Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
There is a lot to not like about this book from the perspective of a science fiction story. So much is not explained, or seems not really credible in a strict science fiction sense (perhaps only because it is not explained). Indeed, even the setting the story is not entirely clear. (Is it alternative history or set in the future? It didn't seem to me that this was absolutely stated.) But it turns out that this, that I might normally find annoying, is one of the things that I think makes the story work for me. The vagueness of the setting, the uneducated simplicity of the telling, makes it all seem real and convincing and important in a way that more explicit explanation may have distracted from. (I found this recently in another book, where the long and detailed "world building" came across as exactly that, "world building" - and only artificial worlds need building and explaining so of course the story felt artificial.)
The lack of explicit explanation also means that what may seem like holes may merely be lack of knowledge, or lack of imagination on our own part, and that in itself leaves you thinking about the book. For, if nothing else, this is a book that left me thinking about it long after completion. ... And I'll never think of the word "completion" in quite the same way again.
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Yes, the underlying bio-technology is not convincing in the least. It is difficult to imagine how cloning humans and then butchering the clones could result in the benefits described. It doesn’t seem credible at all. Nor is it credible that any truly humane, caring society would tolerate such a system.
That is why I very much would like to know more about the setting and the external society but I suppose that the author would say that the book’s external fictional world is not the concern of this novel.
But I also found that the book kept (keeps) me thinking and like you “I’ll never think of the word ‘completion’ in quite the same way again.”