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njdarkish's review against another edition
2.0
While the previous book was (slightly) more cohesive, this one was extremely difficult to follow, particularly the lengthy sections in French. The writing was good, but I couldn't really tell you if the story was worthwhile or not.
swegory_grindle's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.0
willrefuge's review against another edition
1.0
1 / 10 ✪
https://arefugefromlife.wordpress.com/2022/04/30/black-helicopters-by-caitlin-r-kiernan-review/
The idea of a “story” is to give an account or description of events, not randomly spout prose and leave it up to the reader to decide what the fuck you’re talking about. I mean, for Book #2 in a series, at the very least.
Enter Black Helicopters. I don’t understand what this is about. And I don’t understand why I don’t understand what this is about. In Agents of Dreamland, we learned that there was an an impending apocalypse, which only Ptolema might prevent, so I thought maybe this would be a continuation of that. And, yeah, Ptolema’s got a POV within, but it’s only one of three. The other two are SOMEONE, who lives in the post-apocalyptic city of Sanctuary (I think) and writes daily letters to her sister, and Johnson, who crews aboard the Argyle Shoelace, a ship at some pre-apocalyptic time that is probably important for some reason that’s not immediately clear. The Signalman makes an appearance, but even he can’t seem to tell us what the fuck is going on. Maybe he doesn’t know.
I realize that Ptolema is out to save the world, but I only know this entirely from the last book, as this one never makes any real sense whatsoever.
• Okay, so a quarter of the way through: I’ve no fucking idea what is going on in this stupid book. I know what it’s SUPPOSED to be—another entry in the Tinfoil Dossier, an alien invasion story happening in the future, unless Ptolema can stop it. But… so far, we just rambled on for 6 chapters (an hour and a half in), and I’ve no idea what’s happening.
• There’s something in the near-future that’s caused the end of the world, but we knew that in the last novella, so this isn’t super informative. There’s a place called Sanctuary, where someone and 66 live. And they hunt alien monsters.
And that’s it.
…
That could’ve been covered in a letter. Like the ones she writes her sister. Like ONE of the letters she writes.
• We just took 10 minutes and a full chapter saying that aliens landed somewhere at sometime because something and then ended it. The next chapter spouted a prophecy amidst a fountain of nonsense. And now we’re speaking in French (a lot of French) with no translation offered.
• So we’re on a ship—the Argyle Shoestring—that has what to do with what? I can’t make heads or tails of any of the threads of this story. Or what they have to do with the apocalypse and/or preventing it.
I could complain about this one all day, but instead I’ll leave off with a quote I feel sums up the consistency of the text.
—
“Gentlemen, we have arrived at the oneness of allness, a single cosmic flow. You would label disorder, unreality, inequilibrium, ugliness, discord, inconsistency.
“Checkmate. Because this is the meaning. Black queen white, white queen black. A game of chess played in the temples of Erss, the halls of Discordia. There will be murders on La Manzanna de la Discordia. You know, or may learn of, Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst—not his real name, but let that slide. The gods were not pleased, hence of course all were turned into birds. Even the birds will rain down upon the bay and upon the island. Erss tosses the golden apple and the sea heaves up her judgment upon us all. Watch for the Egyptian, and the arrival of the Twins, and my daughter’s daughter. Watch for Strife, who—warns Homer—is relentless. She is the sister and companion of murderous Ares. She, who was only a little thing at the first, but thereafter grows, until she strides on the earth with her head striking heaven. She then hurls down bitterness, equally between both sides, as she walks through the onslaught, making men’s pain heavier. The Calla Lilies are in bloom again. Such a strange flower, suitable to any occasion. Be still—the chaos reigns around you now.”
—
Normally, I do a summary, then put a quote, then discuss how I feel about the book, the plot, the characters, whatever. But since there’s no way I could’ve done a coherent summary of any plot—mostly because the “story” didn’t seem to have one—I guess I’ll just skip to the end.
TL;DR
If you didn’t read this review, I wouldn’t read the book. Yeah, it was that bad. Nope, it didn’t make any sense. Yup, it even got me to swear in my review of it. And it’s usually got to be pretty fucking bad to do that.
I’m actually planning on reading Book #3 of the Tinfoil Dossier, mostly because I can’t believe it can be any worse than #2.
https://arefugefromlife.wordpress.com/2022/04/30/black-helicopters-by-caitlin-r-kiernan-review/
The idea of a “story” is to give an account or description of events, not randomly spout prose and leave it up to the reader to decide what the fuck you’re talking about. I mean, for Book #2 in a series, at the very least.
Enter Black Helicopters. I don’t understand what this is about. And I don’t understand why I don’t understand what this is about. In Agents of Dreamland, we learned that there was an an impending apocalypse, which only Ptolema might prevent, so I thought maybe this would be a continuation of that. And, yeah, Ptolema’s got a POV within, but it’s only one of three. The other two are SOMEONE, who lives in the post-apocalyptic city of Sanctuary (I think) and writes daily letters to her sister, and Johnson, who crews aboard the Argyle Shoelace, a ship at some pre-apocalyptic time that is probably important for some reason that’s not immediately clear. The Signalman makes an appearance, but even he can’t seem to tell us what the fuck is going on. Maybe he doesn’t know.
I realize that Ptolema is out to save the world, but I only know this entirely from the last book, as this one never makes any real sense whatsoever.
• Okay, so a quarter of the way through: I’ve no fucking idea what is going on in this stupid book. I know what it’s SUPPOSED to be—another entry in the Tinfoil Dossier, an alien invasion story happening in the future, unless Ptolema can stop it. But… so far, we just rambled on for 6 chapters (an hour and a half in), and I’ve no idea what’s happening.
• There’s something in the near-future that’s caused the end of the world, but we knew that in the last novella, so this isn’t super informative. There’s a place called Sanctuary, where someone and 66 live. And they hunt alien monsters.
And that’s it.
…
That could’ve been covered in a letter. Like the ones she writes her sister. Like ONE of the letters she writes.
• We just took 10 minutes and a full chapter saying that aliens landed somewhere at sometime because something and then ended it. The next chapter spouted a prophecy amidst a fountain of nonsense. And now we’re speaking in French (a lot of French) with no translation offered.
• So we’re on a ship—the Argyle Shoestring—that has what to do with what? I can’t make heads or tails of any of the threads of this story. Or what they have to do with the apocalypse and/or preventing it.
I could complain about this one all day, but instead I’ll leave off with a quote I feel sums up the consistency of the text.
—
“Gentlemen, we have arrived at the oneness of allness, a single cosmic flow. You would label disorder, unreality, inequilibrium, ugliness, discord, inconsistency.
“Checkmate. Because this is the meaning. Black queen white, white queen black. A game of chess played in the temples of Erss, the halls of Discordia. There will be murders on La Manzanna de la Discordia. You know, or may learn of, Omar Khayyam Ravenhurst—not his real name, but let that slide. The gods were not pleased, hence of course all were turned into birds. Even the birds will rain down upon the bay and upon the island. Erss tosses the golden apple and the sea heaves up her judgment upon us all. Watch for the Egyptian, and the arrival of the Twins, and my daughter’s daughter. Watch for Strife, who—warns Homer—is relentless. She is the sister and companion of murderous Ares. She, who was only a little thing at the first, but thereafter grows, until she strides on the earth with her head striking heaven. She then hurls down bitterness, equally between both sides, as she walks through the onslaught, making men’s pain heavier. The Calla Lilies are in bloom again. Such a strange flower, suitable to any occasion. Be still—the chaos reigns around you now.”
—
Normally, I do a summary, then put a quote, then discuss how I feel about the book, the plot, the characters, whatever. But since there’s no way I could’ve done a coherent summary of any plot—mostly because the “story” didn’t seem to have one—I guess I’ll just skip to the end.
TL;DR
If you didn’t read this review, I wouldn’t read the book. Yeah, it was that bad. Nope, it didn’t make any sense. Yup, it even got me to swear in my review of it. And it’s usually got to be pretty fucking bad to do that.
I’m actually planning on reading Book #3 of the Tinfoil Dossier, mostly because I can’t believe it can be any worse than #2.
nonesensed's review against another edition
3.0
An agent is meeting with another, who may or may not be a turncoat for a rival organization. A woman is stuck battling monsters on an island. Her twin is in the hands of a psychologist with few scruples who she might be working with or might be the prisoner of. It's all quite a fine mess.
I kinda enjoyed this story, and then again, I kinda didn't. There are a lot of jumps back and forth in time and a ton of references I'm not sure I understood - I think I caught all the lovecraftian ones, but there are far more historical and pop cultural ones that likely went way over my head. That took me out of trying to figure out the story, so to speak. I did enjoy the story's twist.
I kinda enjoyed this story, and then again, I kinda didn't. There are a lot of jumps back and forth in time and a ton of references I'm not sure I understood - I think I caught all the lovecraftian ones, but there are far more historical and pop cultural ones that likely went way over my head. That took me out of trying to figure out the story, so to speak. I did enjoy the story's twist.
kleonard's review against another edition
2.0
Oooh, chess as a metaphor. Oooh, chess as a plot device. Oooh, chess as an overused cliche. Some interesting ideas, but also a mess.
brandonadaniels's review against another edition
3.0
I loved the first entry of this trilogy, Agents of Dreamland, but this one left me a little cold. Agents was dense, but the rapid fire ideas were held together by strong characters and, in the audiobook, strong narrators. Black Helicopters is more character focused, but the characters somehow feel less distinct. I was confused frequently about the nature of the cast, whose voice as who’s, and what the characters relationships were. The narrator was great, but I think I would have preferred a multi cast production like the first one. The chapters bounce around a bit too much between characters and time periods. It felt a bit like a Burroughs cut up novel. There’s some really striking imagery here, but it gets a little muddled.
mamimitanaka's review against another edition
4.0
Goes hard as fuck. Actually might be better than the first one, I only understood maybe 20% of what the hell was going on here but that's sort of intended, Kiernan is rapid-fire cycling through time and perspective to the point where you're supposed to be as disoriented as the many characters who come and go amidst a worldwide supernatural conspiracy. But it's not only a galaxy brained sci-fi story about a global cosmic chess match spanning entire generations and cycles of history, it is also pervasively obsessed with the mechanics of the universe and how these forces puppeteering and orchestrating everything bend and break the rules; so it's also about chaos theory, about doubling, the existential horror of state power which eclipses and controls even Biblical apocalypse, and about mathematics and Time and the fickle subjectivity of the whole concept. Kiernan is basically serving up a mixed dish of delectable spec-fic ingredients, resulting in a fast-paced postmodern puzzle box full of recontextualized yet affectionately homaged genre tropes and Kiernan's always reliable excellence at sentence crafting, which is stellar throughout, and filled to bursting with references ranging from the mythic to the literary to pop culture. Appropriately for the Lovecraftian undercurrents nothing here is answered directly, piecing together your own conclusions is part of the point. Kinda wish this was a 700 page doorstopper given the amount of modes it plays in and characters and subplots it handles, but there's something impressive on its own about fitting this much into a 200 page volume. Though this series is still ongoing to my knowledge, so maybe if we're lucky Kiernan's all building this to some grand conclusion that could very well end up being our weird sci-fi tome for the ages once the series is finished in bulk.
lazercatz's review against another edition
2.0
I really wanted to love this book but the nonlinear narrative just doesn’t work for me.