Flynn, Michael: The Wreck of the River of Stars
The Wreck of the River of Stars
Writer: Michael Flynn
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 127/534
My Rating
Couldn't Finish It: I had two reasons to read this book. 1) it was on the SF ballot way back in January 2007 for the June 2007 residency read. Like my current fantasy reading project, I wanted to go through each book on the SF ballot and see which book was truly the best one for all of the students in the program. 2) digitalclone happened upon this title on my Amazon.com wishlist and decided to make it our April challenge read.
I had one repeated good reason to NOT read the book: mike_brendan warned me against it. TWICE. I tend to brush off warnings because I like finding things out for myself. In this case, I really, really should've listened.
Those of you who've been watching this journal know I started this sucker in April and had to abandon it in May because it was taking WAY too long to read and I had a PILE of books that had to be read before residency. The plan was this: read those books, then read the Flynn book next--finishing it on the plane to Pittsburgh if necessary--and then give the sucker away at residency on some poor, unsuspecting soul.
That was the plan. But once I put the book down, I found I had zero interest in picking it up again, even for the sake of finishing. And I hate, hate, HATE not finishing.
So what didn't work? For starters, the omniscient POV that slid in and out of EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER'S HEAD IN THE ENTIRE SHIP. I met SO many people I didn't give a rat's ass about, and that's a shame. The 127 pages I did force myself to read taught me that Flynn truly had a three-dimensional cast. Only they were lost in the verbose prose and unnecessary POV. I never latched onto a single character, and often guessed the direction of the plot long before the characters did. That is, of course, when the plot was deemed necessary to consider. All too often it felt like Flynn was keeping his readers at arm's length, but it was easy to see what he was really up to. Whether it was supposed to be or not, I don't care. Obviously. I'm not putting myself through 534 pages just to learn whether I'm right or wrong.
Now the details were something to note, even if they were completely overwhelming and oftentimes unnecessary. Clearly, the SHIP herself (River of Stars) is the most important character of the book, and had I really paid attention to the blurbs explaining that half of the title was the ship (THE WRECK OF THE RIVER OF STARS), I would've avoided it at all cost, because what appears to be a very provocative title is rather too telling of the point of the book, and given the tone, I'm guessing no one is meant to be saved, and the sad thing is, I don't care.
I also couldn't help but wonder if the Riv's backstory of its luxury liner days fallen to obscurity wasn't some kind of parallel to the state of SF as a genre. People are always talking about the glory days of SF and how they've fallen, never to return, no matter how hard authors try. Perhaps this is a parable of sorts, an homage to the history of SF while making its own commentary (you'd have to know how the story ends to figure out what Flynn's really saying here, and I know the ending in only generalities). I don't know.
The point is, the book was unreadable for me. I don't even blame the fact that it's hard SF (though someone once suggested maybe I simply dislike hard SF as a rule: I don't like to think that's the case, but who knows?), but rather the prose style and my inability to empathize with a single character. The book is dry of emotion, and unfortunately, that's what it needs.
Next up: On Writer's Block: A New Approach to Creativity by Victoria Nelson