As i started reading Cosmonaut Keep, i found myself a little lost. my initial confusion was soon put to rest with the understanding that, Yes, it's two different time periods. that understanding then forced me to do something i try not to do with any sci-fi novel, and that is that i tried to predict the ending. To try and predict the ending of a book that has 2 completely separated story lines, means that you have to find the connections between the story lines. As far as i have read in the book so far, i really cant find any ideas that will clue me into how this book will turn out.
That creates two completely different feelings. The first, is that the book is wasting my time. its like reading two different writers. the story in the past is engaging, exciting, and very well described. the time period is one that is easy to relate to, and is very reminiscent of Orwell's 1984. This is completely set back by the second story line, taking place hundreds of years into the future, on a different planet. the writing is rather vague, but only on facts. The alien race that is still a mystery, even to the people who have spent generations living with them, have not been given any real solid physical description. every now and then a little fact will be dropped about what they eat, or the shape of their head, or an activity they enjoy. but no real background has been given. this is rather infuriating. how do you lose the ability to travel between the stars, all the while, you are still traveling between the stars? what happened to earth? why was The Bright Star abandoned? i am sure that these all will be answered in the end, or at least i hope.
My other aforementioned feeling is that of anticipation. the author has created a mystery on top of a mystery. i have the feeling that the story will become clear when the past story line becomes clear. kind of a "discover the past to understand the future".
i will keep this blog brief simply because there would be too much speculation without real understanding if i kept going, but all i can say is that this book has all kinds of potential, and potential isn't always a positive thing. some things have the potential to suck.
excuse the lack of capitalization, the computer for some reason doesn't it to heppen, so i am not fighting it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
I noticed that too, I also think he really grinds on those details. The book is easier to follow later, but I also wonder if he actually tried to do this intentionally, like I said in my post, maybe the saurs weren't explained that much because they themselves are pretty quiet, so you WANT to know about them.
but if you want to know more then the writer has to follow it with something and at this point i still have not found that something and I'm almost done with the book and from what i see there is not a second book for it so that means the writer should paint the story for us which he has not done.
i think kirk vonnegut wrote that you as a writer shouldn't be so mysterious and coy with your story, becuase what if you died? you'd never know what the story was actually about.
so, uh, i hear that. "word," as it were.
Got a good point there, at least sofar as the separate storylines. Frankly I get a little dissapointed when the book turns back to Gregor's story. I'd much rather follow the hacker and the events taking place on Earth. The future planet just doesn't make as much sense to me. I mean giant squids know the secrets to space travel and the humans don't? What gives?
It's confusing for sure, more confusing than the complete timeline for the events of Chrono Trigger/Cross, and that's saying something. I don't want to predict the ending though, because at the moment that's one of the only motivations I've got to finish this thing.
Post a Comment