A review by mschlat
The Mirage by Matt Ruff
2.0
An intensely aggravating read.
Ruff sets up an alternate history where --- on 11/9/2001 --- the Tigris and Euphrates towers in Baghdad were taken down by Christian fundamentalists as a strike against the United Arab Republic. The United States does not exist, and in its place we find "tribal" entities and loosely defined states. Chapters are introduced by entries from the user-created and edited Library of Alexandria (standing in for Wikipedia). It's overwhelmingly clever, and while I got a frisson of discomfort and interest from reading about Lutheran terrorists, by the time Ruff mentions CSI:Damascus (about page 70), I was tired of the conceit.
My main problem is that all that world-establishing crowds out any emotional response. It's not until about one-third of the way through the book that we start to understand what makes our protagonists tick. That got me back into the book until about the two-thirds mark, when Ruff pauses the whole thing to do more world-explaining (again in an all too clever way).
There's some good stuff here, including some great scenes with an alternate Saddam Hussein realizing the place of power he could have. However, I wish Ruff had spent more time on character development and left much of the setting in the background.
Ruff sets up an alternate history where --- on 11/9/2001 --- the Tigris and Euphrates towers in Baghdad were taken down by Christian fundamentalists as a strike against the United Arab Republic. The United States does not exist, and in its place we find "tribal" entities and loosely defined states. Chapters are introduced by entries from the user-created and edited Library of Alexandria (standing in for Wikipedia). It's overwhelmingly clever, and while I got a frisson of discomfort and interest from reading about Lutheran terrorists, by the time Ruff mentions CSI:Damascus (about page 70), I was tired of the conceit.
My main problem is that all that world-establishing crowds out any emotional response. It's not until about one-third of the way through the book that we start to understand what makes our protagonists tick. That got me back into the book until about the two-thirds mark, when Ruff pauses the whole thing to do more world-explaining (again in an all too clever way).
There's some good stuff here, including some great scenes with an alternate Saddam Hussein realizing the place of power he could have. However, I wish Ruff had spent more time on character development and left much of the setting in the background.