This book sounds *incredible*, what a premise! Novel but accessible world-building. Is it depressing? I'm not sure I'd make it through the book given some of the ways it instrumentalizes its characters but sometimes that's a worthwhile tradeoff. What do you think?
Don't see Stand on Zanzibar references very often! I was recently making a list of "Big Books I've Loved and Should Re-Read". Sometimes books or stories I have re-read have been a renewed delight (stainless steel rat), sometimes a very different experience (Carver's "Cathedral"), and sometimes a disappointment (9 princes in amber); often quite different from how I remember them. Doesn't it make sense to re-read books we remember as our favorites and keep in a personal pantheon? Is what's keeping me from doing it time or fear? There are so many books I've never read. And of course I don't want to discover that I had bad taste, or that my heroes are chumps. Anyway, all this to say that Stand on Zanzibar is on that list, and one about which I wonder more than most of the others whether it would hold up.
Not sure I have the patience for the whole book, but the synopsis was fun. Sounds sort of like a throwback to medieval times when promising artists were taken under the wing of wealthy patrons. Nothing is ever new. Even science fiction with a future bent.
I’m very intrigued buy this novel and put it on my too long of a tbr list (it’s actually quite short but I need to make headway in the books I’m currently reading (and I just bought more books -_-) )
Thank you, Naomi for the mention.
This book sounds *incredible*, what a premise! Novel but accessible world-building. Is it depressing? I'm not sure I'd make it through the book given some of the ways it instrumentalizes its characters but sometimes that's a worthwhile tradeoff. What do you think?
Don't see Stand on Zanzibar references very often! I was recently making a list of "Big Books I've Loved and Should Re-Read". Sometimes books or stories I have re-read have been a renewed delight (stainless steel rat), sometimes a very different experience (Carver's "Cathedral"), and sometimes a disappointment (9 princes in amber); often quite different from how I remember them. Doesn't it make sense to re-read books we remember as our favorites and keep in a personal pantheon? Is what's keeping me from doing it time or fear? There are so many books I've never read. And of course I don't want to discover that I had bad taste, or that my heroes are chumps. Anyway, all this to say that Stand on Zanzibar is on that list, and one about which I wonder more than most of the others whether it would hold up.
Not sure I have the patience for the whole book, but the synopsis was fun. Sounds sort of like a throwback to medieval times when promising artists were taken under the wing of wealthy patrons. Nothing is ever new. Even science fiction with a future bent.
I’m very intrigued buy this novel and put it on my too long of a tbr list (it’s actually quite short but I need to make headway in the books I’m currently reading (and I just bought more books -_-) )
Thanks for the tip! I'll take a look.