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lady_schrapnellFinished this today, and am really glad I happened to catch Cory Doctorow on the panel with Connie Willis, and that the nice Borderland Books folks just happened to have his (beautiful) new book, and that one said Kelly Link had loved it. (And that I succumbed to all these reasons to buy.) It's not an entirely easy read, for all I agree it's accessible - partly because the main character (Alan, a lot of the time) and his six brothers are all given a great number of different names, often even in the course of a page or two. They always start with the same letter of the alphabet, which helps, but if you're reading a bit at a time, when tired, that can be quite confusing until everyone's firmly in your head. And the flash-backs start off quite straight-forwardly, but become less so, which can also make it all a bit hard to follow. But it does work, which is quite impressive, given that Alan's father is a mountain, his mother a washing machine, three of his brothers inhabit each other like Russian nesting dolls, one is an island, one sees the future, and one is seriously nasty (and dead, but still nasty). It could be bloody awful - either precious or just ludicrous, but the emotions are too real for that, and these include Alan's frustration and bewilderment at the lack of any explanation for how his family came to be, and the fact that there's no one to help him figure it out.
I do have reservations, and a major one is that the many descriptions of physical fights get pretty monotonous after a while. Not that I think it's too violent as such, but I just find that punchings and hittings and rock-throwings and knifings (oh, and bitings, a lot of them too) don't make riveting reading. But on the plus side again, the 'normal' world story-line included a lot about a wild plan to hook all computer users in Toronto onto a free internet web, which was cool. (Especially enjoyed the scene in which they approached the phone company with their plan, which did not go as might have been expected!) In keeping with this spirit, the whole book is available to read free online. Amazingly cool. Older daughter's going to read it now, which will be nice, as I'm wanting to talk about the ending with someone. Loans available after, for anyone who doesn't like reading online!
I do have reservations, and a major one is that the many descriptions of physical fights get pretty monotonous after a while. Not that I think it's too violent as such, but I just find that punchings and hittings and rock-throwings and knifings (oh, and bitings, a lot of them too) don't make riveting reading. But on the plus side again, the 'normal' world story-line included a lot about a wild plan to hook all computer users in Toronto onto a free internet web, which was cool. (Especially enjoyed the scene in which they approached the phone company with their plan, which did not go as might have been expected!) In keeping with this spirit, the whole book is available to read free online. Amazingly cool. Older daughter's going to read it now, which will be nice, as I'm wanting to talk about the ending with someone. Loans available after, for anyone who doesn't like reading online!
