:D (re: icon) -- I concluded I needed on because I actually find myself talking about this book quite often -- I have very strong feelings about it! They are just really conflicted feelings, LOL.
I dug the worldbuilding, just wish there had been more of it and that Chambers had let it stand on its own more.
I'll echo the comment below -- I feel like Chambers is better about letting the worldbuilding stand on its own in the subsequent books, with less authorial moralizing about it. Like, I don't want to give the impression that she is subtle about her views in the other books, but I found it way, WAY less intrusive than in 'Small, Angry Planet', and consequently liked books 2 and 3 a lot more (I felt like 4 was more like book 1, which I found a weird trajectory, but maybe she felt like once the series had won a Hugo, she could go back to doing whatever she wanted...)
because the ones I found most intriguing (e.g., Pepper, Santoso's lover) were barely explored
I will mention that Pepper is one of the main characters of A Close and Common Orbit (book 2), and Ashby's lover is one of the main characters (of a larger ensemble cast) in The Galaxy and the Ground Within (book 4) -- after the first, the books can be read in any order, btw -- I feel like they're all sequels to the first one, but scatter from that point and don't really relate to each other. In case that influences your decision to read or not read more Chambers; I totally get giving up on an author with potential but who furnishes a frustrating reading experience, and have definitely done that myself.
And again, the novel would have been so much more interesting had Chambers been willing to confront that ambiguity. What do you do when there are no good choices? When good people make bad choices? And so on.
Yes... It just felt like she wasn't interested in engaging with that kind of situation, and that felt like a total cop-out. We must have only fluffy good times and sing-alongs for the good characters! Ugh... :/
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Date: 2021-11-15 03:26 am (UTC)I dug the worldbuilding, just wish there had been more of it and that Chambers had let it stand on its own more.
I'll echo the comment below -- I feel like Chambers is better about letting the worldbuilding stand on its own in the subsequent books, with less authorial moralizing about it. Like, I don't want to give the impression that she is subtle about her views in the other books, but I found it way, WAY less intrusive than in 'Small, Angry Planet', and consequently liked books 2 and 3 a lot more (I felt like 4 was more like book 1, which I found a weird trajectory, but maybe she felt like once the series had won a Hugo, she could go back to doing whatever she wanted...)
because the ones I found most intriguing (e.g., Pepper, Santoso's lover) were barely explored
I will mention that Pepper is one of the main characters of A Close and Common Orbit (book 2), and Ashby's lover is one of the main characters (of a larger ensemble cast) in The Galaxy and the Ground Within (book 4) -- after the first, the books can be read in any order, btw -- I feel like they're all sequels to the first one, but scatter from that point and don't really relate to each other. In case that influences your decision to read or not read more Chambers; I totally get giving up on an author with potential but who furnishes a frustrating reading experience, and have definitely done that myself.
And again, the novel would have been so much more interesting had Chambers been willing to confront that ambiguity. What do you do when there are no good choices? When good people make bad choices? And so on.
Yes... It just felt like she wasn't interested in engaging with that kind of situation, and that felt like a total cop-out. We must have only fluffy good times and sing-alongs for the good characters! Ugh... :/