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Book Review: Passage
Apr. 23rd, 2004 08:28 pmToday's book review is Passage by Connie Willis. It's been a while since I've posted a review, and that's because it took me a long time to slog through this one. It's long, and I've been too busy most days to read more than a few pages before falling asleep.
( Why I hate Connie Willis )
The novel got off to a pretty good start. Plausible, if not completely believable science (at least to this moderately well informed layman), and a plot actually about scientists doing science. I was just getting into it, and the main character started getting a little funny in the head, and the writing started getting a little less coherent and more stream-of-consciousness. I'm sure it was a deliberate stylistic thing -- the main character is *supposed* to be going a little funny in the head and the reader is supposed to be helped to feel it by the writing -- but I hate that style of writing. And it took hundreds of pages and a really really long time for that to resolve into a "She (Willis) can't do that, can she?" plot twist, and things picked up again. I didn't give up during the long boring middle, and by the end I was getting into it again, although the very end was somewhat dissatisfying.
I felt very constrained writing that by my own no-spoilers rule, but I still want to stick to it. But anyway, I'll give the overall book a 6 out of 10. The first hundred pages and the last 150 or so were dragged down by the 400 or so in the middle.
( Why I hate Connie Willis )
The novel got off to a pretty good start. Plausible, if not completely believable science (at least to this moderately well informed layman), and a plot actually about scientists doing science. I was just getting into it, and the main character started getting a little funny in the head, and the writing started getting a little less coherent and more stream-of-consciousness. I'm sure it was a deliberate stylistic thing -- the main character is *supposed* to be going a little funny in the head and the reader is supposed to be helped to feel it by the writing -- but I hate that style of writing. And it took hundreds of pages and a really really long time for that to resolve into a "She (Willis) can't do that, can she?" plot twist, and things picked up again. I didn't give up during the long boring middle, and by the end I was getting into it again, although the very end was somewhat dissatisfying.
I felt very constrained writing that by my own no-spoilers rule, but I still want to stick to it. But anyway, I'll give the overall book a 6 out of 10. The first hundred pages and the last 150 or so were dragged down by the 400 or so in the middle.