All the Birds in the Sky

Maybe I was just in the mood for something like this, but I really, really enjoyed it! The mix of fantasy and science fiction worked really well. For a book about magic, time machines, space travel, AI computers and talking animals, it was all very down to earth and I really enjoyed that about this book. For all the worldwide implications of what was going on, there was still just these two characters lives intertwining and each one trying to figure out life and their place in it and with each other. It never fell into the mushiness that it easily could have when the characters were young, instead dealing with a friendship that had lumps and bumps along the way...a whole lot of awkwardness, hurt feelings and uncertainty made it all very real despite the fictional things happening around them. As adults things changed and seeing all the pieces come together in the end and between the two characters was interesting and exciting. The last half of the book I read all in one sitting, because I just couldn't put it down. The moral dilemmas that are put forth give food for thought without being preachy, which was also another aspect I enjoyed. Overall I really liked it and would definitely recommend it!

Every year, I hit a book that I really struggle to review and as a result, my reviews taper off. It's still early, but I'm pretty sure that All the Birds in the Sky is that book for 2017. To quote a friend, it's just really less than the sum of its parts, and that makes it really hard to discuss.

The first part was truly brilliant: a boy builds a two second time machine (only forwards, not backwards, of course) and a girl discovers that she can talk to birds and together they fight crime commiserate about being stuck in the wrong genre. In this part, the magical elements are so small, and brought into contrast with larger than life reality – super strict parents, super out-of-touch teachers, a guidance counselor/assassin – and together it's just really a special conversation about what it is that we're discussing when we write and read and reread coming of age teen magician books. I loved that they weren't like each other, but they clung to each other because neither of them was like anyone else. In a lot of key ways, it reminded me of my own relationship with my own best friend.

I liked the decision to skip over both of them coming into their own and go right to them as independent young adults. I thought it was brave to leave out any details of the Special Secret School for Witches. The tone of the next part lost some of the contrast of small magic/big life/quirky offshoots that are funny but not overpowering, but it was still riding on the strength of the beginning. Some of the ideas introduced were really clever (like the guy who turns into nature once he leaves his bookshop) and others fell a little flat for me (like the way witches were totally obsessed with not becoming too arrogant), but overall, I really liked the central tension between saving the world and saving humanity and found that compelling.

Then, holy non-sequitur, Batman! We enter a massive time jump, to stop one month in to have 1.5 pages of Patricia and Lawrence having sex, their social falling out and Lawrence's girlfriend both having been erased during the time jump. But no sooner do we turn the page, then there's another several months of time jump. If you have to stop your time jump in the middle to show your readers coitus, you're doing something wrong. But I probably should have just walked away, because after this, I felt that the characterization completely fell apart and a lot of the storytelling hinged on deus ex machinae and false dilemmas.

So, strong start, I'd like to see Anders' next work, but I probably won't reread this; at least not all of the way through.

I selected this book because I found it on a 2016 year-end “best of list.” While I enjoyed it, I don't think it earns a “best of” for my library. The characters - Patricia (the magic-based woman) and Laurence (the science-focused man) are compelling and likable. Yet, I think it would be a far more interesting novel if the somewhat stereotypical gender roles were flipped - he as the witch (warlock?) and she as the scientific genius. Regardless, the plot is engaging, but I'd have liked a more brisk pacing to the story. It kept my interest throughout, but I wouldn't call it a page turner. And the narrative seemed odd in places, e.g. something significant to the plot would be described in just a sentence which felt out of the flow of the story. In the end, I'm glad I read it, but I don't think it lives up to the hype of a “best of designation” nor the ecstatic praise given by the reviewers quoted on the flap and back of the book.

My rating: 3.8/5

This is an interesting and original story that falls into both the fantasy and science fiction genres, which is a bit unusual. Set mostly in the San Fransisco area, this book has a little bit of everything - geeky references, awkward teenage angst and “coming of age” story, futuristic tech references, magic (even with a wizarding school) and just a touch of romance. Whew, that's a lot, especially for what feels like a pretty short book.

A few things to note (spoilers!):
1. This book has that “good feel.” I'm not sure how else to describe it, but you probably know what I mean. It is fun to read and you like the characters. And you want the characters and world to keep on going so you're sad when it comes to an end.

2. Although a lot of books in this genre are good YA books, I don't think this is one of them. There's too much sex in it and it's handled pretty flippantly. If that fits with your morals and you're OK with your teenager reading that, so be it. But be informed. Also, it's generally darker.

3. Not a real happy ending. In fact, it's abrupt. Like the manuscript deadline hit and there was an all-nighter to get it finished.

Pros:
• Interesting characters where you get to see real character growth and that growth actually makes sense.
• Extremely interesting events and plot topic(s)
• Much better than average world-building (like I said, it's a comfortable & fun place to be while you're reading it)

Cons:
• The crux of the book is that both the tech side and magic side are worried that a great ecological disaster is coming. But this is just “assumed” to be the case without bringing the reader into this “understanding” through plot-building. It makes it feel like a hollow threat.
• There are a couple of “big battles” that are very momentous but essentially glossed over.
• The book essentially “builds” all the way to the end and then when you actually get there it ends pretty abruptly (as previously mentioned).

Overall, I enjoyed All the Birds in the Sky. But I think it would have been better as a 2 or 3 part series (300ish pages each).

Also, I “read” this as an audible unabridged audiobook. The narrator did a fantastic job bringing the book to life.

Magic vs Technology what's not to like?

An enjoyable tale of an enduring friendship (with a few ups and downs) between two misfits, set right on the border between fantasy and science fiction. The only real flaw is that for all the catastrophe towards the end, there's little real sense of danger for the lead characters. But that's okay, what it lacks in drama it makes up for in charm.

All the Birds in the Sky is an extraordinarily readable, compelling, memorable story. Right now, it's one of my favorite 2016 releases.

Full Review: http://www.fantasybookcafe.com/2016/09/review-of-all-the-birds-in-the-sky-by-charlie-jane-anders/

A wonderful tale of two friends, science and nature, and personal and interpersonal relationships. I loved the unique blend of fantasy and science fiction and how easy it was to feel a connection with the characters.

I felt like it was very complicated with characters and I lost interest throughout the second half just waiting for the plot to pick back up again. It wasn't very gripping and there were lots of lulls when new people were introduced and choppy backstories were being told.

I enjoyed this book. It was a bit slow starting but gets more complicated and interesting from the middle to the end.

Oh, meh.

This one wasn't for me. I blame preconceptions. I went into this expecting a story about a witch and a scientist vying against each other against a backdrop of the end of the world. Instead....this felt like a fragment-y bunch of novel ideas jammed into a larger theme that was a bit unclear. Are we saving the world because humans are the most important part of the world or are we saving the world? Life is only meaningful if you find your soulmate?

Here's what happened to me. I started this with big hopes because I had read Anders's short fiction and really loved it. For about the first 100 pages I was hooked. And then, something changed and the book seemed to go nowhere. For about 100 pages it kind of just flops around and, maybe, grows the characters in a stew of hipsterness. Truth: I struggled, counting pages and timing myself to read chapters (usually the kiss of death for a book in my world). I put it down and read a few other books.

But, I really cared about the tree and the birds. I shit you not, that is why I picked the book back up and finished it. And it hurt. Because I no longer cared about Lawrence, Patricia, any other scientist or any other witch or wizard. I'm still a little shuddery about Roberta. I got through it .

I don't like to “get through” books. I think there was fragments of a really great book in here. I think it was buried under clever bullshit and too much of the storyline is given over to the will/ they wont they crap I expect to find in romance novels. And maybe it's me. I was expecting Night Circus and got something much less put together.

Executive Summary: I found this book incredibly hard to read at times, yet somehow hard to put down at the same time. I tore through it in only a few days (fast for me) and I'm still not sure how I feel about it. 3.25 Stars. Maybe 3.5?Full ReviewI was familiar with Charlie Jane Anders from i09. I knew she had a book coming out this year, but I wasn't really planning to read it. I can't say why, probably because I already have so many other books I want to read.I was interested to see how this book would turn out. The answer for me was largely depressing. I spent a few years reading dark fantasy, before burning out on it. This isn't really in the same category, but it's definitely not what I'd consider a fun book.This seems to be a tale of two halves. I seem to have a few friends who like me found the first half of this book incredibly difficult to read through, and not very enjoyable, but found the second half better. Then there are others who seemed to love the first half and not the second. It goes to show you how books often speak differently to people.Laurence and Patricia were interesting characters, but hard to like at times. I was sympathetic to their horrible upbringing, but their actions often left me confused. They often seemed to make matters worse. Maybe it's because while I had my issues growing up, it was nothing like Ms. Anders subjects them too. I really feel bad for anyone who has a childhood remotely like theirs, and consider myself lucky that I didn't.Normally a book I read this fast would be an easy 5 star rating for me, but I found myself so conflicted for much of the story. I very much liked the idea of mixing magic and engineering. That's right in my wheelhouse. I would categorize this book as pure fantasy in a modern (or near future) setting though. The engineer may be based on sound principles (I can't speak to that myself), but you won't get much explanation about what Laurence and his friends are doing. I think that's for the best though. There is enough going on here without mixing hard sci-fi in too.I liked this book. I didn't love it. I really don't enjoy depressing stories, and I found this far more depressing than something like [b:The Magicians 6101718 The Magicians (The Magicians, #1) Lev Grossman https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1313772941s/6101718.jpg 6278977], which is pretty up there too. I think if the first part of the story had been a lot less cringe inducing for me it would have been a solid 4 for me.I enjoyed the ending, though it felt a bit rushed. I would have liked more time spent on the “big reveal” rather than just the final few chapters. I saw part of it coming, but I think the ending might have been stronger if it was revealed a bit earlier on.Overall I think this is one of those books where people may enjoy one half more than the other. If like me you don't enjoy the first part, you might enjoy the second half better. I'm glad this was chosen for the March Sword & Laser because I probably wouldn't have read it otherwise. I will definitely pay more attention if Ms. Anders releases another book.

Delightful.

This book is absolutely charming. I think that's the best adjective I can find to describe it. Written by Charlie Jane Anders of io9 fame, it reads with the speed and snark of an io9 article, but it also has a rich sense of both the fantasy and science fiction vault of tropes. Anders plays with these tropes, using them and suberting them to support what is essentially a Romeo & Juliet story if Romeo & Juliet both really loved their families and thought about the consequences of their rash actions and understood that being 13 is really not a time to make lifelong committments.

Basically, it's everything I love.

If I had to make a criticism, it would be that some of the pop culture references feel a little forced and stale already, and given that this book is set in the future, they just don't seem to make a lot of sense and forced me out of the story. It was, however, very easy to slip right back in to Patricia and Laurence's bizarre collision of worldviews, methodologies, and circles of allies. Anders weaves in a unique magic system that draws from folklore around the world as wel as a selection of near future technologies, all of which I want, making the bits between action scenes just as entertaining as the pivotal moments.

It's funny, sweet, heartbreaking, and thoughtful. A wonderful choice for fans of modern speculative fiction.

This book follows two friends starting in their childhoods, Patricia who has one foot in the world of magic, and Lawrence who has a genius for science and invention. The two, seperately and together face ever greater challenges, eventually a threat to the world itself.

I loved the book. The only negative was that I felt that Ms Anders was too good a writer.

I'll explain: Each section of the novel is written in a different style, one that is perfect for the age of the characters, so we see Patricia's early childhood in a fairy tale style of writing, her schooling in a YA style etc.

The problem is that it is done so well I sort of feel cheated, like I was given one bite of a delicious meal, then had it whisked away. Each section was SO GOOD I wanted more!

I would have been delighted to read an entire novel of little Patricia's adventures with the woodland animals (always trying to get home for bedtime!). Then an entire novel of a young witch's trials with her hyper-nerd buddy Lawrence as they amusingly avoid the plotting of the evil guidance councilor in Middle School...and so on.

Seriously - I would read that.

I loved the ending (no spoilers) but I did feel it was a bit rushed. I think that this was intentional as it seemed to be in an “action thriller” style to build tension and excitement. I did feel that it was chopping and changing far too much. I loved each bit of it, but a scene would just get going when the characters would have to rush off somewhere else.

I guess what I am saying is. Everything is good - just give me more! It seems that whatever style Ms Anders sets her hand to turns out well, so I look forward to reading more of her work in future.

Quite a few people have asked me why I do not seem to review Young Adult (YA) fiction, even though doing so would dramatically increase traffic to my blog. After all, have I not said I enjoy it? If I enjoy it, I should probably consider reviewing more of them - especially since there are so many books now.

As it happens, I do have a fondness for YA, but of an older sort - books like Diane Duane???s Young Wizards series, Tamora Pierce???s Tortall books, Philip Pullman???s His Dark Materials trilogy, Garth Nix???s Abhorsen books, and naturally, J.K. Rowling???s Harry Potter series. Some books I picked up when I was in high school, while others came into my life when I was in university. For instance, the Young Wizards series is one of the favourite childhood reads of a close friend of mine, and out of fondness for this friend (and a very high regard for her literary tastes) I chose to pick it up, and have not regretted the decision.

Because of this history of good experiences, I assumed that, in the wake of Harry Potter???s popularity, there would be more and better YA reads out there. And there have been some: Scott Westerfeld???s Leviathan trilogy is a throwback to Duane???s stories of a boy and a girl confronting adversity together, but encased in a delightful steampunk shell. Suzanne Collins??? Hunger Games trilogy shows that YA is capable of handling the darker themes and visuals of dystopic fiction. Libba Bray???s Diviners series is proof-positive that YA can take the grand scope and detail of a historical novel while still remaining as readable and entertaining as ever.

But aside from these books and a few others, my experience with contemporary YA has been mediocre at best, or outright objectionable at worst. While a part of me supposes that it???s just my age showing, another part of me wonders if contemporary YA has, essentially, failed: collapsed under the weight of its own popularity into a morass of trite, self-indulgent, easy-to-consume love stories built on a small handful of recycled tropes and images. I find myself scanning the YA shelf in my favourite bookstores, and seeing nothing but clones of books I???ve already read (and maybe did not particularly like).

This is why, when I started on Charlie Jane Anders??? debut novel All the Birds in the Sky, I was a little worried - and would probably have been a lot more worried had not my close friend already read the book and assured me that it was good. As ever, this close friend was very right to say that the book is good, because All the Birds in the Sky might start like the typical YA novel, but it grows into something much, much better.

The novel begins with two children, Patricia Delfine and Laurence Armistead, discovering that there is something extraordinary about them. In Patricia???s case, she finds out she???s a witch who can speak to animals, whereas Laurence discovers that he???s actually so smart he can build a two-second time machine based solely on schematics taken from the Internet. They strike up a friendship during junior high, but are split apart due to a set of rather extraordinary circumstances. They are reunited years later, in San Francisco, just as the world is on the verge of breaking down in an environmental apocalypse. Both Patricia and Laurence - the former a trained witch, the latter an engineering genius - think they can stop the coming collapse. But what neither of them knows is that they are the lynchpin upon which the fate of the whole world rests: whether it survives and continues on, or ends in disaster.

The first thing I must say about this novel is that it can be a hard book to read - not because any of its concepts are difficult or dense, but because of the emotional blows it delivers to the reader. Take, for instance, the first third of the novel, which deals with the familial and peer abuse that both Patricia and Laurence experience while growing up - a common trope in YA. Here is one of the (milder) incidents that Patricia undergoes, and which some children and young adults might find familiar, from their own experience:

A bullfrog jumped out of Patricia???s locker. A big one, too large to cup in your hands. It croaked, probably something like ???get me out of here.??? Its eyes looked strangulated with panic, and its legs???awfully little, to support such a bulbous frame???twitched. It wanted to find its cool wet nest and get away from this white hell. Patricia tried to catch it, but it slipped through her grasp. Someone must have spent hours catching this thing, gotten up at dawn or something. The frog gave a vengeful grunt and took off down the hallway, heading god knew where, as all the kids shrieked with laughter. ???Emo bitch,??? someone called out

Some might find the use of the word ???bitch??? objectionable and unrealistic when applied to young adults, but the truth is that it is the sort of language that young adults use on each other, and the above is one of any number of scenarios a bullied teenager might experience. While I myself have never experienced such levels of bullying, I do find Patricia???s situation familiar - uncomfortably so, to a certain extent. It got to the point that I was so incredibly angry with what was happening to the two protagonists that I had to set aside the book for a while and read something else. That level of anger doesn???t happen very often, but it is a testament to the sorts of things that happen to the two protagonists that I actually had to put the book aside a while to calm down.

As the first third of the novel goes on, however, with incident after incident occurring to both Laurence and Patricia, it all becomes a bit wearisome and tedious. I found myself wishing that the story would just move on already, instead of escalating the abuse to near-absurd levels. It is not as if the reader does not get the point, after a few incidents, that Patricia and Laurence are abused, that they do have a hard life, and that they have found ways of coping with the near-constant stream of physical and psychological injury they receive from those around them. I find it rather interesting that, though I can read the trials and tribulations of, say, Fortunately, once both protagonists find a way out of their respective situations, the abuse ends and things get more interesting - but no less heartbreaking.

It is the latter two-thirds of the novel that are of interest to me, at least on a personal level, and may be of interest to readers of my age: the oldest of the Millennials, (defined as those born from the early 1980s to the early 2000s), those of us who remember a time before the Internet, but were young enough to adapt to it very quickly once it arrived.

This is where the novel departs from its YA-ish beginnings, and starts taking on themes and concepts that I wish more contemporary YA would tackle (or at least, tackle well). Take, for example, the anxiety of creating close, intimate relationships with people for fear of losing them later on. Laurence illustrates that anxiety fairly well:

By now, they???d been dating five months. And lately, every time Serafina looked at her phone while they were hanging out, or stared into space, or bit her thick lower lip in the middle of a conversation, Laurence braced himself. This was it. She was going to dump him. Then the moment would pass. Laurence was sure she was just waiting for the right moment, or the ideal pretext. Every time he woke up next to her, he wondered if this was the last time her breath would warm the back of his neck and her breasts would graze either side of his spine.He was not going to lose her. He had aced bigger challenges than this. He was going to think of something, take extreme measures, even deploy the Nuclear Option early if he had to. He was going to find a way to hold on to this amazing girl.

I have long had a problem with romance in contemporary YA. So much of it tends to read as extremely saccharine and marshmallow-y, and therefore does not really present anything deeper or more complex than the wild abandon of falling in love. Even The Fault in Our Stars, so often lauded for how it brings ???complex romantic themes??? to YA fiction, does not really move very far beyond the ???falling in love??? part (mostly because Augustus oh-so-conveniently dies once he and Hazel have affirmed their relationship). While there is nothing inherently wrong with any of that (it is precisely the kind of story I would have enjoyed had I been in my late teens to early twenties), I find that I don???t enjoy such portrayals of love and romance as much as others do.

This is why I am glad that All the Birds in the Sky does not do something similar, and why it makes such a refreshing change. Love is not just about falling in love: it???s about falling out of love, too, and the fear of falling out of love. Anders gets the latter perfectly right, and not just in terms of Laurence???s romantic relationship. One can be in love with an ideal, after all, or a goal, and Anders portrays how both Patricia and Laurence do just that: fall in love with their respective causes, then fall out of it, and then fall in love with it again in a whole different way. That makes much more sense to me than any dramatic death scene.

As for the plot, it is, again, not that different from any apocalypse scenario one might encounter in contemporary YA: the end of the world is nigh, and it is up to a bunch of brilliant young minds to make sure it doesn???t actually end. What makes this particular apocalypse different, however, is not just that one solution is magical and the other technological, but that it is clear why it is happening in the first place. Environmental collapse as a result of climate change is old news to most of us who keep up with such things, but in many post-apocalyptic YA novels the cause of the apocalypse is generally vague. I like that Anders chooses to make clear the cause of the apocalypse in her novel, because people need to be reminded, as frequently as possible, that if the end of the world ever comes, it will be because of human-caused climate change.

But what really holds this book together is the writing. Anders is quite deft with her prose, though her pacing is not altogether what I would wish it to be: the first two-thirds of the novel move quite slowly, and then pick up extremely quickly towards the end. This has the rather unfortunate result of making the novel???s central romance feel a bit too sudden to make sense - or at least, that is how I felt about it. I???m sure other readers have no complaints about the pacing with respect to the romance. Aside from that, however, the novel is eminently readable and there are plenty of very quotable phrases and passages. My favourite is quoted below (mostly because it speaks to me about how I like to live my life and why books are so important to me):

???Boredom is the mind???s scar tissue.???

Overall, All the Birds in the Sky is remarkable, not because of it brings together two different genres (as other reviewers have remarked), but because it shows how similar those genres are. It is also remarkable in that it might be considered a YA novel, but does things so much better than the current crop of YA novels out there (with a few exceptions). The first third might be a bit hard to read - partly because of its subject matter, and partly because of it might drag on a bit too long for some readers - but the rest of the book is an absolute (heart-wrenching) pleasure. If this novel might be considered YA, then it is YA done right: the kind of YA that speaks to those who are no longer quite as young as they used to be, and will continue to speak to those who are once they are all ???grown up???.