I don't know of any good books about Santeria, though I am a bit out of the loop these days. My favorite academic treatment was Santeria from Africa to the New World: The Dead Sell Memories by George Brandon. This book delves into the African roots and the development of the religion far more than its contemporary manifestation.
This is the first review I've read that makes me consider forgiving stephenson for the lying-narrator shit he pulled in the first book of the baroque cycle, though I sure as fuck am not going to read the rest of it, or anathema.
A fair portion of the last quarter(?)-ish of the book was told from the female lead's POV, and near the end, there's a twist where it's revealed that she was recording an inaccurate recounting of events to mislead and confuse anyone who happened to find her writing, and had instead been accurately and exhaustively recording the truth in her fucking needlepoint...
I don't mind an unreliable narrator, but the extremely belated, ham-handed reveal of this one just pissed me off.
He just sucks at endings, I think. The endings of Diamond Age, Snow Crash, and Anathema were all extremely WTF. (For what it's worth, though, I *loved* Anathema. Not counting the WTF ending, it is a love poem to science history nerds.)
I find it so interesting to compare your scores to your descriptions: it sounded like you loved Red Glove, but your score isn't very high. I'm glad you liked Uncivil War. I'm very tempted to give REAMDE another try after your description.
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-Q
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I don't mind an unreliable narrator, but the extremely belated, ham-handed reveal of this one just pissed me off.
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-Q
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