A review by elusivity
Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds
2.0
This novel tried my patience. It was a struggle to plough through these 600+ pages, with seemingly no payoff at the end to warrant reams and reams of not-particularly-active "action" and a plot twist that could be seen a thousand miles away.
Too much description, scenery-setting, exposition, people talking without purpose. Too many damned words that contributes little to the reader's understanding of the world, its history, etc. Ultimate fail: what should be background overwhelms the foreground.
And the HOKEY DIALOGUE! along the lines of "Ha ha, I am eeevil, this is my eevil plan, now whatcha gonna do about it?" "You won't get away with this!" "Oh but I will! Watch me!" Really?!
The characters, the characters. A loose collection of cardboard to hang dialogue on. They do not live, nor breathe, nor have any life of their own aside from the author's every manipulation.
And finally, I take issue with the moral stance encapsulated in the plot. If the question is, How much good must an evil man do to redeem himself? where was the "good" done to warrant that redemption?*
The author is attempting a complex untrustworthy-narrator story. The potential exists buried deep within, but this novel does not successfully convey the nuanced dissonance that raises red flags for readers to follow. Instead, it is clumsy; events are either melodramatically telegraphed or arose seemingly out of no where.
I give it TWO STARS for further delving into the Revelation Space world, and for being well-written at a sentence-by-sentence level, but needs much editing and plot-tightening to become a truly engaging novel.
SPOILER RANT
*Well, if the transformation is from sociopath with a Vision, to smaller-time weapons dealer who arguably killed more people and was even more sadistic to boot, to taking on another personality that is bent on a revenge killing... How has this man changed to warrant his continued life and the final chapters describing him in terms of the redeemed anti-hero?! So he changed from someone who would torture a subordinate to death for a well-intentioned mistake, to someone who would still kill and kill, but now occasionally has twinges of conscience. Wow... what transformations! So the elaborate human-hunting game in Chasm City is his attempt to "equalize the playing field" between Canopy & Mulch. What a humanitarian.
Too much description, scenery-setting, exposition, people talking without purpose. Too many damned words that contributes little to the reader's understanding of the world, its history, etc. Ultimate fail: what should be background overwhelms the foreground.
And the HOKEY DIALOGUE! along the lines of "Ha ha, I am eeevil, this is my eevil plan, now whatcha gonna do about it?" "You won't get away with this!" "Oh but I will! Watch me!" Really?!
The characters, the characters. A loose collection of cardboard to hang dialogue on. They do not live, nor breathe, nor have any life of their own aside from the author's every manipulation.
And finally, I take issue with the moral stance encapsulated in the plot. If the question is, How much good must an evil man do to redeem himself? where was the "good" done to warrant that redemption?*
The author is attempting a complex untrustworthy-narrator story. The potential exists buried deep within, but this novel does not successfully convey the nuanced dissonance that raises red flags for readers to follow. Instead, it is clumsy; events are either melodramatically telegraphed or arose seemingly out of no where.
I give it TWO STARS for further delving into the Revelation Space world, and for being well-written at a sentence-by-sentence level, but needs much editing and plot-tightening to become a truly engaging novel.
SPOILER RANT
*Well, if the transformation is from sociopath with a Vision, to smaller-time weapons dealer who arguably killed more people and was even more sadistic to boot, to taking on another personality that is bent on a revenge killing... How has this man changed to warrant his continued life and the final chapters describing him in terms of the redeemed anti-hero?! So he changed from someone who would torture a subordinate to death for a well-intentioned mistake, to someone who would still kill and kill, but now occasionally has twinges of conscience. Wow... what transformations! So the elaborate human-hunting game in Chasm City is his attempt to "equalize the playing field" between Canopy & Mulch. What a humanitarian.