Alif the Unseen

Nope. I'm reading everything but this, so it's time to admit defeat. At half way I like precisely none of the characters and give a shit about even fewer.

Story: 6.5 / 10
Characters: 7
Setting: 8.5
Prose: 6.5

I learned a substantial amount about Islamic culture from this book. Compare this to a piece of literary fiction, which will predominantly focus on cultural exploration without a plot and you'll understand why Alif the Unseen is so unique.

Nevertheless, I had generally mixed feelings about the book. Very slow start, picking up only when the urban fantasy elements were introduced. Note also that this is a different type of fantasy novel, opposed to traditional Tolkien worlds, making it more interesting than most other books in this same genre. Not recommending it, but not warning others away from it either.

After just over 200 pages, it's time to throw in the towel. I had so much hope for this book. In short, Alif the Unseen is about a hacker named Alif who gets into trouble with the government. While on the run he receives an ancient copy of One Thousand and One Nights, and meets a real life Jinni. It's part quest, part love story, part retelling, part love story, part hot mess. I was really into the plotline, but I couldn't get behind the cast of characters. Most of it seemed rather predictable, and the other pieces just made little sense. I read a summary of the second half and am glad to be throwing in the towel. Most of it made me roll my eyes.

I'd be interested to see this made into a teen tv series. The rest of the book is a hard pass

Eh. This was fine. Probably more like 3.5, but I'm not feeling generous right now...

This book started out as a story about a young Middle Eastern computer geek with girl trouble, and ended with a battle between mythical beings going on in the sky while a political revolution takes place on the ground below. I enjoyed the story and appreciated the three dimensional characters who grew in maturity or revealed their value as the story developed.

A fun read, with some substance.

This was a weird melange of His Dark Materials and The Bartimaus Trilogy set in the Middle East. Really cool.

Really enjoyed this. Pretty solid story in its own right, and it's pretty rare for a book so steeped in Islam to come to my (or mainstream, really) attention. I'm glad it did. Not so many new (to me) frontiers left to discover these days.

Several times while reading, something struck me as strange, and I realized that it only seemed strange because of my lack of familiarity; recast in more familiar terms, most of it became totally normal, and I realized I needed to recalibrate.

The story involves a fair bit of computing; it isn't all practical, but it's plainly written by someone who understands what they're writing about, which is so rare in creative media.

I haven't read as much this year as I'd like, and it's partly because some of what I've read hasn't pulled my attention back to it, so that I wanted, when I wasn't reading, to go read. This did.

I picked this up because I'm enjoying Wilson's comic book writing so much, and I mistakenly thought this would be some sort of YA-ish novel (which it only sort of is). The setting (in an unnamed country with The State in control) was new to me in various ways, but with the all-too-close-to-home impending surveillance state as a central character. Alif is charming in various ways, but not the most easily likable character at first. Watching him understand the world and himself as he navigates a crisis is one of the pleasures of the book. It also seems like Wilson has done her homework regarding the basics of hacking and various technologies–at least enough to make the book work well around those facets of the story. She's got some magical realism going on, and a host of interesting characters surrounding Alif (two of his women compatriots are particularly well-written).

There are also some pretty dark sections of the book–there is torture, and Wilson doesn't shy away from presenting it to us in all of it's horrific glory. That section of the book changed the entire tone for me, just as Alif also has his worldview shifted. It's a well-done move on the writer's part.

I hope she has some more novels coming...

Alif the Unseen is something truly unique – an urban fantasy spin on djinns and the Arabian Nights from a Muslim author, set in the the modern Middle East/Arab world. It sits on the edge between the genres of urban fantasy and cyberpunk in a delightful way, with computer code invoking imagery of the worlds of djinn and fantastical creatures. Like good speculative fiction, Wilson uses the speculative elements to cast a light on aspects of “real life” in the modern world, namely surveillance and suppression of the populace as the true scourge of the Arab world, oppressive to both the religious and the secular.

In the praise column here is also Wilson's beautiful, nuanced, discussion of religion, belief and faith. She contrasts the beliefs of several characters who do and don't believe in religion and/or djinn to various degrees of literalism. This exploration is fascinating. Many of the ideas, such as how to believe in the fantastic are generalizable across religions. It also was fascinating as a discourse on Islam.

Usually, any truly unique book on my shelf gets four stars, and this is truly unique and well-done. However, there is a major drawback that I would feel remise if I didn't address, which is the female characters. I know that Wilson is much believed for her work on the Miss Marvel series, which I had not read. However, there is not a shred of evidence of feminism in this book. The female characters have no agency at all and exist largely to be sexualized/romanticized by the male characters who do have agency. No book needs to be perfect in every respect, but the extent to which female characters exist only for male gaze here is beyond just failing the Bechdel test and borders on disturbing.

Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson is a modern day fantasy/quasi-techno-“thriller” that is aimed for a young adult audience. One of the brilliant things about the book is the complexity of the overlapping layers - social, political, religious, modern day technology, and the fantasy elements of the jinn all overlap to create an interesting and unique setting that is simultaneously somewhat fantastical and completely believable.

While I found myself really enjoying the setting and the plot, the one thing that really let me down in this novel were the characters. The secondary characters in this story were great - they had fun personalities and often had surprising characteristics that made the story very enjoyable to read. They completely sold me on the world and the adventure. The main characters in the story, however, felt a little generic to me. I didn't completely dislike them, but they really didn't have any personality traits that made them feel unique or special. Their journey, behaviors, and reactions could be inserted into many different situations without having any affect on their personalities or outcomes.

Overall I have to say I liked this story, and I appreciate the way that it merged so many different elements to create a believable setting. I'm glad I read it, but I don't know that I found the plot and main characters compelling enough to really consider it one of my favorites. I would highly recommend it to someone in the young adult age category, or to anyone who really enjoys reading young adult novels, but if you are looking for a bit more complexity in your characters and plot, it might not be complex enough to hold your interest. Definitely worth the read for the setting and secondary characters though.

There's a lot to love in this book, and a lot to question. The author, G. Willow Wilson, is a pretty interesting figure herself who has written a book that deviates greatly from most of the modern fantasy I've read. For starters, she's drawing from Middle Eastern mythology, about which my knowledge was admittedly limited to Disney's Aladdin. Most books that are set in the Middle East today are too embroiled in the real world for me to enjoy them. They get preachy or righteous or judgmental and I can't help but see the SERIOUS SUBJECT the author wants me to agree with him about. Wilson however wields the fantasy element as well as Octavia Butler to talk about serious subjects but with a guise over them that makes the stories more open, flexible, and (for me at least) palatable. She even references this directly with how dictatorial governments censor the hell out of libraries, but generally leave pieces like the Chronicles of Narnia on the shelf because they aren't seeing through the fantastical layers. It's a clever in-joke in a wonderful novel

Two other things really stood out for me in this novel. One is the tendency of major action points to happen off stage. Dina and the convert's flight to the Empty Quarter, Vikram's marriage and death, the release of the Marid basically all the elements that a Hollywood company would jump on to make this a Blockbuster smash, happen as asides in Alif's story. I kind of wanted to know more about Vikram and the convert, how their relationship began and everything that happens in the story, but that would have drastically changed the novel itself. Also, I have a feeling I would have got bored with the two of them if they were actually given center stage for two long. If Wilson stays in this world, the convert's story is the next one I want to hear though. The decision to do this is courageous and makes it hard to predict and unique.

The other is the power of language and particularly names. You don't tell jinn your name, you don't tell the internet your name, and you define yourself both by the name you are given and the name you choose. Online handles and metaphors are at the heart of this theme, and of the major characters very few get real names, and those that do hardly use them. The only exception to this are Intisar and Dina, women who are behind literal masks instead of figurative ones. The convert never getting a name strikes me as genius as I know when I was close to the only white girl in a Japanese town, I was known as “The American” or “The ALT.” The convert herself reminds me a lot of how I felt living in a foreign land, the frustrations I had and the mistakes I made. Even without having the experience of visiting the Middle East, I connected deeply with her story. Of the male characters, everyone is referred to by their mask (Alif, NeeQuarter, the Sheikh, the Hand, even Vikram's name is questionable) and the sense of true identity is reserved really just for Dina. It's an interesting perspective, and a theme I've always enjoyed, and even if Alif's given name is pretty obvious long before the reveal, there's a nice symmetry to its appearance.

Alif the Unseen has much more to offer. It's a perspective on the Arab Spring written before the Arab Spring. It delves into the language of code and the power of social media and hacktivists. It is apologetically honest about living in pre-Arab Spring society, and it maintains a sense of fairness and humor in all of its depictions. It's not like any book I've ever read before, but I hope it's not the last time I find a treasure like this.

Computers, Politics, Fantasy. Brilliant story telling

I picked this book up based off rave reviews that I had seen for it lately. However, for me, it did not live up to the hype. I thought it kind of dragged at parts. I also found the descriptions of computer programming, using metaphors like ‘building a tower covered in jasmine,' to be an interesting idea...but one that did not make a lot of sense for me. I'm familiar with how programming works, and I just did not feel that the metaphors fit the art and science of computers. It's an interesting challenge, trying to write an exciting book where large paragraphs of the plot take place with the main character changing the world through coding, but the author's lyrical solution was off putting to me.

I also had trouble liking the protagonist, Alif, at all. He is terribly sexist. He point blank says to his companion, Dina, after she outsmarts him, “I almost forgot you were a girl for a moment!” I get that the author is trying to show that he grows up as the story progresses. However I just could not get over that he keeps a blood stained sheet, from taking the virginity of the girl he is infatuated with, and then when she breaks it off with him, he send her the sheet with a note saying “You might need this.” That was an unredeemable introduction to his character, and that poisoned the rest of his story. I don't really feel like he changes or becomes a better person, despite meeting djinn, being imprisoned, and accidentally becoming the figurehead for a revolution. He just wants to go home so he can date and marry his neighbor, and continue their conservative lifestyle.

His neighbor, Dina, however, is an amazing, intelligent, passionate and steadfast character. I only wish she had found a better partner than Alif. In fact, all of the peripheral characters are much more interesting and engaging than Alif.

Clearly a lot of people like this book, so give it a try. It definitely covers some interesting ideas, and I think that computers, programming, and technology in general should be woven through narratives in interesting ways more often. I just wasn't crazy about the way the author did it here.

Combining elements of mystic and hacker culture, this is one book that I would say is quite a rare treat. It paints an environment and culture that I am not so familiar with, and combines it with the computer culture that I'm interested in, to create a story that is refreshing and unique. Quite like nothing I've ever read. Ending seems a bit Hollywood-like, but I can live with that.

Executive Summary: A blend of fantasy, technology, politics, and religion that just worked for me. I really enjoyed this book.Full ReviewI seem to be a hot streak lately. I try not to give out 5 stars lightly. Based on good reads, I've given 5 stars to roughly 13% of the 221 books I've rated as of this writing. 18% of those have been given out this year. It's not exactly relevant to this review, but I'm an engineer and that sort of thing interests me.I forget where exactly I first heard about this book, but Sword and Laser did an interview with Ms. Wilson last year, and that moved this book up in my list. The paperback was released last month, so I've finally gotten around to reading it.I was expecting this book to be more cyberpunk than fantasy considering the main character is a hacker. After reading it, I wouldn't classify it as cyberpunk or even sci-fi. It is however a great book.People who know me well would probably tell you I'm not very political or religious. That doesn't mean I'm not interested in those things, but both can be very sensitive issues, and I tend not to discuss them. This book contains some of both, but I didn't feel like I was being preached to in any way.This book was being written prior the Arab Spring that occurred in Egypt. Ms. Wilson apparently saw this coming, and when no one seemed to want to listen to her talk about it, she was inspired to write a fictional story about it instead (based on an interview included in my book). She admits to having doubts that it might ever occur, but she hoped it could based on changes she was observing first hand.Alif is a young Muslim half Arab, half Indian(and therefore considered an outcast by the full Arabs apparently) hacker who lives in an nonspecific Middle East country. He is not particularly religious or political. He sells his computer skills to anyone who wants them: Communists, Fundamentalists, Dissidents, Smut Peddlers, etc. Anyone who needs to avoid being caught and arrested by a strict government censorship.Alif's world is suddenly turned upside down (thanks to a girl, go figure), discovers that the Jinn he's read about in books are real, and gets caught up in wild adventure where not only his life is at stake, but the lives of his friends, family and the country as a whole. Fans of [a:Patrick Rothfuss 108424 Patrick Rothfuss http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1351307341p2/108424.jpg] may enjoy the stories within the story. I'm not sure if they are original stories by Ms. Wilson herself, Middle Eastern folk tales, or some combination of both.I hadn't really planned to read this in one weekend, and I very nearly read it all in one day. I think if I were a faster reader, I easily would have. I just couldn't put it down. I highly recommend it.

I really enjoyed aspects of this book, but as a whole it didn't quite grab me and I found that I was really forcing myself to push forward instead of being lost in the story and characters. The parts dealing with mysticism and jinn were especially interesting, but Alif's central story and struggle just didn't do it for me.

As I type this, it has been two days since the draconian Cybercrime Law was passed in the Philippines. I say “draconian” rightfully, specifically where it concerns the concept of libel and the punishment thereof, which include time spent in prison and an exorbitant bail fee just because someone could take a tweet or a Facebook comment or a blog post out of context and have one arrested for “malicious intent.” Filipinos, as a rule, do not take to this sort of thing kindly, since we have had a long history of being colonized and oppressed, and so have reacted very badly to the passing of this law (which was done with unseemly haste). This attempt to control freedom of speech on the Internet, what many consider the ultimate platform for freedom of speech anywhere, has been met with so much condemnation that many of the Senators who let the law pass have now been forced to find ways to amend it, justifiably fearing that they will find themselves without a job when elections come around.

The question of controlling the Internet is nothing new, and has proven challenging and problematic in many ways, particularly for regimes and governments that like having a tight control over their citizenry. They are aware, as a lot of people are aware, of the power the Internet possesses when it comes to information and opinion: how it can be used (often for free) to create or crush support for one cause or another. Nowhere was this more visible than in the Arab Spring movement, in particular the events of Tahrir Square in Egypt back in the early months of 2011. Atrocities were recorded and then broadcast the world over via YouTube; photographs were taken and posted on Facebook; 140-character news updates went out via Twitter. The government tried to slow things down by shutting down the Internet, but that just made things worse until it went back online; by then it was too late for the government. While it's true that it wasn't the Internet alone that contributed to the revolution, it certainly gave it a very large boost by allowing people to freely share and discuss their ideas, and share them with the world.

Alif the Unseen is set in a very similar world: an unnamed emirate on the coast, with a stranglehold on freedom of speech and an Internet surveillance system that has, so far, kept the malcontents underground. That does not mean, though, that there aren't people who are trying to get around that, and one of them is Alif: half-South Asian, half-Arab, who spends most of his time helping fellow subversives get around the government's system. He doesn't have any particular political loyalties; he'll help anyone who has a bone to pick with the government. In the meantime, he's in a forbidden relationship with a noblewoman named Intisar. One day, Intisar is betrothed to someone else, and sends him a book called the Alf Yeom, along with a message telling him that she's pretty much breaking it off with him. The problem is, the Alf Yeom is no ordinary book, and it makes Alif and his friends a target for the man who will stop at nothing until he takes the Alf Yeom and turns it to his own nefarious purposes.

From that premise it's easy to think that Alif the Unseen is a techno-thriller in the same vein as Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon: hacker versus hacker, the Internet their own personal battlefield. Except that's not the case, because there's the element of the Alf Yeom, which isn't quite a normal book. At this point the reader, like Alif, stumbles across a world that exists right alongside ours, except it is one we deny on a regular basis. For the Alf Yeom is a book of tales, but one told by the jinn, and as such, they have a stake in this whole thing. This is where Alif the Unseen becomes a unique creature: a blend of techno-thriller and urban fantasy.

One thing that will immediately strike the reader is Alif himself. He starts out as a sad, sullen young man, and is not exactly the best example of his kind. It's easy to see that his obsession with Intisar is not the healthiest thing ever, and that it can only lead to heartbreak. But he does grow out of it eventually - especially after certain events in the second third of the novel force him to grow up. He is, however, rather predictable and colorless as a character unto himself. He doesn't have any notable, standout qualities, though as a foil for the reader he is extremely successful. He occupies a safe middle ground, which is rather unfortunate since I rather enjoy truly standout characters like Julia from Lev Grossman's The Magicians series, or Locke from Scott Lynch's Gentleman Bastards series - characters who are not only excellent foils for the reader, but also fun on their own.

Fortunately, the characters around Alif make for much better reading. Intisar isn't all that interesting, but Dina, Alif's neighbor, is. She's got lots of steel in her spine and is very intelligent, despite being very traditional in the practice of her religion - and in many ways, it is this very firm grounding in her belief that she draws much of her personal strength. She reminds me a lot of Oe Kanade from the manga/anime Chihayafuru, who is extremely traditional and yet finds strength in those traditions. Dina shows that, contrary to Westerners' sweeping generalization that Islam is oppressive towards women, such oppression is usually the fault of the men enforcing the religion, and not the religion itself, which most women find reassuring and even well-suited for protecting themselves from the unwanted attention of men.

Sheikh Bilal is also another interesting character, and equally important in shattering generalizations and assumptions a Western reader may have regarding Islam. Bilal is the imam of the oldest mosque in the City, and presents an incredible level of wisdom and tolerance that he also attributes to the practice of his faith. He and Alif, and later on he and Vikram the Vampire, have some very fascinating conversations that reveal the wisdom of Islam - wisdom that most people tend to overlook entirely because of the bad press Islam has received in the Western world thanks to extremists. Particularly memorable is Bilal's discussion regarding the nature of the Quran - indeed, of the written word and its relationship to reality - that is difficult to summarize in a few words, but which any reader and lover of books will find incredibly fascinating.

In fact, it is these philosophical conversations, scattered at various points throughout the novel, that are the most enjoyable part about this whole book - on top of the thrilling plot, of course, because this novel as got a pretty rip-roaring storyline going for it. The conversations, however, reveal insight into the practice of Islam and its views on literature as a whole. Islam has a great deal of respect for books, mostly because it respects the permanence of the written word - and the power the written word has to give form to that which is otherwise ethereal and ephemeral. Many of the conversations and a significant amount of the plot revolve around the dichotomies of the ephemerality of thought and the solidity of written language, of the unchanging Word versus the shifting interpretations of it thereof. This is very much like Islam's relationship with the Quran: the Word is unchanging, but its interpretations, both across space and over time, shift like mirages in the desert.

Where does cryptography come into this? Much of cryptography is about symbols and symbolized: code and language are the same in that they make use of symbols to pull otherwise-ephemeral thought and ideas out into the solid reality of the world. When one throws computers into the mix, and the Internet too, well, things get even more complicated because in that one moment one gains a glimpse into the modern crypto-wars currently being fought in cyberspace. Through Alif, the philosophical discussions scattered throughout the book find their practical application in the real world, as Alif uses the Alf Yeom to create something monstrous - and something magnificent, too.

All of this is well and good of course (not least Dina, who is an exceedingly lovable female character, and the ideas scattered throughout the book), but I find the novel isn't quite as meaty as I would have liked it. It moves along at a fast-enough clip, and the characters are interesting enough to hold my attention, but I can't help but think that this novel was written for a somewhat-younger audience than myself. it has depth, yes, but it's not quite deep enough for me. To be sure, I'm glad that it's not as brain-melting as Neal Stephenson's creations, but I do wish it was just a bit more layered, a bit more nuanced, than what it is.

Overall, Alif the Unseen is an enjoyable novel: Alif might not be the most intriguing character, but everybody else is, and the reader can opt to focus more on them than on Alif. There are also some rich ideas embedded throughout the text, brought up by the characters themselves in conversation, and it is these gems that make this novel worth reading in the first place. The only problem is that the novel itself doesn't have quite as much depth as I hoped it would have; it goes by a bit too quickly, and while it does challenge one's thinking, it went down a little too easily for my taste. I think it would be a pretty satisfying read for a teenager, though - certainly it's miles and miles better than anything available on the YA shelves nowadays, barring a very few select reads.