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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
65 of 73 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
I can't believe I read the whole thing...,
By
This review is from: The Caryatids (Hardcover)
I'd like that time back now...
I'm a fan of Sterling's work, and I hate to say this, but this is just very, very poor. There's no plot. It was never at all clear what the main conflict of the book is supposed to be, and although the POV jumps around there wasn't a single character sympathetic enough for me to care about, much less consider an interesting or worthy protagonist. None of the main characters seems to have any ethical code or system at all, nor do they "grow" at all, or seem to learn anything in the story. For that matter, neither did I. There was apparently little if any editing, and zero proof-reading... spelling was fine, but grammar in some parts was both tortured and torture to read. There were sentences which were obviously missing words- as in, verbs or subjects. Several sections were repetitious to the point of having two successive paragraphs saying the same thing with different wording, as though they had been rewritten without removing the draft version, and there were several obvious continuity mistakes, some so glaring that they made it difficult to concentrate on anything else. For instance, in one sentence a dancer is referred to as "barefoot", and in almost the next sentence she has "slippered feet"... neither condition having anything to do with the plot. Like the visible zipper on the back of a monster costume in a bad movie, these obvious mistakes give the strong impression that nobody involved really cared at all. If that weren't bad enough, the scenario of the future is the "More Politically Correct Than Thou Standard Man-Made Environmental Cataclysm #1" complete with preachy guilt-trip lectures, and the eventual "resolution" is about as satisfying and relevant as "and then they were all run over by a truck, or maybe not, the end". By the time I reached the last 25 pages, and it was clear the story just wasn't going to redeem itself, I was rather hoping they WOULD all just die. I was ready to help personally. The ending, such as it was, takes the form of both an epilogue AND an afterword, giving the impression that the book was really a shortish rough-draft with no ending that had one hurriedly tacked on just to get it out the door. Sometimes an author gets to the point where those doing business with him find it's not worth trying to improve the product, on the assumption that ANYTHING with his name on it will sell... and this IS "anything". Unfortunately, that starts the pendulum going the other direction.. and I will be reading a lot of reviews before buying Sterling's next book. It won't be an impulse buy based on just the author's name again.
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
All atmosphere, no plot,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Caryatids (Hardcover)
I usually like Bruce Sterling's books but this one left me wanting. Although well-written, it was all character development and atmosphere. I kept reading and waiting for a payoff that never came.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not his best,
By
This review is from: The Caryatids (Hardcover)
Bruce Sterling is an excellent SF writer. Particularly enjoyed Zenith Angle and Zeitgeist. His recent effort is at best, so-so. He plays with the concepts of different approaches to climate warming/ecological disaster and is wittier than, say Kim Stanley Robinson, who becomes overly didactic. But this is not the best Sterling is capable of, confusing multiplicity of characters, abrupt transitions and a idiosyncratic use of the full colon. Sorry, can't give it a whole hearted thumbs up.
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