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A review by history_bot
The City Among the Stars by Francis Carsac
1.0
Thanks to Flame Tree Press and Netgalley for the eARC.
Just a quick disclaimer. I like sci-fi, but not to the point where I’ve gone back to read the classics, and I haven’t read any pre-1990s sci-fi besides some H. G. Wells and Jules Verne. Thus, I’m not sure how this book compares to others of its era.
I hated this book.
Firstly, plot. The narrator was unlikable and a brat and shallow and rude (and yet women flung themselves at him). All of the characters had the blatant inability to empathize with others or consider their point of view, so the majority of the book was Character A saying, “I want this!”, and when Character B says no, Character A decides to put thousands of people’s lives in danger out of stubbornness. The plot also seriously meandered. It didn’t feel like there was any direction and the action didn’t feel meaningful. The book didn’t come to any satisfying conclusion because the storyline that it wrapped up was whether or not the main character had one ounce of character growth (supposedly he did) and not any of the big picture stuff.
Prose-wise, it also sucked! I’m not sure how much was the original author and how much was the translation, and I can’t find the original online to cross-check (it’s French title is “Pour patrie l’espace”). This book is 90% dialogue, and poorly written dialogue at that, in which characters have no unique voice and continuously over explain everything. It’s clunky and it’s boring and it’s confusing. There’s basically no transition in between scenes—you can skip over three months and not have any idea at all. If you skim, you’ll miss plot points, but you’ll want to skim because it’s so awful. I read this as fast as I could because I wanted to get this book over with.
As I was reading this, though, there is one thing I think could save this story: turning it into a comic book. As a novel, it sucks. However, with more visual cues, I think it would work a lot better. And the way it jumps from one absurd scenario to the next is better suited to comic book form and more forgivable. It still wouldn’t be a phenomenal story, but it would be much more digestible.
Just a quick disclaimer. I like sci-fi, but not to the point where I’ve gone back to read the classics, and I haven’t read any pre-1990s sci-fi besides some H. G. Wells and Jules Verne. Thus, I’m not sure how this book compares to others of its era.
I hated this book.
Firstly, plot. The narrator was unlikable and a brat and shallow and rude (and yet women flung themselves at him). All of the characters had the blatant inability to empathize with others or consider their point of view, so the majority of the book was Character A saying, “I want this!”, and when Character B says no, Character A decides to put thousands of people’s lives in danger out of stubbornness. The plot also seriously meandered. It didn’t feel like there was any direction and the action didn’t feel meaningful. The book didn’t come to any satisfying conclusion because the storyline that it wrapped up was whether or not the main character had one ounce of character growth (supposedly he did) and not any of the big picture stuff.
Prose-wise, it also sucked! I’m not sure how much was the original author and how much was the translation, and I can’t find the original online to cross-check (it’s French title is “Pour patrie l’espace”). This book is 90% dialogue, and poorly written dialogue at that, in which characters have no unique voice and continuously over explain everything. It’s clunky and it’s boring and it’s confusing. There’s basically no transition in between scenes—you can skip over three months and not have any idea at all. If you skim, you’ll miss plot points, but you’ll want to skim because it’s so awful. I read this as fast as I could because I wanted to get this book over with.
As I was reading this, though, there is one thing I think could save this story: turning it into a comic book. As a novel, it sucks. However, with more visual cues, I think it would work a lot better. And the way it jumps from one absurd scenario to the next is better suited to comic book form and more forgivable. It still wouldn’t be a phenomenal story, but it would be much more digestible.