in which it is set? or another?). I now realize this was an intentional device to mimic the outsider's experience, to simulate the experience of total immersion into a whole new foreign world and all the cycles of frustration and amazement, confusion and brief flashes of insight, that entails.
Assorted ramblings for my own elucidation/indulgence, as I attempt to make sense of anything:
There's a moment I held onto like a lifeline where Korga (the most obvious outsider within the narrative) talks about how everyone asks him "what is it like to lose a world?" but how a more relevant question is "what is it like to be presented with a new one?" and how interconnected that is. Being immersed in an entirely new way of life, being given new knowledge that changes how you view the world, being introduced to conceptual frameworks that upends everything you've ever been taught -- this is losing your entire world as it was (beyond the literal planet/culture that Korga lost), by way of gaining a possible new one. There's another repeated line that I held onto -- "worlds are big, but the universe is small". There's infinite variation between people and their inner worlds, between groups of people across geographies & cultures, but there are the same basic struggles that play out across all humanity; namely the struggle between a willful desire to hold onto that known lost world & the rigid outdated order it places on everything (the Family), vs accepting a new world of different experiences, of other people, of new knowledge and how that changes what you've known (the Sygn). What actually causes the feared Cultural Fugue was unclear, but it might be a result of a downward spiral of willful ignorance within a society that leads to its own destruction.
There's a strong ethical thrust in the book towards a liberal, open-minded perspective -- "or is it likely that women are just more complex than can be made out by starlight alone?" -- and acceptance of diversity. What most fascinated me, however, was how even the semi-utopian world that Marq inhabits had its cultural blindspots, to the point of itself being threatened by Cultural Fugue upon Korga's presence (due to their very curiosity/open-mindedness, rather than willful ignorance?). Marq is supposed to be a capable diplomat, but I was continually disconcerted by his inability to ease Korga into his society, at the constant difficulty an outsider like Korga would face upon dealing with all the cultural expectations and subtextual decorum that foreign culture seemed to demand. There's also the matter of the Thants, and Marq's bewilderment at reading their signals and smoothing relations between them and his family. This was most exemplified at the formal dinner, of course, where Marq has a rare moment of putting himself in the struggling offworld guest's shoes and how alien the dinner's customs would be. Korga, by his peculiar history and nature, seemed to make out okay emotionally, but putting myself in his place no matter how fascinating and spectacular it all was (elaborate meals! alternate family structures! lack of gender signifiers! general equality!), I felt continually off-balance, overwhelmed. And of course, the Thants openly reacted in opposition to Marq's culture-- which leads me to wonder if it was Marq and his family's fault for not being better at bridging the cultural gaps between them, for all their supposed generations of diplomacy skill. Maybe this is just a human limitation, that diversity is so wide that no matter how open-minded a culture is, it's still hard to truly accept and understand otherness.
The dragon hunting scene, for example, was a rare moment of pure delight for Korga, but some of the implications nag at me. Through the hunt, they inhabit the dragon's bodies briefly (as the Old Hunter inhabit Korga/Marq), getting a full sensory taste of this different world... but I wonder about the limitations of that. It's a shallow taste, it's mere seconds/minutes as a recreational diversion -- you can taste other people's experiences / other cultures, but you can never fully inhabit or Know what it's like entirely. That must be better than blanket ignorance, but the possible shallowness also seemed reminiscent of the way people mistake cultural appropriation for multiculturalism.
Inhabiting another person's body and the rush/delight of the dragon hunting brings me to how there's also the whole layer of sexuality and desire throughout the book... how society oppresses and forms an individual's desire, what parts are central to who a person is inside vs what would change when your whole world changes -- the fact that Korga's sexuality is a constant regardless of the extreme situations he's confronted with for example. I'm not entirely sure of what to make of how Marq deals with everything in the Epilogue, which seems central to understanding this component... There's a lot to chew on -- perhaps if I manage to reread this someday.
Assorted ramblings for my own elucidation/indulgence, as I attempt to make sense of anything:
There's a moment I held onto like a lifeline where Korga (the most obvious outsider within the narrative) talks about how everyone asks him "what is it like to lose a world?" but how a more relevant question is "what is it like to be presented with a new one?" and how interconnected that is. Being immersed in an entirely new way of life, being given new knowledge that changes how you view the world, being introduced to conceptual frameworks that upends everything you've ever been taught -- this is losing your entire world as it was (beyond the literal planet/culture that Korga lost), by way of gaining a possible new one. There's another repeated line that I held onto -- "worlds are big, but the universe is small". There's infinite variation between people and their inner worlds, between groups of people across geographies & cultures, but there are the same basic struggles that play out across all humanity; namely the struggle between a willful desire to hold onto that known lost world & the rigid outdated order it places on everything (the Family), vs accepting a new world of different experiences, of other people, of new knowledge and how that changes what you've known (the Sygn). What actually causes the feared Cultural Fugue was unclear, but it might be a result of a downward spiral of willful ignorance within a society that leads to its own destruction.
There's a strong ethical thrust in the book towards a liberal, open-minded perspective -- "or is it likely that women are just more complex than can be made out by starlight alone?" -- and acceptance of diversity. What most fascinated me, however, was how even the semi-utopian world that Marq inhabits had its cultural blindspots, to the point of itself being threatened by Cultural Fugue upon Korga's presence (due to their very curiosity/open-mindedness, rather than willful ignorance?). Marq is supposed to be a capable diplomat, but I was continually disconcerted by his inability to ease Korga into his society, at the constant difficulty an outsider like Korga would face upon dealing with all the cultural expectations and subtextual decorum that foreign culture seemed to demand. There's also the matter of the Thants, and Marq's bewilderment at reading their signals and smoothing relations between them and his family. This was most exemplified at the formal dinner, of course, where Marq has a rare moment of putting himself in the struggling offworld guest's shoes and how alien the dinner's customs would be. Korga, by his peculiar history and nature, seemed to make out okay emotionally, but putting myself in his place no matter how fascinating and spectacular it all was (elaborate meals! alternate family structures! lack of gender signifiers! general equality!), I felt continually off-balance, overwhelmed. And of course, the Thants openly reacted in opposition to Marq's culture-- which leads me to wonder if it was Marq and his family's fault for not being better at bridging the cultural gaps between them, for all their supposed generations of diplomacy skill. Maybe this is just a human limitation, that diversity is so wide that no matter how open-minded a culture is, it's still hard to truly accept and understand otherness.
The dragon hunting scene, for example, was a rare moment of pure delight for Korga, but some of the implications nag at me. Through the hunt, they inhabit the dragon's bodies briefly (as the Old Hunter inhabit Korga/Marq), getting a full sensory taste of this different world... but I wonder about the limitations of that. It's a shallow taste, it's mere seconds/minutes as a recreational diversion -- you can taste other people's experiences / other cultures, but you can never fully inhabit or Know what it's like entirely. That must be better than blanket ignorance, but the possible shallowness also seemed reminiscent of the way people mistake cultural appropriation for multiculturalism.
Inhabiting another person's body and the rush/delight of the dragon hunting brings me to how there's also the whole layer of sexuality and desire throughout the book... how society oppresses and forms an individual's desire, what parts are central to who a person is inside vs what would change when your whole world changes -- the fact that Korga's sexuality is a constant regardless of the extreme situations he's confronted with for example. I'm not entirely sure of what to make of how Marq deals with everything in the Epilogue, which seems central to understanding this component... There's a lot to chew on -- perhaps if I manage to reread this someday.
600bars's review against another edition
4.0
This was super hard to read. i read the first section randomly bc my gf was reading it, and i quickly realized i had to be at sharpest focus in order to actually get thru it. life got busy and so i set it down waiting for a day where i could be completely absorbed. I finally read the last 2 sections over the past couple days. even tho this book wasn't that long, i still had to do my long-book technique of writing a summary of every single subchapter, which takes forever. i did this bc you are dropped into a world with no explanation of what things are like, so i had to write things down all the time to keep track of what they meant in the world.
-(and of course, the fact that signs n signifiers were not attached to each other was one of the main points of the book + the whole sygn vs family schism. )
-it was hard for me to not imagine GI like a brain implanted wikipedia. i wonder what it would have been like to read this without knowing what the internet is. i can't believe he wrote it before it existed.
- there are lots of other reviews saying that the gender stuff was not transgressive enough but the fact that there are a bunch of outraged ppl in the reviews sorta proves that it was. There wasn't an erasure of sex, just that the gender signifiers we have were not attached to people in the same way as they were before. the fact that tall/short was a big dichotomy in RK's world was just showing how arbitrary any distinctions are. Marqs part of velm has largely done away w hierarchies. there aren't distinctions between elvm and humans. family is not dictated by blood relation. they don't care who you have sex with. but that state is just as fragile when u think of the culture of the north, which is on the same world.
-I'm sad Rat Korga and Marq couldn't end up together, and I'm not fully sure as to why they could not be tbh. i get that they were gonna cause cultural fugue, but why not go somewhere else or stay in the liminal space between worlds or something? what about love :(
-some of this book reminded me of exchange student orientation lol/being an exchange student, particularly the dinner party scene
-hands/tongues/claws
-i am a big fan of fractured/fragmented subjects so i liked marq's worldview
-i do wish we got to hear some stuff from RKorga's perspective. i really liked the first bit where he learns to read. it reminded me of that black mirror episode about genocide combined with flowers for algernon. were the rings the exact same thing as the hand contraption? we got to hear a little bit about the loneliness of being his planets sole survivor, but i wish we knew more. is his relationship to his home planet complicated by the fact that he was a slave without any kin network? how does his cognitive abilities now vs. before play into his relationship w the destroyed world? does he miss it or just have the idea that he should miss it, like how if you had your memory wiped and someone said "this is your wife" would you automatically feel love for them even if you didn't recognize them? i have so many questions.
-(and of course, the fact that signs n signifiers were not attached to each other was one of the main points of the book + the whole sygn vs family schism. )
-it was hard for me to not imagine GI like a brain implanted wikipedia. i wonder what it would have been like to read this without knowing what the internet is. i can't believe he wrote it before it existed.
- there are lots of other reviews saying that the gender stuff was not transgressive enough but the fact that there are a bunch of outraged ppl in the reviews sorta proves that it was. There wasn't an erasure of sex, just that the gender signifiers we have were not attached to people in the same way as they were before. the fact that tall/short was a big dichotomy in RK's world was just showing how arbitrary any distinctions are. Marqs part of velm has largely done away w hierarchies. there aren't distinctions between elvm and humans. family is not dictated by blood relation. they don't care who you have sex with. but that state is just as fragile when u think of the culture of the north, which is on the same world.
-I'm sad Rat Korga and Marq couldn't end up together, and I'm not fully sure as to why they could not be tbh. i get that they were gonna cause cultural fugue, but why not go somewhere else or stay in the liminal space between worlds or something? what about love :(
-some of this book reminded me of exchange student orientation lol/being an exchange student, particularly the dinner party scene
-hands/tongues/claws
-i am a big fan of fractured/fragmented subjects so i liked marq's worldview
-i do wish we got to hear some stuff from RKorga's perspective. i really liked the first bit where he learns to read. it reminded me of that black mirror episode about genocide combined with flowers for algernon. were the rings the exact same thing as the hand contraption? we got to hear a little bit about the loneliness of being his planets sole survivor, but i wish we knew more. is his relationship to his home planet complicated by the fact that he was a slave without any kin network? how does his cognitive abilities now vs. before play into his relationship w the destroyed world? does he miss it or just have the idea that he should miss it, like how if you had your memory wiped and someone said "this is your wife" would you automatically feel love for them even if you didn't recognize them? i have so many questions.
kibiiiariii's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
0.5
nickel_is_neat's review against another edition
4.0
This book was incredible from start to finish. The prologue was certainly interesting, but when the rest of the book put it in context of a whole universe with so many diverse cultures it was so much more than what I could have expected from just those first chapters. I didn't expect to cry like I did at the Epilogue either. I may have enjoyed greater focus on GI and less on Marq Dyeth's interpretation of gestures. I think my opinion will only improve on any future rereads.
gullevek's review against another edition
2.0
In general I do not trust reviews because the taste of the reviewer might be completely different to mine. But because this book had quite a lot of positive reviews and I wanted to read something Science Fiction I read it.
Complex for the sake of complexity. Boring, utter boring. 90% of the book is pretty much useless writing. There is no story, no progress, just nothing.
The prologue is very interesting and I thought, well that will be a good read, but I was utter wrong. Once the main story starts it is just one long ride downhill. There is a middle part that moves some aspect of a story and the end has a bit if interest, but in general this book is utter boring crap.
If there is one thing I will take away from this book it is that in the future sex is something you do between tasks you need to do. Like getting home quickly, there is always time for a shag.
At the end I just link to this review which describes this book very well: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/96780273?book_show_action=true&page=1
Complex for the sake of complexity. Boring, utter boring. 90% of the book is pretty much useless writing. There is no story, no progress, just nothing.
The prologue is very interesting and I thought, well that will be a good read, but I was utter wrong. Once the main story starts it is just one long ride downhill. There is a middle part that moves some aspect of a story and the end has a bit if interest, but in general this book is utter boring crap.
If there is one thing I will take away from this book it is that in the future sex is something you do between tasks you need to do. Like getting home quickly, there is always time for a shag.
At the end I just link to this review which describes this book very well: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/96780273?book_show_action=true&page=1
cnapple's review against another edition
3.0
Reviewers of Stars in My Pocket (SMP henceforth), seem to fall largely into two camps; those for whom it is a triumph of high concept intellectual science fiction, and those for whom it is a masturbatory, deliberately opaque conceptual clusterfuck. I'm going to go ahead and say it's both. Where SMP succeeds is in its ahead-of-its time examinations of cultural phenomena; the post-gender, post-puritanical velmian society, the prescient notion of the galaxy-literally-at-your-fingertips GI. It also successfully portrays some interesting, if more low-brow sci-fi standards; mind-swapping with an alien species through technology, holo-techology applied to aesthetic and functional purposes. In all this, SMP sets the standard for a well-thought out, well-represented conceptual shmorgasbord. Where it falls short is in the execution of a cohesive narrative that progresses in a logical direction and at a logical pace.
more to come later...
more to come later...
fermentedsorcerer's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
towerlocked's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.75
katherinef13's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.0