|
|
|
|
+++
|
|
|
|
|
title = "Central Station - Lavie Tidhar"
|
|
|
|
|
date = 2021-01-20
|
|
|
|
|
updated = 2021-02-12
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
[taxonomies]
|
|
|
|
|
tags = ["books", "reviews", "fantasy", "scifi", "books:2021", "stars:1",
|
|
|
|
|
"lavie tidhar", "published:2016"]
|
|
|
|
|
+++
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
[GoodReads Summary](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25986774-central-station):
|
|
|
|
|
When Boris Chong returns to Tel Aviv from Mars, much has changed. Boris’s
|
|
|
|
|
ex-lover is raising a strangely familiar child who can tap into the datastream
|
|
|
|
|
of a mind with the touch of a finger. His cousin is infatuated with a
|
|
|
|
|
robotnik—a damaged cyborg soldier who might as well be begging for parts. His
|
|
|
|
|
father is terminally-ill with a multigenerational mind-plague. And a hunted
|
|
|
|
|
data-vampire has followed Boris to where she is forbidden to return.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
<!-- more -->
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
{{ stars(stars=1) }}
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
There is something incredibly satisfying in reading a book in which the
|
|
|
|
|
characters are not some sort of American-centered or -inspired story -- heck,
|
|
|
|
|
even [All You Need Is Kill](@/reviews/books/all-you-need-is-kill.md) feels a
|
|
|
|
|
lot like an American story than a Japanese one. But here? No. Names are
|
|
|
|
|
"alien", 'cause you're not used to see them, like mixing Chinese and Russian
|
|
|
|
|
names. And Hebrew names. And the location doesn't look like the general things
|
|
|
|
|
we usually read.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
But while the ambience feels nice, the plot doesn't. I mean, sure, there are
|
|
|
|
|
some incredible elements that could be explored in future novels, but here they
|
|
|
|
|
are thrown and forgotten and never really explored properly. You have children
|
|
|
|
|
with weird abilities that are never explained; you have a diseased women whose
|
|
|
|
|
sickness grants some powers, but something mythical happens with her (and the
|
|
|
|
|
children) and then she suddenly disappears. Was she cured? Does she lives a
|
|
|
|
|
normal life now? Does the mythical thing killed her?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
And you have some mythical gods walking around, something that people take as
|
|
|
|
|
annoyance, but they appear only after the middle of the book, out of the blue.
|
|
|
|
|
I mean, sure, by the description, they are annoying -- 'cause they are gods,
|
|
|
|
|
after all, and can do whatever, whenever they want -- and people doesn't seem
|
|
|
|
|
to really like them, but how the heck we spent this whole time without knowing
|
|
|
|
|
anything about them? And then, this god appears, do some crazy things, and
|
|
|
|
|
disappear and never mentioned again.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
This kind of "starting a thread and never putting a connection in them" happens
|
|
|
|
|
over and over again, just ruining the feeling from the book.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
And the ending... It feels like the author simply decided "Ok, I had enough; I
|
|
|
|
|
need an ending" and just put something there to mark it as ended and gone.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
There is a lot of points that could be explored in the future from here, but
|
|
|
|
|
here... not much is.
|
