Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
It's a shame to see talent wasted, 14 Aug 2006
So many things about this book promised a wonderful read: interesting futuristic ideas, an unusual writing style, finely detailed settings, wonderful descriptions and some quirky characters. Unfortunately, the parts failed to add up to a coherent and rewarding whole. The plot is incoherent, the characters inconsistent, the writing at some moments breathtaking and at other times self-indulgent. The book suffers from many of the flaws I see in the work of talented young writers in my post-graduate creative writing programme. They write a first draft, and because word processing makes it so easy to fill in the gaps and tidy up the plot, they think there's no reason to redraft. The very idea -- retyping every word they've written whilst constantly asking themselves if they could do better -- appals them, because they live in a culture that glorifies instant gratification. If their prose is flashy enough, as this author's seems to be, their efforts will be lauded. But what has been created is not a coherent and carefully crafted novel. Whilst reading it one does not have the feeling of trust that a careful writer bestows. The work is therefore ultimately unsatisfying, like eating a meal that consists of nothing but meringues.
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5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
It's a shame to see such talent wasted, 4 Aug 2006
So many things about this book promised a wonderful read: interesting futuristic ideas, an unusual writing style, finely detailed settings, wonderful descriptions and some quirky characters. Unfortunately, the parts failed to add up to a coherent and rewarding whole. The plot is incoherent, the characters inconsistent, the writing at some moments breathtaking and at other times self-indulgent. The book suffers from many of the flaws I see in the work of talented young writers in my post-graduate creative writing programme. They write a first draft, and because word processing makes it so easy to fill in the gaps and tidy up the plot, they think there's no reason to redraft. The very idea -- retyping every word they've written whilst constantly asking themselves if they could do better -- appals them, because they live in a culture that glorifies instant gratification. If their prose is flashy enough, as this author's seems to be, their efforts will be lauded. But what has been created is not a coherent and carefully crafted novel. Whilst reading it one does not have the feeling of trust that a careful writer bestows. The work is therefore ultimately unsatisfying, like eating a meal that consists of nothing but meringues.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Frustrating, 9 Mar 2008
I had high hopes of this book. In its favour, Robson explores the questions of individual identity in a world where artificial intelligences are in charge of both the ordinary world and of various pocket universes which can be easily accessed, very much in the tradition of Philip K. Dick. The plot concerns the struggle for dominance between two god-like entities, Theo and Jalaeka, but one that is brought down to the level of their human friends and lovers, particularly through researcher Greg Saxton and runaway schoolgirl Francine, in a pocket universe called Sankhara.
Unfortunately I really had to struggle to finish this. Robson's high-risk strategy of jumping between eight different first-person narrators does not really pay off; I often had to flick back to the start of each chapter to remind myself who was speaking. This lack of signposting in the narrative was matched by an equally frustrating lack of signposting for the context; it is all very well to start a book with little idea of how this world works, but it seemed to take a very long time before the picture of what was and was not possible in it emerged. I found this frustrating. Robson is a good writer, and there are lots of good ideas here, but they are not laid out clearly enough. For almost the first time I can remember, I found myself wishing that the book had been equipped with a glossary and dramatis personæ.
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