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eor20. David Brin "Kiln People"
I finished David Brin's "Kiln People" a while ago. This was another one of those books which showed up in the house at random, I have no idea where it came from. It's a complicated future mystery/thriller and I enjoyed a lot of the world building. I'm not sure I buy all the assumptions about how certain changes would have led to the social conditions in the society, but it was fun to see how some of the implications played out. The book is long and I feel like the build up to the climax could have been trimmed. There are certain scenes that get very repetitive. I know it was probably the intention to give the reader a feel for the perspective of one of the characters, but I still think it was over done (a la Sam and Frodo walking through the approach to Mordor). We could have lost 100 pages of 560 and not felt the loss. I wasn't really satisfied with the ending, it didn't really do it for me, but overall the book still had plenty going on to make it worthwhile. So an interesting bit near future science fiction, published in 2002, so it does have the occasional quaint reference at this point.
21. Asimov's May/June 2021
This issue of Asimov's didn't really do it for me. Most of the longer pieces did little or nothing for me. The exception was Ray Nayler's "Ano Neuvo" which was probably longer than it needed to be, but I liked where it went and the drunkard's walk it took to get there. Honorable mention to Rick Wilber & Brad Aiken for their treatment of their character Stephanie. The "Tin Man" story didn't wow me as far as plot or pacing goes, but the way they played the interaction between the two main characters shined a little bit of light in the world. I know I'm being vague, but I don't want to spoil it. Among the shorts, we had a good mix of somewhat bleak futures. Mary Anne Mohanraj's "Among the Marithei" had an ending twist that was startling and thoughtful. TJ Berry's "My Heart Is At Capacity" extracts a depth of flavor out of a shallow social sea.
I finished David Brin's "Kiln People" a while ago. This was another one of those books which showed up in the house at random, I have no idea where it came from. It's a complicated future mystery/thriller and I enjoyed a lot of the world building. I'm not sure I buy all the assumptions about how certain changes would have led to the social conditions in the society, but it was fun to see how some of the implications played out. The book is long and I feel like the build up to the climax could have been trimmed. There are certain scenes that get very repetitive. I know it was probably the intention to give the reader a feel for the perspective of one of the characters, but I still think it was over done (a la Sam and Frodo walking through the approach to Mordor). We could have lost 100 pages of 560 and not felt the loss. I wasn't really satisfied with the ending, it didn't really do it for me, but overall the book still had plenty going on to make it worthwhile. So an interesting bit near future science fiction, published in 2002, so it does have the occasional quaint reference at this point.
21. Asimov's May/June 2021
This issue of Asimov's didn't really do it for me. Most of the longer pieces did little or nothing for me. The exception was Ray Nayler's "Ano Neuvo" which was probably longer than it needed to be, but I liked where it went and the drunkard's walk it took to get there. Honorable mention to Rick Wilber & Brad Aiken for their treatment of their character Stephanie. The "Tin Man" story didn't wow me as far as plot or pacing goes, but the way they played the interaction between the two main characters shined a little bit of light in the world. I know I'm being vague, but I don't want to spoil it. Among the shorts, we had a good mix of somewhat bleak futures. Mary Anne Mohanraj's "Among the Marithei" had an ending twist that was startling and thoughtful. TJ Berry's "My Heart Is At Capacity" extracts a depth of flavor out of a shallow social sea.
