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jeffreyp's review
2.0
This was a letdown for me. There is some interesting day-in-the-life-of-an-American-soldier in WWII stuff, but the sci-fi aspects are mostly just frustrating and muddled. Definitely some cool ideas here, but I was left wanting in the execution. Probably should note that it has won major awards, so perhaps it's just not my favorite flavor of sci-fi...
grayduck's review
Reviewed 11/30/2008
It has been a sad fact that, although I am a huge fan of Science Fiction in the media, I have never really gotten into Science Fiction in written form (except for that one summer I read about 20 TNG novels…but we won’t go into that). I can’t say I’ve really tried. If I had to pick between Sci Fi and Fantasy, I’d pick Fantasy just about any day. That being said, I have no idea why I wound up with this book on my queue. I have a tendency to add things to my queue on whims – a patron ordered it and I thought the bib record looked interesting, I read a brief blurb in a journal, I thought the front picture looked pretty. In this instance, I’m thrilled with my own forgotten choice to recommend this book to myself.
We begin on the day in which Pearl Harbor is bombed. Sam Dance’s brother, Keenan, was on board the USS Arizona. Sam joins the service, and is quickly singled out for his understanding of physics by his superiors and one very unusual professor. He and his friend Wink spend the war years shifting from behind the scenes to the front lines, playing jazz whenever possible, and working on a mysterious device under the guidance of two remarkable women.
It’s an alternative-history novel that stretches from the eve of the US’s involvement in WWII to the Kennedy assassination. And back. And forth. There’s a good deal about quantum physics and jazz – particularly bebop – and how they relate to each other. For someone that has the most basic understanding of quantum mechanics, this was a lifesaver. THANK YOU SAM DANCE for putting it into terms I could understand – music. The first half deals with World War Two and Sam Dance’s many roles – all while building the mysterious device and playing jazz whenever he has a chance.
At times I felt swept up in the story, but I never felt lost. I’m not sure if the first half of the book moved a bit too slowly or the second half moved a bit too quickly. Either way, they didn’t quite match up, but that wasn’t a big deal. The second half shoots the reader forward about 15 years, and it took me a while to get back into the story. At that point, however, I was so invested in Sam and the mysterious device that I had to find out what happened.
I loved this book. LOVED IT. Given my lack of depth in the Sci-fi genre, I’m not sure if I would recommend this to someone else that didn’t ordinarily read Sci-fi. I would recommend this to somebody that liked Sci-fi and was also interested in alternate histories. I was a bit skeptical about the roles of women at first, but they turned out to be fascinating, powerful characters.
It has been a sad fact that, although I am a huge fan of Science Fiction in the media, I have never really gotten into Science Fiction in written form (except for that one summer I read about 20 TNG novels…but we won’t go into that). I can’t say I’ve really tried. If I had to pick between Sci Fi and Fantasy, I’d pick Fantasy just about any day. That being said, I have no idea why I wound up with this book on my queue. I have a tendency to add things to my queue on whims – a patron ordered it and I thought the bib record looked interesting, I read a brief blurb in a journal, I thought the front picture looked pretty. In this instance, I’m thrilled with my own forgotten choice to recommend this book to myself.
We begin on the day in which Pearl Harbor is bombed. Sam Dance’s brother, Keenan, was on board the USS Arizona. Sam joins the service, and is quickly singled out for his understanding of physics by his superiors and one very unusual professor. He and his friend Wink spend the war years shifting from behind the scenes to the front lines, playing jazz whenever possible, and working on a mysterious device under the guidance of two remarkable women.
It’s an alternative-history novel that stretches from the eve of the US’s involvement in WWII to the Kennedy assassination. And back. And forth. There’s a good deal about quantum physics and jazz – particularly bebop – and how they relate to each other. For someone that has the most basic understanding of quantum mechanics, this was a lifesaver. THANK YOU SAM DANCE for putting it into terms I could understand – music. The first half deals with World War Two and Sam Dance’s many roles – all while building the mysterious device and playing jazz whenever he has a chance.
At times I felt swept up in the story, but I never felt lost. I’m not sure if the first half of the book moved a bit too slowly or the second half moved a bit too quickly. Either way, they didn’t quite match up, but that wasn’t a big deal. The second half shoots the reader forward about 15 years, and it took me a while to get back into the story. At that point, however, I was so invested in Sam and the mysterious device that I had to find out what happened.
I loved this book. LOVED IT. Given my lack of depth in the Sci-fi genre, I’m not sure if I would recommend this to someone else that didn’t ordinarily read Sci-fi. I would recommend this to somebody that liked Sci-fi and was also interested in alternate histories. I was a bit skeptical about the roles of women at first, but they turned out to be fascinating, powerful characters.
kielma's review
3.0
I first looked at this book because I had read in some forums that people think it could win this year's Hugo Award. The description on Amazon was intriguing and I was excited to read the book. But it was definitely a let down. This is a story about a machine that modifies human DNA to affect how we perceive and move through time and to make us more empathetic and less likely to fight. Unfortunately, in the first half of this book the machine does nothing. The first half of the book is set in WWII and there is barely the faintest hint of any science fiction to it. In addition, the characters are shallow and one-dimensional. The idea the author has of comparing jazz music to the flow of time is an interesting one, but it was very poorly developed. She talked about it a lot, but never really expanded on it, and frankly I was bored of hearing about it after a while. In the second half of the book the plot got much more interesting, although the depth of the characters didn't improve. Unfortunately, we zipped through historical events so quickly in the second half, moving from WWII to the 1980's in no time flat, that the whole thing felt superficial. The climax was over before it started. All in all, there are tantalizing ideas here, but the potential is never actualized. If this book wins the Hugo I'll be sorely disappointed.
booksaremagic's review
5.0
I picked up this book randomly at the library, thinking it might be interesting. It was wonderful. It is sci-fi, but the new technology the characters are trying to figure out remains mostly a mystery for most of the book. Although its subtitle is An Alternate-Universe Novel of a Different Present, most of it takes place in recognizable WWII and post-WWII eras. In fact, the brief blurbs from the main character's war journals are actual blurbs from the author's father's journals during the war. The jobs done by the main character (well, the more mundane ones at least) were real jobs done by the author's father.
The main character is smart, artistic, and lovable, and his female counterparts are breathtakingly real and daring and skilled. Every character, no matter how minor, comes across as an unquestionably real human being.
I love Neal Stephenson, and Kathleen Ann Goonan's work reminds me very much of his. The book is only 346 pages long, but it reads like something longer. In a good way. It's a beautiful journey.
#bookaday
The main character is smart, artistic, and lovable, and his female counterparts are breathtakingly real and daring and skilled. Every character, no matter how minor, comes across as an unquestionably real human being.
I love Neal Stephenson, and Kathleen Ann Goonan's work reminds me very much of his. The book is only 346 pages long, but it reads like something longer. In a good way. It's a beautiful journey.
#bookaday
mckitterick's review
4.0
Disclaimer: I had difficutly with all the emphasis on jazz early in the novel. I nearly put the book down, because I'm not much of a jazz fan. But the promise of the rest of the book kept me going through the epic story that was to come, and all that jazz plays a part in forming the over-arching metaphor of the story.
The real payoffs of the novel are two-fold: First, witnessing the unfolding of events set up early in the book over several decades; and second, the family story. Thus, much of the payoff is similar to the kinds of reward we get from reading family epics in other genres, but this is a real SF novel where the SFnal material plays an important part in the central story as well as in the lives of the main characters' family and friends.
I suggest that you'll appreciate the novel once you begin to settle into it past the mid-way point, and that it'll grow on you much like the HD1....
The real payoffs of the novel are two-fold: First, witnessing the unfolding of events set up early in the book over several decades; and second, the family story. Thus, much of the payoff is similar to the kinds of reward we get from reading family epics in other genres, but this is a real SF novel where the SFnal material plays an important part in the central story as well as in the lives of the main characters' family and friends.
I suggest that you'll appreciate the novel once you begin to settle into it past the mid-way point, and that it'll grow on you much like the HD1....
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