Scan barcode
hlyter64's review
2.0
I’ll start by saying that this is a modernist text which on the whole I have quite strong feelings about, but I do appreciate the originality given the genre of sci-fi. It was incomprehensible at the start (which I’m assuming is the point; showing the difficulty of picking up a whole new language/showing how radically opposite computer language is to our human language). I found the meta narration style to be unique as well, especially in how determined they were to keep it objective and avoid anything of the romantic/literary; that sort of challenged my desire as a reader to enjoy said elements of the romantic/literary. There’s obviously the allegorical aspect of the cold war; with the implication of the inevitable decision to send the rocks away reinforcing that the pursuit of power and the ability to wield it (even if it results in mass destruction) will triumph over the potential to have everyone equally powerless). I think my suspension of disbelief was a little pushed given that the children were twelve and a half and I was expected to believe they knew Shakespeare/complex scientific or computing theories but that’s beside the point the book was making as a whole. I also enjoyed the ridiculousness of it: reading about a tiny stone that named itself lady Macbeth and threatened to blow up really does cause me to realise that writers can create weird and wacky things sometimes (and maybe we shouldn’t take it too seriously). I’m not sure I would read Brooke-Rose again (at least not for enjoyment), but I think what she did was certainly different so credit where its due.
briandice's review
5.0
More thoughts later, but is there a genre in which CB-R can't write an amazing novel?
I though Textermination was the shit, but I liked this even more. Brooke-Rose deftly reminds us that we need our myths to live. And since they are so requisite, so vital, let's go ahead and call them what they are. Lies.
I though Textermination was the shit, but I liked this even more. Brooke-Rose deftly reminds us that we need our myths to live. And since they are so requisite, so vital, let's go ahead and call them what they are. Lies.
george_salis's review
"...If the human brain was simple enough for us to understand we'd be so simple we couldn't."
It started off strong but became fairly tiresome about halfway through. It’s told by a set of twins who are as digressive and unorganized in their storytelling as Saleem Sinai of Midnight’s Children. They also incorporate a lot of slang and some wordplay, much of it informed by computer code language. These elements were the most enjoyable to me but even they got old after a while. The plot involves a sentient rock that’s actually an organic computer on a level of intelligence that far surpasses human beings. It procreates and one of its offspring threatens to blow itself up unless its demands are met. These things eat radiation and thus are not exactly strangers to decayed or splitting atoms and could even have practical applications. There are cold war implications here as well, but they don’t feel quite earnest, if that’s the right word. Aside from the sluggishness of the plot, it ended up being a lot more provincial than I anticipated, taking place in the same location pretty much throughout the entirety of the novel.
I liked The Black Cloud by Fred Hoyle better, featuring as it does a theoretically possible apocalyptic scenario in which a sentient cloud blots the sun to eat the energy. The only way to survive is to communicate with the cloud and tell it to move. It’s nowhere near as literary as Xorander, written as it is by an astronomer, but the implications of intelligent life that isn’t based on DNA, for instance, stayed with me. However, I read it almost a decade ago so I could think differently of it now.
I will definitely give Brooke-Rose’s experimental fiction a chance.
It started off strong but became fairly tiresome about halfway through. It’s told by a set of twins who are as digressive and unorganized in their storytelling as Saleem Sinai of Midnight’s Children. They also incorporate a lot of slang and some wordplay, much of it informed by computer code language. These elements were the most enjoyable to me but even they got old after a while. The plot involves a sentient rock that’s actually an organic computer on a level of intelligence that far surpasses human beings. It procreates and one of its offspring threatens to blow itself up unless its demands are met. These things eat radiation and thus are not exactly strangers to decayed or splitting atoms and could even have practical applications. There are cold war implications here as well, but they don’t feel quite earnest, if that’s the right word. Aside from the sluggishness of the plot, it ended up being a lot more provincial than I anticipated, taking place in the same location pretty much throughout the entirety of the novel.
I liked The Black Cloud by Fred Hoyle better, featuring as it does a theoretically possible apocalyptic scenario in which a sentient cloud blots the sun to eat the energy. The only way to survive is to communicate with the cloud and tell it to move. It’s nowhere near as literary as Xorander, written as it is by an astronomer, but the implications of intelligent life that isn’t based on DNA, for instance, stayed with me. However, I read it almost a decade ago so I could think differently of it now.
I will definitely give Brooke-Rose’s experimental fiction a chance.
More...