I’ve started reading Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell. The first section, while plagued with Ye Olde Australian, managed to hook me, so unless it’s quite awful I imagine I’ll finish reading it. It comes somewhat recommended from my boyfriend, who claims there’s no way they’ll be able to competently turn it into a screenplay.
Finished the rest of it tonight. Boyfriend correct on all counts (as he tends to be).
Attempt at a spoiler-free stream-of-consciousness review (hey, it’s 0153 here) follows:
Written transcriptions of various accents are abundant, but they are somewhat necessary to the plot and not terribly grating. That, or reading too much Homestuck has dulled my sensitivity. The six narratives have to be connected, of course, and some of the connections are much more contrived than others. Weird use of the word orison.
At one point the author cops out of a contrived scene by having the POV character reveal that they knew it was contrived all along; now that I think of it this happens at least three times—perhaps it counts as a motif? A bit preachy toward the end and in the middle. One of the narratives is told as an interview dialog, and in my opinion the format stunts the plot’s growth. It’s a bit like Christian Bale’s performance in Equilibrium.
Some LW-tropeage on synthetic humans, more or less coextensive with the economy of ems and so on. Existential risk shows up in the middle two narratives, but isn’t played for keeps.
I’ll probably read Number9Dream at some point, and perhaps Ghostwritten.
I’ve started reading Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell. The first section, while plagued with Ye Olde Australian, managed to hook me, so unless it’s quite awful I imagine I’ll finish reading it. It comes somewhat recommended from my boyfriend, who claims there’s no way they’ll be able to competently turn it into a screenplay.
Finished the rest of it tonight. Boyfriend correct on all counts (as he tends to be).
Attempt at a spoiler-free stream-of-consciousness review (hey, it’s 0153 here) follows:
Written transcriptions of various accents are abundant, but they are somewhat necessary to the plot and not terribly grating. That, or reading too much Homestuck has dulled my sensitivity. The six narratives have to be connected, of course, and some of the connections are much more contrived than others. Weird use of the word orison.
At one point the author cops out of a contrived scene by having the POV character reveal that they knew it was contrived all along; now that I think of it this happens at least three times—perhaps it counts as a motif? A bit preachy toward the end and in the middle. One of the narratives is told as an interview dialog, and in my opinion the format stunts the plot’s growth. It’s a bit like Christian Bale’s performance in Equilibrium.
Some LW-tropeage on synthetic humans, more or less coextensive with the economy of ems and so on. Existential risk shows up in the middle two narratives, but isn’t played for keeps.
I’ll probably read Number9Dream at some point, and perhaps Ghostwritten.