Kate
This is a very enjoyable homage to a very talented SF writer, by many other talented SF writers. Each story was so different, yet all were very human (if you'll excuse my earth-centricity). Some of my favourites are Chicken Little by Cory Doctorow for its insight, On Safari by Mike Resnick for its humour, and I am very much looking forward to the finished novel Tales from the Spaceship Geoffrey by James Gunn from which 4 chapters were pulled for this anthology.
I first read this book when I was in that gray, everlastingly numb area after a breakup. The main character, Cleo Pira, was in the same place at the beginning of this novel, and Bakis's prose captured that lost feeling incredibly well.
I soon forgot about my own feelings as I was engrossed in the melancholy lives of the monster dogs, their magnificent and horrible creation and escape to modern-day (2008) New York City, and their attempt to make a life as creatures destined to be outsiders.
There is so much feeling in this book, much of it sad, but also accepting. There are twinges of sci-fi and medical horror - the descriptions of the creator of the monster dogs, Augustus Rank, his childhood and brilliantly single-minded and psychopathic devotion to his work, were perfectly chilling. I love stories about mad scientists and what comes of their mad work, and Bakis's novel fits in easily with Shelley's Frankenstein and Wells's Island of Doctor Moreau.
As much as I enjoyed the ideas behind many of these stories, I just couldn't get into them as much as I'd hoped to. Something about Heuler's writing style, or the direction her stories took, just turned me off. I didn't finish the book because the library ebook expired and I couldn't be bothered to take it out again.
so the only reason I lost interest is because my copy is a big ol' hardcover and I never wanted to lug it around with me. I'll get back to it I promise!
I read this book while I was sequestered on a jury and it was a really nice way to forget about the trial that I was stressed about. Nyle DiMarco has a great storytelling voice, and I think this book is a great intro to Deaf culture.
I'm not rating this book because I didn't finish it, and my disinterest won't make for a very accurate rating. I was excited for this one, and I'm sure that sometime in the future I'll pick it up and really love it because I usually love Rushdie's pretentious yet beautiful adult fairy tale style. But for some reason it's just not clicking with me right now so I'm putting it down!
I loved how dark and scary this graphic novel was, though I found the story a bit hard to follow. A common problem that I have is forgetting characters names so I wasn't exactly sure what was going on or who was who all the time, but I am interested to read more. The art style was great, and I loved the asides from the cat professor explaining the backstory to me!
OKAY oh my goodness I'm finally letting this one go.
I'm not going to give it any stars because I don't think it's fair. This is one that I feel like I can only fairly rate if I stuck it out to the end, but I did not.
So here's what I loved - everything about Bridger and sensayers and the set-sets and the social and technical and moral world-building. LOVED it. Like, I ate it up. Those were the moments I had to get off the bus or something and I walked around in the world with my nose in this book. The moments that I had to ask people to wait a sec because I was just in the middle of a section and just give me a few minutes, I'll be with you when the chapter is done.
What I didn't love - the politics. I found it SO BORING. Part of it was that there were a lot of names of people and groups and I couldn't keep them straight and just reading through wasn't helping me to make sense of anything. Part of it was the way that Mycroft was presenting it just jumbled things. Part of it was that I actually didn't care about the petty internal machinations of the political players. I'd hit a section about some politician or another calling Mycroft in to be his eyes and ears or ply him for information or what have you and my eyes would glaze over. I'd try to read through because I thought that maybe it would have an important bearing on something I found interesting later on but it wouldn't stick in my head. I started skimming until I saw Bridger or Carlyle again, then would be right into it, then I'd hit another political section and just completely lose it. I held on to this book for way longer than I should have because of how awesome I found some of it, and maybe in the future I'll be in a mood where I can get through the stuff I'm resistant to right now, but for now it's not worth it. I thought I could just skip the stuff I didn't like but that's not going to be very satisfying for me, so here I am putting this book down. Which I'm kind of devastated about! I'll probably try to come back to it later.
I really flew through this book, even though I wouldn't necessarily call it an easy read. There is a lot of pain, sexual assault and racism/classism, state-sanctioned murder and constant discrimination. There are some inconsistencies in the book and sometimes things are mentioned that don't go anywhere, but I liked reading it and I really liked Aster as a character.
Back in 2011 when I read this the first time, I guess it didn't really resonate with me too much.
Since then I must have been cultivating my serious love of body horror because this book is actually perfect for me. It's incredibly weird and real creepy and really just pretty horrifying. I can't really explain why I love body horror so much, and sometimes people don't understand it because I act squeamish when I see it on tv or in movies, but it's exactly that squeamish feeling that I love. It's tingly and shuddery and kind of hurts your own body by proxy but not actually dangerous so it's just exciting.
This book made me see spirals everywhere and hope that they don't drive me crazy. I'm wary now.