So, I don’t know anything about Smith. I really liked the voice and diction chosen, imbuing the recounting of her year with a phantasmagorical quality. Some of it is substantively compelling, other times it gets by on the lyrical musicality and imagery. Paired with Polaroids in the folds, I found it a quick and worthwhile read, but I can’t say it ever exceeded the expectations established from the outset. Consistency is nothing to sneeze at, though.

Interesting structure and while technically well crafted, I simply did not find a single thing to care about. More often the characters having boring fixations, typically sexual, and I know nothing about poetry. To me, at 30% or so in, it was a bunch of characters peacocking in the way that would make you leave the party they are at for a much better time, which is anywhere else.

I suspect this would be completely insufferable to some people but it so happens the self indulgent miasma is so granular in the thought process of our protagonist here, I couldn’t help but admire an original No plot, heavy symbolism, no character driving, sad boy moving through the world. DMM rather than DWM (damaged/depressed woman moving), perhaps?

But what I really liked about this, which put it above the three stars, is how it deftly illustrates the most elided human experience, or certainly obfuscated: the precision and craft the mind puts into building its prison of thought. We swing wildly, code switching between groups, adjusting our patterns and ideologies to better fit the social situation. That’s what kind of animal we are. A byproduct of our socialization always seems to be the construction of unhappiness and self-flagellation. The most intuitive thing any human ever builds is brick-by-brick motivated thinking straight into unhappiness of some kind. Some Psychologists say getting what you want even fucks you up.

Still, the more complex ending and the ability for the reader to subjectivity throw themselves onto the pages and take away probably very different experiences is admirable craft. Even if it will absolutely bother some readers. I for one love me a good interior novel.

Squarely upmarket, this book ruminates on a vast number of challenges with both colonizing mars and forming a new kind of society—once aspiring to be utopian, as much as one can be—as well as the practical, physical limitations of such a place and how that directly effects change; both consciously and otherwise.

A group of martians have lived on earth for a time during an armistice and now return home to the colony. There’s a cross pollination effect and the frame with which to present the colony as brand new to the reader, while juxtaposing it with people from, or interact with (like an envoy or ambassador, etc.), earth. It is a large, ensemble cast that we jump around to, with, more-or-less one “main” protagonist. With another one most often returned to.

Like all sci-fi novels I’ve consumed there are wars between earth, which maintains its free market capitalism thinking, and mars. But why I specifically mention it being upmarket is that this book is not at all concerned with giving (western) sci-fi readers genre tropes. There’s no plot heavy match to the final conflict. It’s not concerned with the granularity of time and charting A to B. It doesn’t hold your hand, basically. As pretty much all SFF fans have been completely conditioned for now. It’s also standalone, as far as I know. So this is not commercial fiction.

That’s what makes it so good. This is what people refer to as an idea book. And while not everything is long term strictly “pertinent”, mostly because it isn’t plot heavy, usually it’s digressions are a part of world building in bite-sized chunks, or an axis with which to further flesh out a characters ideology or philosophy, which is a proxy for the larger themes. It’s not east versus west ideologue battles, it’s more about finding something human in the perspectives of everyone, including your enemies. Because when you vilify an entire way of thinking you will, inevitably, hamstring your own thinking. And in long-term life and death of something like a colony, that’s a death sentence.

There are asides on plenty of scientific stuff I didn’t remotely know about and I found fascinating. The focus on humanity needing to look to larger problems than tribalistic tendencies and critically examine development is always good. It’s what the genre is there for, in part. And I like heavily interiority in my books. Lots of people mention it’s more literary and I mostly agree with that—except that the prose, while better than commercial fiction, are, again, upmarket. Literary would give those readers a false impression as well. It’s somewhere in the middle.

There is a resolution to a conflict and the ending felt right for the narrative. Overall, I liked it a lot. Defied my expectations in a pleasant way. It is certainly slow, because it floats from person to person. There is some tension, but because the expectations are defied early, you don’t really know how the book will go about resolving it. I was perfectly happy to float along and just find out more interesting philosophy and science. It’s not going to be for everyone, but it is my kind of thing.

Had the prose work been literary it would have been 5 stars. People describe as lyrical and I didn’t really find that. It’s pretty contemporary and dynamic, but there’s no a high degree of specificity or high diction, or a concern for musicality to the degree you’d see in literary fiction. I think it’s just been a while since Sanderson-esk, sterile, workmanlike prose have been seen in the SFF genre.

A circuitous, yet rigid structure make this book novel, unconventional, and absolutely riveting. It helps that the prose absolutely stunning. In a nested, Russian Doll type structure (because I just finished watching that show), we get the setup for the book in the longest section of it: the beginning.

Every chapter in the start is from a different person giving details they know about the murder and circumstances only they are privy to, and believe to be true. Then each part jumps around in time and slowly reveals details, sometimes doubling back to help the reader out. Because it’s so intricate this is really needed too. When the first part summary was given by a character (seamlessly) I was thanking the lord.

What I loved about this is the adherence to the structure, which must have been very difficult to write. In addition to the word/page count restrictions, every character is mapped out astrologically from birth chart and then the astrology pertinent to the location, time, and year are factored into the character design and plot. Which means they trade characteristics as they “bump” into one another; influence each other in ways they’re often unaware of. And it means, if you pay attention and know astrology, you’re clued in on a meta level what will happen, as every chapter has a brief summary and the relevant astrological information, and the reference for each character is in the preface glossary for their own information.

Genius in of itself to be transparent with regards to astrology to the plotting of a book and the creation of characters. Readers usually want to not see the seams or the buttressing and the fiction, or the lies, to be as believable or “realistic” as possible. Yet this eschews that completely. We know the writing of this is structured and designed and practiced. Some reviewers, and people in general I know, don’t like the idea of “fate” because it means there is no free will. But that is simplistic and wrong, because fate IS a man made construction, should it exist.

The predestination occurs because we make those decisions. It doesn’t mean we don’t have a choice, it follows our act and the larger pattern emerges. This actually shows, if anything, that within the fiction characters can _break_ their fate. The exchange of qualities and attributes charts a new path. The importance is in people finding one another and breaking all manner of chains; seen or unseen, forged by man or otherwise.

Needless to say, conventional readers will hate this with a passion, I think. It is not particularly concerned with conveying an empirical truth to the reader regarding what happens. You can get the truth of some events, from a certain point of view. Others you have to infer. Still others, you must take on blind faith. Or, at least, take the blind faith of a character as true, because it is why they do The Thing that they do. Intrinsic to their own motivations and actions is the same faith the readers put in a construction like this novel. Like always, when form meets function I glow with joy for the thing, as I do this. And unconventional too. So much to admire about this.

For those that say it’s not concerned with character, I laugh! The only thing that matters in this entire book is the characters. They do exchange qualities and, in the end, it is only about souls that come together.

This is the story of a family on a road trip that enables both parents of two kids, a young boy and girl, to peruse their passion. One, the migrant/refugee crisis and the effects specifically for children. The other, a research project on the last Apache tribe. As the family travels they have rationed themselves boxes of things to consume along the trip, which are wonderfully created in the book. Sometimes the fiction consumed bleeds into the story. In tandem is the larger story about families being torn apart, with few having positive outcomes.

The prose are great, structure fantastic. Intertextuality from other texts referenced in the back peppered throughout. Polaroids (in my copy, colour) help situate the reader. Style changed within section, as appropriate to situation and character. My absolute favourite being the young girls onomatopoeia chapter. The Echo chapter presenting as wells of text. Absolutely incredible. Goes on the all-time-favourite shelf I have on here.

For 3/4 of this it was firmly 4 star territory, but the ending is actually incredible—even more so when you listen to the audiobook. There is audioscapes the mother takes that are actually present in the audiobook, and each person has a cast member narrating, which is especially powerful in later chapters. It’s the first book I’ve consumed where it felt like getting the full experience was reading it with the audiobook, and in the end I loved it so much I bought the audiobook as well.

I will say, there’s some stuff that feels esoteric to me, a Canadian, and because I read it, thankfully! with an American, she explained some of the stuff the author was discussing and alluding to (thank you, Courtney!).

Structurally, there’s four different kinds of chapters:
-context, which is what it sounds like, worldbuilding provided through ads and conversations overheard or smells, sights, sounds. Continuity is the actual plot, alternating between two viewpoints.
-the happening world
This seems like mostly informational context, just as it sounds, stuff that’s happening in the world
-tracking with closeups
Basically side character stories unfolding

Taken together the compartmentalizations worked well and seamlessly for me. This wasn’t novel to me so it wasn’t confusing as it was for others, and I have no complaints. I think I prefer worldbuilding built into the prose rather than this arrangement, but as a proto-cyberpunk work, it feels very ahead of it’s time and fascinating.

The actual plot was a bit convoluted. It’s more feminist and inclusive than I expected by far, ironically less fetishistic of minorities than the prime cyberpunk works, really. It does a great job showing the moral and ethical value of a citizenry to not allow itself to mollified. It’s very punk in it’s values and interweaves multiple kinds of espionage with rise of the corporate America. It’s commendable that it’s so accurate in its predictions.

However, speculation before contemporary times is not something I put much value in. What do I benefit now from nodding along now seeing how he was right or wrong? The craft is what matters, and the worldbuilding isn’t totally convincing despite the predictive qualities it is imbued with. Street vernacular is terrible. Dialogue is uneven. Benefits of hindsight make some things ludicrous, such as overpopulation issue solutions and what not—even if the feeling and malaise is captured very well.

It’s sometimes quite plodding, but the prose is more than strong enough to propel me, despite, as mentioned, some wildly bad dialogue at times. We might be beyond its relevance in many ways. Speculative fiction now obviously is more in tune with things and the style is better. It’s a book for older generations (and that’s fine).

This almost was a four star read but the problem is that it is so ambitious in its structure as well as the overall message, worldbuilding, and speculation… that it just succeeds and does not exceed the expectations it sets for the reader

An absolutely brilliant exercise in obfuscation reminiscent of Nobakov. Mona is basically a character that, were she a man—and she has, I’m sure intentionally, all of the hallmarks of that classic male author that is continually venerated for toxic qualities—would absolutely be more acceptable and relatable. Which is why she is a woman. Absolutely everything about her is made to provoke a negative reaction from the reader, when really it’s just the inclusion of the qualities people would attribute a person as a “ real character” in reality.

There’s an unwillingness to dwell to much or too deeply in the personal. A number of vices on an endless chain of self medicating and maneuvering. But she’s also incredibly intelligent and is an active participant in the thing she hates most: the literary “scene” as it has now become. Because there’s absolutely an elephant in the room: America. Never really acknowledged, but always present, as she rails against ideas orbiting what we’d call identity politics.

I don’t think Americans realize just how much of their culture they export. As a Canadian it is just constant. We see more news about America than Canada on social media now. They’re The Show, and that’s completely intentional. Some literature interrogate aspects of this, most self evident in the onslaught of death of the American dream narratives. Where immigrants buy into the idea of America only to enter the churn. The literary scene is no different. It’s not immune to internalizing culture purportedly to be avant garde and progressive, but is merely the newest exercise in exclusion and policing the culture of literally every single other country.

Mona is the anthesis of this even as she plays into it out of necessity. The choices are to be in the game, hustling and engaging in performativism… or not published not known not eating. Simultaneously, the self medicating is in tandem with the social critique that I felt was on point and effective satire. Sure, it offends western culture. But it ought to. We have little to no control over our own narratives with social media and the rules of American civility fetishism and the way in which The Conversation must take place.

It all comes to a head in a beautiful confluence of themes and notions bombarding the reader while it effectively points out that we generally all spend our time in a performative dance, completely, willfully, subscribed to Missing The Point.

Sterling is assaulted for no other reason than the perception of his being queer and after defending himself is then charged by the people for doing so. Anchored in this concrete happening, the world diverges for Sterling, however, as the absurdity of the situation and the “rules” imposed by society are exposed for the nonsense and pure, single-serving cruelty they are.

Rather than a fist fight, it’s a bull fight—Sterling the bull. Gouged at and assailed ritualistically like all queer and black men. The veneer of the spectacle being all that’s needed for people who want to murder to get away with it. Instead, the absurdity splashed with surrealism steeped in queer readings of key historical art and presentations because the method with which to circumnavigate systemic racism and violence.

What actually “happens” stops becoming grounded in the concrete details juxtaposed with absurd elements and transitions into metaphorical and allegorical Justice and alternate perceptions.

And here’s the thing: it’s also really, really funny too, somehow. Eschewing the moments of societal gravitas and inserting nonchalance makes for some wildly comical granular humour even as the satirical meta elements do their work throughout. I think it was far more clever when it was projecting this different reality into what was unfolding, staying with concrete details, than when it veers into more wild territory. Yet… it’s also able to communicate larger elements more effectively as the queer interpretation becomes unfollowable (at least for me).

At what what point do we know the “real” outcome, and does that actually matter? Are both things true? To Sterling, the interiority is a necessary life preserver that allows for a modicum of (inventive) agency constantly and consistently denied. It reclaims so much. I think knowing what was rooted in the physical for the other characters—who do not have the full benefit of Sterlings queer world—would have made this a more impactful story. But I also freely admit that in the last couple chapters the fiction may have been rooted in both UK history and the queer readings (listed in the back of the book) that I simply did not fully understand it.

Either way, I had a hell of a time and can see myself reading this again.

Similar to A Visit From the Goon Squad, and tying in with some of the characters from that novel, short stories interweave in a primarily near-futuristic world (a fairly wide gap from 90s to 30+ years in our current future) in which people can upload their consciousness, literalizing, with technology, the idea of a collective, or general intellect unit.

“Authenticity” in relation to such a technology is set up with the first couple stories, but then—like just about everything else—it becomes muddled, in favour instead of introducing a multitude of characters for a more complex plotting in how they interrelate and come together.

There is also some unconventional formatting occurring, as in the prequel. A chapter of two column, second-person thoughts from Lulu. Cyberneticly enhanced, citizen spy, she disassociates from herself as she attempts a mission. But the format doesn’t make that much sense under scrutiny. Nor does another chapter with algebra, only because it lacks detail to explain the significance. But worst of all (for me), was the networking email chain. Characters demonstrate their superficial and transactory natures as they attempt to get what they want. But the writing isn’t engaging at all. It’s boring on the page and far overlong in its point.

What I did like about it was the reexamination of Lulu as a whole, but it fumbles her overall story as she becomes no more realized and, in fact, only contextualized enough to become the embodiment of trauma. A similar to all the problems, which Goon Squad lacked: characterization, empathy and dignity in depictions, and a sense of time and place with the specificity embedded in the diction chosen. It’s not lost completely. One chapter, twin girls in a cuckoo narrative recounting their childhood with Lou from Goon Squad, and their mother, it exceptional. A perfect chapter, for me. This, by contrast, made the other chapters even worse, because she demonstrably can, and did not, exercise those often revelatory-like skills. Second best is a chapter focusing on Sasha’s son, Lincoln, the best story of the Goon Squad. But here we visit him in later life in a segregated working environment, essentially—atypical and typical workers in tech. While it mostly works, it does actually manage to not acknowledge the breadth of experience atypical thinkers have, lumping then altogether in broad ways. It feels a bit unintentionally cruel, I’m afraid.

That’s a through line when contrasting Goon Squad to Candy House: A lack of empathy toward the characters. It feels like a very large counterpoint, Tonally. All the white space; the interesting questions placed there previously, has more-or-less been coloured in. Sasha in later life. Everyone in later life, really. Music and connection to Sasha, one way or another, in Goon Squad brought them all together and had healing properties. This is pessimistic. There’s no specificity to the lens applied to them. The broad picture is the context, and it has people at their worst, accentuated by the technology… if Egan decides to have the tech make a presence in the chapter at all. More likely than not, it’s a plot point that makes the bringing together of them all a feat.

But it doesn’t actually manage to say anything that well. The primary success is the plotting, at the expense of developing an attachment to most all of them, and at expense, I think, of the actual themes it purports, outright states, to be About. It’s quite gauzy, in the end.