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nightdog_barksOkay, so. David Mitchell's The Bone Clocks. Short version: I agree with the reviews in The New Yorker and Slate. For me, parts of it are great, but as a whole it just doesn't work.
There are two stories Mitchell is trying to tell here, and while one of them mostly works, the other one falls flat on its face, and that's the background story about the Big Bad and the Big Good -- the former being quasi-immortals called Anchorites who have preyed on the human race throughout the centuries. I never cared about the Big Bad, not one solitary whit. The one bad guy I did care about got dismissed with a casual conversational aside at the end. The fight scenes read like a second-hand description of a not-very-imaginative video game.
The counterparts to the Big Bad are the Horologists, and I'm very sorry to say I didn't care about them either.
I think my non-caring is mostly due to the fact that Mitchell doesn't introduce either of these groups until at least halfway through the book, and when he does introduce them it's with an onslaught of Special Language -- decanting, and Acts of Total Suasion, and the Dusk Chapel, and the Shaded Way Codex, and scansion and Black Wine, and oh god it just goes on and on and ON, and you know what? I DON'T CARE ABOUT ANY OF IT, BECAUSE MITCHELL HASN'T BOTHERED TO BUILD A WORLD BEHIND THE PHRASES.
AARGHH
And yet. Mitchell's tales of his human characters and the world they live in is vintage Mitchell. Like the reviewer from The New Yorker, I did think that I spotted The Voice of the Author at least once, which did annoy me, but let it go. Parts of the ending, which takes place in a dystopian Ireland descending back into the Dark Ages, were intensely moving. The actual ending, though ... no spoilers, but it involved the most blatant example of handus wavius that I've seen outside of fanfiction, and no, I'm not making this up.
So. Three stars. I have seen a few people saying Mitchell has made noises about writing a sequel, which, if true, might change my rating upwards.
Am now reading Kathryn Ma's The Year She Left Us, which is about a Chinese girl adopted by a Chinese-American family in California. So far (first fifty pages or so) it is very good and a real page-turner.
Also, yesterday I stopped by PetsMart to get doggy shampoo, and picked up a Blue Buffalo Wilderness Wild Chew. See what the label says? "Hours of chewing enjoyment"? Yeah, Chango ate the whole thing in about ten minutes. THE WHOLE THING. Hours of chewing enjoyment, not so much, Blue Fuffalo (heh, my typo but I'm leaving it because it's better this way). :D
Still warm and humid. Blah. Oh, and also? St. Dalfour pineapple and mango conserve is DELICIOUS.
OH! And while my connection with the country is about 350 years in the past -- good luck, Scotland, whichever path you choose.
There are two stories Mitchell is trying to tell here, and while one of them mostly works, the other one falls flat on its face, and that's the background story about the Big Bad and the Big Good -- the former being quasi-immortals called Anchorites who have preyed on the human race throughout the centuries. I never cared about the Big Bad, not one solitary whit. The one bad guy I did care about got dismissed with a casual conversational aside at the end. The fight scenes read like a second-hand description of a not-very-imaginative video game.
The counterparts to the Big Bad are the Horologists, and I'm very sorry to say I didn't care about them either.
I think my non-caring is mostly due to the fact that Mitchell doesn't introduce either of these groups until at least halfway through the book, and when he does introduce them it's with an onslaught of Special Language -- decanting, and Acts of Total Suasion, and the Dusk Chapel, and the Shaded Way Codex, and scansion and Black Wine, and oh god it just goes on and on and ON, and you know what? I DON'T CARE ABOUT ANY OF IT, BECAUSE MITCHELL HASN'T BOTHERED TO BUILD A WORLD BEHIND THE PHRASES.
AARGHH
And yet. Mitchell's tales of his human characters and the world they live in is vintage Mitchell. Like the reviewer from The New Yorker, I did think that I spotted The Voice of the Author at least once, which did annoy me, but let it go. Parts of the ending, which takes place in a dystopian Ireland descending back into the Dark Ages, were intensely moving. The actual ending, though ... no spoilers, but it involved the most blatant example of handus wavius that I've seen outside of fanfiction, and no, I'm not making this up.
So. Three stars. I have seen a few people saying Mitchell has made noises about writing a sequel, which, if true, might change my rating upwards.
Am now reading Kathryn Ma's The Year She Left Us, which is about a Chinese girl adopted by a Chinese-American family in California. So far (first fifty pages or so) it is very good and a real page-turner.
Also, yesterday I stopped by PetsMart to get doggy shampoo, and picked up a Blue Buffalo Wilderness Wild Chew. See what the label says? "Hours of chewing enjoyment"? Yeah, Chango ate the whole thing in about ten minutes. THE WHOLE THING. Hours of chewing enjoyment, not so much, Blue Fuffalo (heh, my typo but I'm leaving it because it's better this way). :D
Still warm and humid. Blah. Oh, and also? St. Dalfour pineapple and mango conserve is DELICIOUS.
OH! And while my connection with the country is about 350 years in the past -- good luck, Scotland, whichever path you choose.