I think I'm going to jump right back off this bandwagon...
Okay, this this is the first time that I've actually posted to the community, though I have commented and followed discussions, so please, no offense meant, okay? *wry grin*
Oh, and this is more a rant than a review, just so you all know. Anyway:
Across the Universe by Beth Revis....
Disclaimer: I have not finished the book yet (as it is an audiobook that I only listen to on my commute) (I tried to read it in print, but still can't finish it... in fact, I think it makes it worse and more muddled *sigh*) But, my two cents so far...
This book is not good. Yup, I said it. I don't care about all the hype; the million and one positive reviews... this book is not a very good read.
Let's start from the beginning, shall we?
The narrative mode:
Revis chooses to use first person, alternating. It is not a good choice. She wants to make it do things that it cannot, or should not do. It feels like she should have chosen some form of third person, but felt like all the cool kids were using first person, so she should too.
Her use of first person is clumsy at best, almost completely jumbled at worst. And on top of it, she chose alternating narrators, passing back and forth between Amy and Elder. Some chapters are literally a paragraph or two long and contribute to the tension in the story being diminished and nearly lost all together at several points in the story.
More than that, it feels like she wanted to use third person, and because she didn't, it limited her story telling ability. She wanted to tell us everything, but because she chose first person, she couldn't. She tried to compromise and use alternating first person, and it just made the story a mess.
The Characters:
They feel... flat. I keep waiting to feel invested, and it's not happened yet 2/3 the way into the book. Somehow, I keep hoping that that's going to improve here in the conclusion, but I'm not all that optimistic. To be fair, I think that Amy may be the stronger of the two characters, but I also suspect that that is because as a female myself of relatively the same time period, (ie the 21st century) if not the same age, I have more to draw on to fill in the blanks that the author has left.
Over-all the characters feel unmotivated and seem to have all the depth of cardboard. And most often they "tell" the reader things without "showing" us. The nominal "dictator" of the ship, Eldest, is a "dictator" because we are told he is. The author takes short-cuts by having Amy say that he is like Hitler. As a reader, you have a gut response to that, but it feels like the author is making the reader do all the work. Too often, physical appearance as well, seems to substitute for characterization. If I have to hear much more about an obsession with Amy's "sunset hair" making her a "special snowflake" I might have to cry.
Science Fiction (as a genre):
Science fiction is, I concede, I notoriously difficult genre within which to write. Not only do you have all the "normal" challenges of story-writing, you add on top of that, the difficulty of creating, maintaining, and making "believable" a whole secondary world. It's tricky stuff, and a lot of authors just can't do it. There's no shame in that, but... maybe that means you find another genre within which to work, yes?
As for this book, it seems, shaky. It feels like it wants to be hard core science fiction in a lot of ways, where the story and characters rely heavily on science. But, the science simply doesn't feel like it is there.
There's nothing wrong with, as Straczynski says, having your ship "move at the speed of plot," but that has to be the type of story that you are telling. If you're trying to tell a dystopian tale where "science" is a foundational aspect of your story (ie drug control, gene control, etc is a part of how you are controlling people) then the "science" has to feel accurate and/or "right" to the reader. I do not think that Revis achieves this.
It feels like Revis takes a whole bunch of "science fiction" tropes and throws them at the reader, hoping that her audience doesn't think too terribly hard about how it just doesn't make sense.
I think her story would have been better served by focusing on a more sociological sort of slant. People do wacky things. We do them because society and people are easily conditioned. For example, it doesn't take "hormones" or drugs to make us wacky, we do it all on our own. Condition a people to be a repressed society that only allows sex during a certain period of time, condition them to be uninhibited at that time, and you could have a disturbing "mating season" without having to use Revis' (in my opinion) unrealistic use of hormones and drugs.
The "science" simply pulled me out of the story too often. Revis tried to be too detailed in some parts and then far too simplistic in others in regards to the science. She tried to build everything on top of the science, but the "science" that she used, seemed far too shaky to take the weight.
I think the story would have been better served if Revis hadn't made it lean more toward the "hard" sci-fi, than the "space opera" sub-genre.
The Writing itself:
I think that it leaves much to be desired. Kids aren't stupid. (I hear my dad's laughter in my head) But seriously, I think that kids need to be challenged, and I don't feel like this book would challenge them. The writing is nothing spectacular and as unreasonable as this might seem, I tend to hold published works up to a higher standard. They should be more well written than what you would find in a blog or in the everyday world.
That leaves us with just one more nitpick at this point for me...
Content:
To be honest, I have a lot more nitpicks but for now we'll stick with...
I don't think rape/sexual assault should be a plot-point just to try and add "drama" to your story. And dear author, in general, sexual assault does not occur because of "lust and attraction." (IMO)
Oh, and the obsession with sex in this novel, was over-done. Period.
And now, if you've stuck with me this far, I'll thank you, *grin* and bid you adieu.
Oh, and this is more a rant than a review, just so you all know. Anyway:
Across the Universe by Beth Revis....
Disclaimer: I have not finished the book yet (as it is an audiobook that I only listen to on my commute) (I tried to read it in print, but still can't finish it... in fact, I think it makes it worse and more muddled *sigh*) But, my two cents so far...
This book is not good. Yup, I said it. I don't care about all the hype; the million and one positive reviews... this book is not a very good read.
Let's start from the beginning, shall we?
The narrative mode:
Revis chooses to use first person, alternating. It is not a good choice. She wants to make it do things that it cannot, or should not do. It feels like she should have chosen some form of third person, but felt like all the cool kids were using first person, so she should too.
Her use of first person is clumsy at best, almost completely jumbled at worst. And on top of it, she chose alternating narrators, passing back and forth between Amy and Elder. Some chapters are literally a paragraph or two long and contribute to the tension in the story being diminished and nearly lost all together at several points in the story.
More than that, it feels like she wanted to use third person, and because she didn't, it limited her story telling ability. She wanted to tell us everything, but because she chose first person, she couldn't. She tried to compromise and use alternating first person, and it just made the story a mess.
The Characters:
They feel... flat. I keep waiting to feel invested, and it's not happened yet 2/3 the way into the book. Somehow, I keep hoping that that's going to improve here in the conclusion, but I'm not all that optimistic. To be fair, I think that Amy may be the stronger of the two characters, but I also suspect that that is because as a female myself of relatively the same time period, (ie the 21st century) if not the same age, I have more to draw on to fill in the blanks that the author has left.
Over-all the characters feel unmotivated and seem to have all the depth of cardboard. And most often they "tell" the reader things without "showing" us. The nominal "dictator" of the ship, Eldest, is a "dictator" because we are told he is. The author takes short-cuts by having Amy say that he is like Hitler. As a reader, you have a gut response to that, but it feels like the author is making the reader do all the work. Too often, physical appearance as well, seems to substitute for characterization. If I have to hear much more about an obsession with Amy's "sunset hair" making her a "special snowflake" I might have to cry.
Science Fiction (as a genre):
Science fiction is, I concede, I notoriously difficult genre within which to write. Not only do you have all the "normal" challenges of story-writing, you add on top of that, the difficulty of creating, maintaining, and making "believable" a whole secondary world. It's tricky stuff, and a lot of authors just can't do it. There's no shame in that, but... maybe that means you find another genre within which to work, yes?
As for this book, it seems, shaky. It feels like it wants to be hard core science fiction in a lot of ways, where the story and characters rely heavily on science. But, the science simply doesn't feel like it is there.
There's nothing wrong with, as Straczynski says, having your ship "move at the speed of plot," but that has to be the type of story that you are telling. If you're trying to tell a dystopian tale where "science" is a foundational aspect of your story (ie drug control, gene control, etc is a part of how you are controlling people) then the "science" has to feel accurate and/or "right" to the reader. I do not think that Revis achieves this.
It feels like Revis takes a whole bunch of "science fiction" tropes and throws them at the reader, hoping that her audience doesn't think too terribly hard about how it just doesn't make sense.
I think her story would have been better served by focusing on a more sociological sort of slant. People do wacky things. We do them because society and people are easily conditioned. For example, it doesn't take "hormones" or drugs to make us wacky, we do it all on our own. Condition a people to be a repressed society that only allows sex during a certain period of time, condition them to be uninhibited at that time, and you could have a disturbing "mating season" without having to use Revis' (in my opinion) unrealistic use of hormones and drugs.
The "science" simply pulled me out of the story too often. Revis tried to be too detailed in some parts and then far too simplistic in others in regards to the science. She tried to build everything on top of the science, but the "science" that she used, seemed far too shaky to take the weight.
I think the story would have been better served if Revis hadn't made it lean more toward the "hard" sci-fi, than the "space opera" sub-genre.
The Writing itself:
I think that it leaves much to be desired. Kids aren't stupid. (I hear my dad's laughter in my head) But seriously, I think that kids need to be challenged, and I don't feel like this book would challenge them. The writing is nothing spectacular and as unreasonable as this might seem, I tend to hold published works up to a higher standard. They should be more well written than what you would find in a blog or in the everyday world.
That leaves us with just one more nitpick at this point for me...
Content:
To be honest, I have a lot more nitpicks but for now we'll stick with...
I don't think rape/sexual assault should be a plot-point just to try and add "drama" to your story. And dear author, in general, sexual assault does not occur because of "lust and attraction." (IMO)
Oh, and the obsession with sex in this novel, was over-done. Period.
And now, if you've stuck with me this far, I'll thank you, *grin* and bid you adieu.