From f51257388c582d4b4fa4738fa5679851d6f81390 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Julio Biason Date: Fri, 19 Mar 2021 13:08:07 -0300 Subject: [PATCH] Book review: Undercity --- content/reviews/books/undercity.md | 56 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 56 insertions(+) create mode 100644 content/reviews/books/undercity.md diff --git a/content/reviews/books/undercity.md b/content/reviews/books/undercity.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7995063 --- /dev/null +++ b/content/reviews/books/undercity.md @@ -0,0 +1,56 @@ ++++ +title = "Undercity - Catherine Asaro" +date = 2021-03-19 + +[taxonomies] +tags = ["books", "reviews", "catherine asaro", "scifi"] ++++ + +[GoodReads Summary](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21412186-undercity): +Major Bhaajan, a former military officer with Imperial Space Command, is now a +hard-bitten P.I. with a load of baggage to deal with, and clients with woes +sometimes personal, sometimes galaxy-shattering, and sometimes both. Bhaajan +must sift through the shadows of dark and dangerous Undercity—the enormous +capital of a vast star empire—to find answers. + + + +{{ stars(stars=3) }} + +There are some cool elements in this book, but I felt like it tried to stretch +too long and lost its pacing after the middle. + +For example, a city built by humans teleported billions on kilometres across the +space, getting in another planet, having to learn the technology present to +survive. That's cool. + +On the other hand, the fact that the current story is 5.000 years after that +make things a bit hard to swallow. I mean, look how much we changed in 100 years +here, imagine how much things would change in 50 times that. But it feels like +the current state is pretty much the same as 5.000 years before, so it feels the +whole thing was managed by incompetents (we learn magical technology and then +nothing). + +Another interesting factor: The whole vision of a world controlled by women. It +really twists the current state of a male society around, when men being +"pretty" and women being the strong ones. The start of the book this is a bit +too much -- I mean, men are really shown as being just pretty pieces of meat, +and I'm not saying this 'cause I'm a man and I can clearly see that society +today treats women like that, but heck, let's kill it. 5.000 years, remember? +5.000 years and we still treat people like pretty things to shown around? +Fortunately, later this distinction mellows a bit, with the "pretty men" getting +out of the story. + +Unfortunately, by the end of the book, things get so confusing to follow around +that I really didn't care anymore. Dialogues are well constructed, but +descriptions of sewers and such got way over me. The destruction of said sewers? +It was so confusing to me that I couldn't follow the story anymore -- and I +simply let it flow and waited for the dialogues. + +Speaking of dialogues, the whole bunch is told in first person and there seems to +be a lot of "internal talking" just to expose things. Some are nice and really +contribute to the story, some are lengthy and add mostly nothing, and some +are... shallow. + +Since this is a first book, I can understand that the following books may be +more involving (to me, at least).