Sunday, June 2, 2024
The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber
This was a book that looking at the cover copy, I wondered if it was litfic that wanted people to think it was SF, or if it was Sf that wanted people to think it was litfic. Well, the "SF" in it is at best marginally coherent--some of which might be because it's ten years old, yes, but most of which is because it doesn't seem to have been thought through particularly well, if at all--which ends up making the story it tells at best marginally coherent. There are things the novel wants to say, or at least gesture at, around religion and faith and prioritizing either of those over actual people, but it's mostly a muddy mess. The fact that the "climax" is, apparently a decision, the results of which are left undescribed--they happen after the novel stops--does not clarify things.
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