Last two reads reviewed...

[Thoran]

First Review - SciFi - Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood - Listened to the unabridged version on audio... here's the review I submitted to Audible.com:

Well first of all I have to say that I didn't like the story. I realize it was intended as a cautionary tale but it went so overboard that I couldn't buy into it. It was morbid, depressing, and filled with shallow self centered dullards (even the brilliant characters). Snowman wallowed in misery, Jimmy was corrupted by an amoral humantiy, Crake had the ascerbic self hating wit but lacked the underlying intelligence that I'd expect in the character, and Oryx had the personality consistancy of pudding... an invertebrate with boobs. The Crakers were interesting but undeveloped, window dressing, a plot device.

The father figures in the early portion of the tale were one dimensional boors, the only character with a spark of something more was Jimmy's mother. The vast majority of the men in the story were evil caricatures that enabled Jimmy to exhibit unrealistic and hypocritical righteous indignation, although some were allowed redeeming values (oh joy). The women were mostly boring diversions assisting Jimmy on his fall from whatever grace he started with.

I felt no sympathy for anyone in the entire book, no empathy, no attachment. I didn't care that the whole world was wiped out... who'd want to live in such a place, not I certainly.

Having said all that... I have to say that I recommend the book. Atwoods narrative is skilled and refreshingly novel for Sci-Fi. Her imagery isn't broad but grounds the reader in the 'here and now' of her characters, an excellent sense of presence. The plot is simple but that's not the focus of the story. The character development doesn't really illuminate subconscious motives but provides a glimpse at the rationalizations that her characters use to justify self-destructive (and just plain destructive) behaviors.

It's not a book that I'd read twice but I think it's worth a read for the things it does well. Overall I enjoyed listening to the book... ironic as that may sound after the above lambasting.


Second Review - SciFi - Prey - Michael Crichton -

Just finished this one, thank dog. Perhaps if I wasn't an Engineer who's worked with MEMS I'd have enjoyed the book more... nah... even then I'd think it stunk. The narrative was obviously written by someone with a very superficial understanding of the technology his characters were supposed to be highly accomplished in. Even though there were few characters, I finished the book barely knowing anything about any of them... Crichton spent too much time describing trips to the grocery store in boring tedious detail, and not enough time connecting the reader to the characters.

Besides dropping the F-bomb regularly... there wasn't much in the book to keep a reader awake. The concept was novel and had a lot of potential, the adultry angle also could have played out positively had the writer not been so PAINFULLY blatant about communicating what was going on, he might as well have made the first chapter a synopsis of the entire novel and saved you the time, because it didn't take very long to see where the train was headed.

I've also read Eaters and Timeline, and I enjoyed both those books, but Prey came accross as a preachy patronizing book lacking real plot depth, wit, and certainly lacking any sense of suspense or surprise. Overall I can't recommend this book to anyone... except maybe the anti-tech freaks who love to read about humanity getting it's come-uppance. Read Atwoods book, at least it was full of talented prose and handles a similar story (tech run amok) with significantly more narrative skill.