Reviews

Аркадия by Иън Пиърс, Iain Pears

tomstbr's review against another edition

5.0

Probably the best book I have ever read. It will be a crime if it doesn't win the Arthur C Clarke Award. I'd say more but I really don't feel the need. Absolutely joyous.

amlibera's review against another edition

4.0

Exactly the kind of book that I want to read when I want to read this kind of book. The game is well executed, the narrative pulls together well and there's lots if discoveries to be made by the reader. Character and place are secondary to ideas but... it doesn't really bother me.

mgromko's review against another edition

adventurous challenging funny lighthearted medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

corlaine's review against another edition

4.0

What a fun book to read! The multitude of simultaneous stories and parallel timelines/characters meant it was impossible to put the book down. You can't simply read the next chapter to understand how the previous one ended, you have to resolve at least four more chapters before you circle back. It's a great tool for drawing out the timelines and ensuring the reader is constantly engaged in the entire intrigue. A few chapters can ramble into tedious details but the overall story is fun and the characters each likable in their own way.

rageofachilles's review against another edition

4.0

This is an enjoyable book. It is a dystopian--Shakespearian--time travel--parallel world fantasy book. Yes, it blends a lot of genres together. I'm still a bit confused about how it all fits together but an enjoyable read none-the-less.

doksodokkebi's review against another edition

Too slow 

fermqs's review against another edition

5.0

Talvez meu livro favorito do ano, é impossível explicar sobre o que é esse livro. Uma mistura de diversos gêneros diferentes, desde thriller de espionagem, passando por futuro distópico até alta fantasia, é um prazer enorme de ler. Existem 10 linhas narrativas (que podem ser lidas separadamente, mas eu recomendo ler tudo junto) que fazem dessa obra um trabalho grandioso e extremamente bem executado. Acompa principalmente a Rosie, uma menina que ajuda um professor em 1960 e acaba entrando em um mundo paralelo fantástico. Mundo o qual é baseado em uma ideia de livro que o professor sempre quis escrever, que é acessado por um portal misterioso em seu porão. Mas o livro é muito mais que isso; cada página, é uma nova descoberta, criando um mundo mais rico, mais complexo e muito intrigante. Os personagens não são tão tridimensionais como de outros livros dessa lista, mas isso não atrapalha. O mundo, a ideia e os acontecimentos são tão bem construídos que os personagens ficaram no assento do passageiro; eles não têm um arco de desenvolvimento (talvez a Rosie tenha), mas eles cumprem a função deles bem. 

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guyfantastic's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.0

hank's review against another edition

4.0

That took a while! Almost 2 months to read, part of that was because I was distracted by summer stuff, part of it was that the book wasn't super compelling. I think Arcadia needs to be read in a shorter time frame, I could never really get a grasp on what was going on and which characters were important until the very end. The story lines were also not particularly compelling except, strangely, the Anterwold one.

3.5 stars rounded up, it was a fairly new take on time travel and I suspect the book is better on the second reading, I just don't ever tend to do that. The complexity of the time lines is enormous which was partly fun and partly not. Rosie was the only character I found myself engaging with because of that.

Arcadia probably should have been a trilogy, there was a massive amount, stuffed into one book and I think it suffered because of it. Dystopia, Utopia and alternate history all crammed into one story and I really needed more to get them all fleshed out.

suzemo's review against another edition

2.0

I heard a friend talking about this and it sounded interesting so I thought I'd take a hit at it. I had to get it from the library 3 times because it was such a long slog to get through.

I get it, and I got the intertwining stories, and I got the concepts and I got the stuff, but at the end of the day? Meh. I guess it just didn't stick with me. I didn't even care what happened to the characters (other than wanting most of them to just die already), which is not a good sign.