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A review by kieralesley
The Fractal Prince by Hannu Rajaniemi
3.0
I was really, really enjoying this! Right up until say the last 40 pages. It lost me and it lost me hard. Rajaniemi has a brutal "show, don't tell" style and the conclusion here gave sketchy details at best. It left me feeling frustrated and dumb rather than satisfied. I didn't enjoy the feeling.
There's lots to like here, though. Mieli's character development is great, the worldbuilding on Earth is as fantastic as it was in the previous book on Mars, there's a lot of really fascinating stuff about minds and mnemonic devices and stories that is really, really beautifully crafted. The Sirr with their jinn and Seals and everything was amazing. I loved everything about that world. I loved getting a better grip on the Sobornost Founders and the zoku and the wider world all of this is playing out in. The scope of these books is enormous. The amount of concepts packed into such a slim novel is insane - this is not scifi for the faint-hearted!
Overall I liked this book, but I'm hesitant about finishing the series. I just think I'm never going to get my head around things enough to really appreciate or enjoy what's happening in these books. Again, it makes me feel dumb to admit it, but I constantly feel like I'm missing steps with these books and that compounds as the plot ties up. I don't know if I'm motivated enough by the story being woven here to experience that again...but I'll debrief with someone more across the world and what's happening before I write the series off entirely.
3 stars: liked it, but struggled.
There's lots to like here, though. Mieli's character development is great, the worldbuilding on Earth is as fantastic as it was in the previous book on Mars, there's a lot of really fascinating stuff about minds and mnemonic devices and stories that is really, really beautifully crafted. The Sirr with their jinn and Seals and everything was amazing. I loved everything about that world. I loved getting a better grip on the Sobornost Founders and the zoku and the wider world all of this is playing out in. The scope of these books is enormous. The amount of concepts packed into such a slim novel is insane - this is not scifi for the faint-hearted!
Overall I liked this book, but I'm hesitant about finishing the series. I just think I'm never going to get my head around things enough to really appreciate or enjoy what's happening in these books. Again, it makes me feel dumb to admit it, but I constantly feel like I'm missing steps with these books and that compounds as the plot ties up. I don't know if I'm motivated enough by the story being woven here to experience that again...but I'll debrief with someone more across the world and what's happening before I write the series off entirely.
3 stars: liked it, but struggled.