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Playground
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Readers' Favorite Fiction (2024)Four lives are drawn together in a sweeping, panoramic new novel from Richard Powers, showcasing the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Overstory at the height of his skills. Twelve-year-old Evie Beaulieu sinks to the bottom of a swimming pool in Montreal strapped to one of the world’s first aqualungs. Ina Aroita grows up on naval bases across the Pacific with art as her only home. Two polar opposites at an elite Chicago high school bond over a three-thousand-year-old board game; Rafi Young will get lost in literature, while Todd Keane’s work will lead to a startling AI breakthrough.
They meet on the history-scarred island of Makatea in French Polynesia, whose deposits of phosphorus once helped to feed the world. Now the tiny atoll has been chosen for humanity’s next adventure: a plan to send floating, autonomous cities out onto the open sea. But first, the island’s residents must vote to greenlight the project or turn the seasteaders away.
Set in the world’s largest ocean, this awe-filled book explores that last wild place we have yet to colonize in a still-unfolding oceanic game, and interweaves beautiful writing, rich characterization, profound themes of technology and the environment, and a deep exploration of our shared humanity in a way only Richard Powers can.
They meet on the history-scarred island of Makatea in French Polynesia, whose deposits of phosphorus once helped to feed the world. Now the tiny atoll has been chosen for humanity’s next adventure: a plan to send floating, autonomous cities out onto the open sea. But first, the island’s residents must vote to greenlight the project or turn the seasteaders away.
Set in the world’s largest ocean, this awe-filled book explores that last wild place we have yet to colonize in a still-unfolding oceanic game, and interweaves beautiful writing, rich characterization, profound themes of technology and the environment, and a deep exploration of our shared humanity in a way only Richard Powers can.
381 pages, Hardcover
First published September 24, 2024
7612 people are currently reading
112029 people want to read
About the author
Richard Powers
92 books6,673 followersRichard Powers has published thirteen novels. He is a MacArthur Fellow and received the National Book Award. His book The Overstory won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. He lives in the Great Smoky Mountains.
Librarian note: There is more than one author with this name in the Goodreads database.
Librarian note: There is more than one author with this name in the Goodreads database.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 6,329 reviews
September 8, 2025
Potential Spoilers Ahead!
This novel totally shows off Richard Powers’s signature style - mixing deep emotional moments with sharp takes on current events and a really cool look at how humans and nature connect. Honestly, it deserves a spot on the shortlist for the 2024 Booker Prize.
At its core, the book is all about protecting the environment, with a big focus on the ocean. But unlike his earlier works, which were all about the battle between destruction and preservation, Playground follows Evie, a marine scientist, as she endlessly explores the ocean and marvels at its wonders. Powers paints the underwater world so beautifully - every creature comes off as innocent, charming, and mysteriously wise. Once you’ve seen the magic of the deep, it’s hard to forget.
Then there’s Todd, another main character who dives into today’s hot topics like AI and social networks. His story - and his connection with Rafi - brings out a bittersweet vibe about loneliness, friendship, and where things ultimately lead. Todd’s crew of tech geniuses have whipped up AI and social platforms that seem to have taken on a life of their own, maybe even in a bid to create a never-ending, perfect game.
The book’s “playground” is this multi-layered world: Todd’s social platform, the ocean seen through Evie’s eyes with its countless swimming creatures, the evolving friendship between Todd and Rafi, and even Ina’s artistic universe. But bit by bit, everything starts to fall apart. The ocean suffers from human actions taken in the name of progress, and though we don’t know exactly what price we’ll pay, it’s clear that true harmony between humans and nature is slipping away. That leads to a radical new path, one where AI starts pushing boundaries. Still, the roles of who’s in control and who isn’t remain up in the air.
Powers’a storytelling pulls you right into these heavy themes. With multiple narrative perspectives bouncing between different times and places, you quickly get a feel for each character and their intertwined stories. After just a few chapters, you’re pretty confident you’ve got the plot figured out.
But then, I was totally caught off guard. I’d assumed the “I” narration was just talking to us, the readers, and that the third-person sections were simply there to tell different characters’ stories. So when an important twist hit in the second-to-last chapter, I was nearly floored. Turns out, Powers had set up this entire playground where readers are actually cast as a super-evolved, all-knowing AI—one that’s picked up on every story and has the power to rebuild a world where the lost can come back. All those third-person bits? They were stories the AI was feeding Todd, drawing him into a new game of reunions and farewells. Everything is reset in an instant, and it’s never too late to change course. It’s a brilliant twist that pulls you deep into this ocean of fiction, stirring up both sadness and awe. At that moment, Powers nails it - showing off the wild possibilities and potential terrors of AI. Whether it’s a trick or a miracle, it all depends on how you look at it.
A fun little detail is in the dedication where Powers writes to Rayray: “750,000 thanks to you, better yet, let's make it a million.” I was stumped until I noticed those same numbers popping up throughout the book.
Yeah, that’s the playground.
4.6 / 5 stars
This novel totally shows off Richard Powers’s signature style - mixing deep emotional moments with sharp takes on current events and a really cool look at how humans and nature connect. Honestly, it deserves a spot on the shortlist for the 2024 Booker Prize.
At its core, the book is all about protecting the environment, with a big focus on the ocean. But unlike his earlier works, which were all about the battle between destruction and preservation, Playground follows Evie, a marine scientist, as she endlessly explores the ocean and marvels at its wonders. Powers paints the underwater world so beautifully - every creature comes off as innocent, charming, and mysteriously wise. Once you’ve seen the magic of the deep, it’s hard to forget.
Then there’s Todd, another main character who dives into today’s hot topics like AI and social networks. His story - and his connection with Rafi - brings out a bittersweet vibe about loneliness, friendship, and where things ultimately lead. Todd’s crew of tech geniuses have whipped up AI and social platforms that seem to have taken on a life of their own, maybe even in a bid to create a never-ending, perfect game.
The book’s “playground” is this multi-layered world: Todd’s social platform, the ocean seen through Evie’s eyes with its countless swimming creatures, the evolving friendship between Todd and Rafi, and even Ina’s artistic universe. But bit by bit, everything starts to fall apart. The ocean suffers from human actions taken in the name of progress, and though we don’t know exactly what price we’ll pay, it’s clear that true harmony between humans and nature is slipping away. That leads to a radical new path, one where AI starts pushing boundaries. Still, the roles of who’s in control and who isn’t remain up in the air.
Powers’a storytelling pulls you right into these heavy themes. With multiple narrative perspectives bouncing between different times and places, you quickly get a feel for each character and their intertwined stories. After just a few chapters, you’re pretty confident you’ve got the plot figured out.
But then, I was totally caught off guard. I’d assumed the “I” narration was just talking to us, the readers, and that the third-person sections were simply there to tell different characters’ stories. So when an important twist hit in the second-to-last chapter, I was nearly floored. Turns out, Powers had set up this entire playground where readers are actually cast as a super-evolved, all-knowing AI—one that’s picked up on every story and has the power to rebuild a world where the lost can come back. All those third-person bits? They were stories the AI was feeding Todd, drawing him into a new game of reunions and farewells. Everything is reset in an instant, and it’s never too late to change course. It’s a brilliant twist that pulls you deep into this ocean of fiction, stirring up both sadness and awe. At that moment, Powers nails it - showing off the wild possibilities and potential terrors of AI. Whether it’s a trick or a miracle, it all depends on how you look at it.
A fun little detail is in the dedication where Powers writes to Rayray: “750,000 thanks to you, better yet, let's make it a million.” I was stumped until I noticed those same numbers popping up throughout the book.
Yeah, that’s the playground.
4.6 / 5 stars
July 14, 2024
This may be one of my favorite books ever. It certainly is my favorite of Richard Powers so far--and I am a big fan of Powers. I loved The Overstory.
Powers manages to do so much in a single work--more than seems possible--and Playground shows just how much he can do. He juggles multiples story lines and seemingly divergent themes--managing to pull them together in a grand finale that is like the thundering yet melodic conclusion to a great symphony.
On one level, the story revolves a set of characters. Todd Keane and Rafi Young meet as young teens. On the surface, the two boys seem quite different. Keane is the son of a successful businessman, securely white and privileged while Rafi comes from an obviously dysfunctional home in an impoverished community. As poor and an African American, Rafi is at an obvious disadvantage at his elite school, while Todd seamlessly belongs. But both boys comes from pain-filled (and pain-inflicting) families, each dysfunctional in its own way and equally incapable of nurturing their children.
Rafi seeks refuge in literature. Todd, who as a young boy dreamed of being an oceanographer, is drawn to technology. After experiencing a tragedy, he gives himself entirely to coding and exploring the newly emerging technology that becomes the Internet.
And always throughout the book there is the theme and activity of game playing. As well as that of ecology, seen through the lens of the ocean and the overwhelming multiplicity of life it contains.
As Rafi and Todd abandon chess for the more intensely challenging game of Go, Evie Bourlieu is submerged into a water tank by her father to test out a new apparatus for breathing underwater. This experiment is the catalyst for Evie for a lifetime devoted to submerging herself in the depths of the ocean.
Somewhere in an island in the Pacific ocean, the inhabitants are trying to recover from an exploitation of their land by Europeans that first enriched and then devastated them. Now the western world is back with a new offer.
The title of this book resonates throughout this book in many levels, many tones, many different keys. Sometimes completely unexpectedly I would realize that I was witnessing yet another echo, another game, another form of play.
Play that is absorbing, exciting, freeing. And sometimes--maybe ultimately and inevitably--lethal.
I was left breathless at the beauty of Powers' descriptions of ocean life, full of poetic lists that overwhelmed--only to leave the reader that much more grief-stricken by how much death we have caused, what desolation we have wreaked.
I found The Overstory exciting and fascinating but Playground moved me to tears (not usual for me when reading). This is Powers at his most passionate.
And the balance between the personal--the friendships, the ways in which we love, and help, and hurt each other--and the more abstract themes which become personalized, particularly through Evie but through the people on the island as well--is delicate and beautiful.
I love books that push me to think as well as enable me to feel.
Powers manages to do so much in a single work--more than seems possible--and Playground shows just how much he can do. He juggles multiples story lines and seemingly divergent themes--managing to pull them together in a grand finale that is like the thundering yet melodic conclusion to a great symphony.
On one level, the story revolves a set of characters. Todd Keane and Rafi Young meet as young teens. On the surface, the two boys seem quite different. Keane is the son of a successful businessman, securely white and privileged while Rafi comes from an obviously dysfunctional home in an impoverished community. As poor and an African American, Rafi is at an obvious disadvantage at his elite school, while Todd seamlessly belongs. But both boys comes from pain-filled (and pain-inflicting) families, each dysfunctional in its own way and equally incapable of nurturing their children.
Rafi seeks refuge in literature. Todd, who as a young boy dreamed of being an oceanographer, is drawn to technology. After experiencing a tragedy, he gives himself entirely to coding and exploring the newly emerging technology that becomes the Internet.
And always throughout the book there is the theme and activity of game playing. As well as that of ecology, seen through the lens of the ocean and the overwhelming multiplicity of life it contains.
As Rafi and Todd abandon chess for the more intensely challenging game of Go, Evie Bourlieu is submerged into a water tank by her father to test out a new apparatus for breathing underwater. This experiment is the catalyst for Evie for a lifetime devoted to submerging herself in the depths of the ocean.
Somewhere in an island in the Pacific ocean, the inhabitants are trying to recover from an exploitation of their land by Europeans that first enriched and then devastated them. Now the western world is back with a new offer.
The title of this book resonates throughout this book in many levels, many tones, many different keys. Sometimes completely unexpectedly I would realize that I was witnessing yet another echo, another game, another form of play.
Play that is absorbing, exciting, freeing. And sometimes--maybe ultimately and inevitably--lethal.
I was left breathless at the beauty of Powers' descriptions of ocean life, full of poetic lists that overwhelmed--only to leave the reader that much more grief-stricken by how much death we have caused, what desolation we have wreaked.
I found The Overstory exciting and fascinating but Playground moved me to tears (not usual for me when reading). This is Powers at his most passionate.
And the balance between the personal--the friendships, the ways in which we love, and help, and hurt each other--and the more abstract themes which become personalized, particularly through Evie but through the people on the island as well--is delicate and beautiful.
I love books that push me to think as well as enable me to feel.
September 18, 2024
It didn’t take a supercomputer to figure out we’d get another remarkable novel about artificial intelligence from Richard Powers.
In 1995, Powers published “Galatea 2.2,” his Pygmalion tale about training a neural network called Helen to take a graduate exam on Western literature. At one point in that haunting story, after Helen has finished “reading” fiction and poetry, she’s given a CD-ROM containing recent news, human rights reports, political exposés and police bulletins. Overwhelmed by the horrors of human behavior, Helen announces, “I don’t want to play anymore.”
Well, almost three decades later — a millennium in computer time — Helen’s got her mojo back. Powers’s new novel, “Playground,” leaps across the circuits that enable large language models and delivers a mind-blowing reflection on what it means to live on a dying planet reconceived by artificial intelligence. The book won’t be officially released until Sept. 24, but it’s already been named a finalist for the Kirkus Prize and longlisted for the Booker Prize.
Although “Playground” is nowhere near as mammoth as the author’s Pulitzer-winning opus, “The Overstory,” it follows a similarly fragmented structure. But trust me, any disorientation will eventually melt into wonderment.
The main narrator, Todd Keane, was once “a soldier for the digital revolution” and is now its king. He’s a world-famous tech genius who created an app called Playground. Part Facebook, part Reddit, Playground has hooked billions of daily users by gamifying engagement in a self-contained economy that runs on Playbucks. Closely shadowing the influence of social media, Playground affords Powers the opportunity to satirize and mourn the platforms that have colonized our lives.
When we meet Todd, he’s been diagnosed with. . .
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...
In 1995, Powers published “Galatea 2.2,” his Pygmalion tale about training a neural network called Helen to take a graduate exam on Western literature. At one point in that haunting story, after Helen has finished “reading” fiction and poetry, she’s given a CD-ROM containing recent news, human rights reports, political exposés and police bulletins. Overwhelmed by the horrors of human behavior, Helen announces, “I don’t want to play anymore.”
Well, almost three decades later — a millennium in computer time — Helen’s got her mojo back. Powers’s new novel, “Playground,” leaps across the circuits that enable large language models and delivers a mind-blowing reflection on what it means to live on a dying planet reconceived by artificial intelligence. The book won’t be officially released until Sept. 24, but it’s already been named a finalist for the Kirkus Prize and longlisted for the Booker Prize.
Although “Playground” is nowhere near as mammoth as the author’s Pulitzer-winning opus, “The Overstory,” it follows a similarly fragmented structure. But trust me, any disorientation will eventually melt into wonderment.
The main narrator, Todd Keane, was once “a soldier for the digital revolution” and is now its king. He’s a world-famous tech genius who created an app called Playground. Part Facebook, part Reddit, Playground has hooked billions of daily users by gamifying engagement in a self-contained economy that runs on Playbucks. Closely shadowing the influence of social media, Playground affords Powers the opportunity to satirize and mourn the platforms that have colonized our lives.
When we meet Todd, he’s been diagnosed with. . .
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/...
November 7, 2024
I really enjoyed this book and am surprised it wasn't shortlisted for the 2024 Booker prize! Lets just award Powers my shadow Booker prize for the year! 🏆
Taking us from French Polynesia to Chicago in the winter, this is a heartfelt novel that focuses on the awe ocean inspires, mixed with the potential impact of AI, and powered by the potential of storytelling. I am impressed!
To know someone was to have power over them
Through various different characters, ranging from tech billionaire to a poet and a mayor, we are offered a panoramic vision of the world, or rather the ocean. Playground is very clever and well constructed, while offering stunning vistas into ocean life.
I was initially hesitant to pick up the book, with Richard Powers' 2021 Booker shortlisted book Bewilderment being quite a deception for me, but this is in my top 2 of books that were longlisted for the 2024 Booker prize.
In 50+ short chapters we move between the budding friendship in Chicago between Todd Keane and Rafi Young, both brilliant, during the internet revolution, a referendum on the French Polynesian island of Makatea, home to 82 inhabitants and finally the life of Evie Beaulieu, one of the first users of the aqualung, whose stories about the wonders of the ocean touch millions.
I found the sections focusing on Todd and Rafi, who not only have divergent views of the world but also vie for attention of artist Ina Aroita well done, reminding me a bit of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow with the focus on nascent internet revolution and difficult triangular relationships. Rafi in particular has many demons from his past, while navigating his ascend into the privileged milieus of Chicago, while Todd has a privileged, yet cold, childhood and a health condition that leads him to look back. Games, initially chess and then Go and Eurogames, drive the two on to perform and build out their friendship, but here the difference between a finite and an infinite game which is life comes to haunt them. Todd builds Playground, a kind of Wikipedia and forum that is gamified and monetised, at the forefront of the AI revolution by mining preferences of users (in a way similar to what happened to the island of Makatea), but this success does not bring happiness. It is interesting to me how the AlphaGo episode, the moment that an AI beat the best players in this game thought to be impossible to master by an AI, comes back here as well as in The Maniac of Benjamín Labatut. It is definitely incorporated more elegantly by Powers in this novel, but anyone truly interested I would recommend to watch this documentary: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WXuK6ge...
The depiction of Makatea, an island reduced from 3.000 inhabitants at the height of ecological harmful phosphor mining to a sleepy home for less than 100 souls was well done as well. This island was one of the major source of phosphorus, one of the key ingredients to the agricultural revolution, but also a prime example of boom and bust cycles, leaving the island pockmarked while helping to feed much of the world. Here major economical opportunities by unknown benefactors who want to make seasteading a reality. Seasteading, a bit suspect as a libertarian fantasy to escape taxes, itself is not really the focus of the novel, as we discover later on. This all leads to a referendum (powered by an AI chatbot, very interesting, which in the end doesn't change much: But facts do little to alter a person’s temperament ) where everyone on the island needs to choose between progress and conservation. How the balance will end up remains exciting to the very end.
Evie her story probably touched me least, it made me sometimes even feel of Great Circle with how she, through sheer passion and helped by a father who performed aqualung testing on her as a teenager, makes her way in a male dominated world. It reminded me how Jacques Cousteau was a vibe in the past and now we just laugh at imploding billionaires.
Her love for the oceans is maybe hard to translate to a book and would probably be more impactful in a screen adaption.
The twist near the end of the book makes clear that more than just disparate storylines is at play, but that Powers is also commenting on the edges of what AI will lead to, what hallucinations are, and how storytelling could change (and what it means to be a person and know a person). Very well executed in my view, and elevating the whole book to supremely thought-provoking. Also the creation myths, recited at the start of the novel, make a lot more sense.
A book that has the potential to be a modern classic, while also offering a panoramic view of the world, or rather the ocean.
Quotes:
It was a kind of reciprocal auto-erotic strangulation of the soul, and both parties were generous givers and grateful recipients
It’s okay, you’re awake.
She couldn’t see how the one fact followed from the other.
People and their emotions puzzled me. They were stupidly complex and there was no way to break them apart and see what was inside.
Preaching the gospel of the oceans
Is a thing still garbage once life starts using it?
But my father had once told me that a man’s worth was measured by how much money other people are willing to let them lose.
Just remember, impossible decisions are really the easy decisions
It came to her that this was why she had always shied away from human love, to give it was always to incur a growing obligation
Done with machine intelligence and human ignorance
2024 Booker prize personal ranking, shortlisted books in bold:
1. Held (4.5*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
2. Playground (4.5*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
3. James (4*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
4. Wandering Stars (4*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
5. Headshot (3.5*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
6. The Safekeep (3.5*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
7. My Friends (3.5*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
8. Stone Yard Devotional (3.5*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
9. This Strange and Eventful History (3*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
10. Creation Lake (3*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
11. Enlightenment (3*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
12. Orbital (2.5*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
13. Wild Houses (2.5*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Taking us from French Polynesia to Chicago in the winter, this is a heartfelt novel that focuses on the awe ocean inspires, mixed with the potential impact of AI, and powered by the potential of storytelling. I am impressed!
To know someone was to have power over them
Through various different characters, ranging from tech billionaire to a poet and a mayor, we are offered a panoramic vision of the world, or rather the ocean. Playground is very clever and well constructed, while offering stunning vistas into ocean life.
I was initially hesitant to pick up the book, with Richard Powers' 2021 Booker shortlisted book Bewilderment being quite a deception for me, but this is in my top 2 of books that were longlisted for the 2024 Booker prize.
In 50+ short chapters we move between the budding friendship in Chicago between Todd Keane and Rafi Young, both brilliant, during the internet revolution, a referendum on the French Polynesian island of Makatea, home to 82 inhabitants and finally the life of Evie Beaulieu, one of the first users of the aqualung, whose stories about the wonders of the ocean touch millions.
I found the sections focusing on Todd and Rafi, who not only have divergent views of the world but also vie for attention of artist Ina Aroita well done, reminding me a bit of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow with the focus on nascent internet revolution and difficult triangular relationships. Rafi in particular has many demons from his past, while navigating his ascend into the privileged milieus of Chicago, while Todd has a privileged, yet cold, childhood and a health condition that leads him to look back. Games, initially chess and then Go and Eurogames, drive the two on to perform and build out their friendship, but here the difference between a finite and an infinite game which is life comes to haunt them. Todd builds Playground, a kind of Wikipedia and forum that is gamified and monetised, at the forefront of the AI revolution by mining preferences of users (in a way similar to what happened to the island of Makatea), but this success does not bring happiness. It is interesting to me how the AlphaGo episode, the moment that an AI beat the best players in this game thought to be impossible to master by an AI, comes back here as well as in The Maniac of Benjamín Labatut. It is definitely incorporated more elegantly by Powers in this novel, but anyone truly interested I would recommend to watch this documentary: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WXuK6ge...
The depiction of Makatea, an island reduced from 3.000 inhabitants at the height of ecological harmful phosphor mining to a sleepy home for less than 100 souls was well done as well. This island was one of the major source of phosphorus, one of the key ingredients to the agricultural revolution, but also a prime example of boom and bust cycles, leaving the island pockmarked while helping to feed much of the world. Here major economical opportunities by unknown benefactors who want to make seasteading a reality. Seasteading, a bit suspect as a libertarian fantasy to escape taxes, itself is not really the focus of the novel, as we discover later on. This all leads to a referendum (powered by an AI chatbot, very interesting, which in the end doesn't change much: But facts do little to alter a person’s temperament ) where everyone on the island needs to choose between progress and conservation. How the balance will end up remains exciting to the very end.
Evie her story probably touched me least, it made me sometimes even feel of Great Circle with how she, through sheer passion and helped by a father who performed aqualung testing on her as a teenager, makes her way in a male dominated world. It reminded me how Jacques Cousteau was a vibe in the past and now we just laugh at imploding billionaires.
Her love for the oceans is maybe hard to translate to a book and would probably be more impactful in a screen adaption.
The twist near the end of the book makes clear that more than just disparate storylines is at play, but that Powers is also commenting on the edges of what AI will lead to, what hallucinations are, and how storytelling could change (and what it means to be a person and know a person). Very well executed in my view, and elevating the whole book to supremely thought-provoking. Also the creation myths, recited at the start of the novel, make a lot more sense.
A book that has the potential to be a modern classic, while also offering a panoramic view of the world, or rather the ocean.
Quotes:
It was a kind of reciprocal auto-erotic strangulation of the soul, and both parties were generous givers and grateful recipients
It’s okay, you’re awake.
She couldn’t see how the one fact followed from the other.
People and their emotions puzzled me. They were stupidly complex and there was no way to break them apart and see what was inside.
Preaching the gospel of the oceans
Is a thing still garbage once life starts using it?
But my father had once told me that a man’s worth was measured by how much money other people are willing to let them lose.
Just remember, impossible decisions are really the easy decisions
It came to her that this was why she had always shied away from human love, to give it was always to incur a growing obligation
Done with machine intelligence and human ignorance
2024 Booker prize personal ranking, shortlisted books in bold:
1. Held (4.5*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
2. Playground (4.5*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
3. James (4*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
4. Wandering Stars (4*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
5. Headshot (3.5*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
6. The Safekeep (3.5*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
7. My Friends (3.5*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
8. Stone Yard Devotional (3.5*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
9. This Strange and Eventful History (3*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
10. Creation Lake (3*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
11. Enlightenment (3*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
12. Orbital (2.5*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
13. Wild Houses (2.5*) - Review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
March 21, 2025
I read Playground for a family book club. Two people who I greatly admire recommended the book to me. I tried reading it and felt lost after the first 60 pages and set it aside.
When I picked it up again, it was like reading a completely different book. I started on page 60 and fell in love with one of the four protagonists, Rafi. Rafi has a challenging childhood, some of it due to Moody Stepdad. Rafi LOVES to read books and hides himself at the local library. Rafi states, "I get free when reading." (Oh, be still my heart!)
Evie is a strong, independent woman who loves diving and spending her time underwater. She has over 900 hours of diving time but gets turned down for living long-term underwater because decision makers feel that men and women cannot live together for months at a time and not cause chaos. Evie's love of the ocean impacts her marriage. Her husband, Bart, is "responsible for keeping their small craft of a marriage from being lost at sea."
Todd is a master game player and creates games with AI. He and Rafi become good friends. Todd is described as a soldier for the digital revolution.
The setting of the book is the island of Makatea in French Polynesia. Americans are arriving on the island to rebuild Makatea as a floating city on the ocean. The locals living on Makatea have to agree to the rebuilding plan. Floating cities are the dreams of tech billionaires because there won't be any regulatory requirements.
Richard Powers does an incredible job weaving together the lives of multiple protagonists. His prose captured my heart. Some of the memorable passages include:
* A fabulous truth had her by the brain stem.
* The great game of Destiny after decades of dormancy.
* Moving the goal posts is our best trick.
* My father was busy breaking all the accumulated nest eggs.
* Death by live burial is what occurs when you throw your dreams away.
When I picked it up again, it was like reading a completely different book. I started on page 60 and fell in love with one of the four protagonists, Rafi. Rafi has a challenging childhood, some of it due to Moody Stepdad. Rafi LOVES to read books and hides himself at the local library. Rafi states, "I get free when reading." (Oh, be still my heart!)
Evie is a strong, independent woman who loves diving and spending her time underwater. She has over 900 hours of diving time but gets turned down for living long-term underwater because decision makers feel that men and women cannot live together for months at a time and not cause chaos. Evie's love of the ocean impacts her marriage. Her husband, Bart, is "responsible for keeping their small craft of a marriage from being lost at sea."
Todd is a master game player and creates games with AI. He and Rafi become good friends. Todd is described as a soldier for the digital revolution.
The setting of the book is the island of Makatea in French Polynesia. Americans are arriving on the island to rebuild Makatea as a floating city on the ocean. The locals living on Makatea have to agree to the rebuilding plan. Floating cities are the dreams of tech billionaires because there won't be any regulatory requirements.
Richard Powers does an incredible job weaving together the lives of multiple protagonists. His prose captured my heart. Some of the memorable passages include:
* A fabulous truth had her by the brain stem.
* The great game of Destiny after decades of dormancy.
* Moving the goal posts is our best trick.
* My father was busy breaking all the accumulated nest eggs.
* Death by live burial is what occurs when you throw your dreams away.
November 24, 2024
Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2024
Since The Overstory, which won him a Pulitzer in 2019, Powers has become a sort of Jonathan Franzen for ecofiction, and "Playground" is another attempt at the Great American Anthropocene Novel. Build as a sweeping epic, we get narrative strands that move and intertwine: There's Evie, the daughter of one of the inventors of the aqualung and herself a maritime explorer; Todd, a wealthy tech genius and the inventor of a parallel digital world called "Playground", who becomes fascinated by one of Evie's books; Todd's friend/rival Rafi, a Black writer; and Hawaiian-Tahitian sculptor Ina. Rafi and Ina get married, Rafi falls out with Todd, and the wedded couple moves to a small atoll threatened by investors trying to build floating cities around its perimeter, which is, you know, NOT good for oceanic life.
See, I'm torn when it comes to Powers' novel Bewilderment, because it's spectacularly written, the character depiction is just fantastic, the sense of urgency is palpable, but it's also partly simplistic, manipulative and overly moralistic - and that's also the case with "Playground": I loved every minute of it, because damn, Powers can write and make me care about his characters, but the the depiction of KI and digital communication in general is just so undercomplex, and the messages (save the oceans, people are highly questionable animals, eat the rich, KI bad, etc.) are hammered home in a sometimes obnoxious way. The level of complexity added towards the end also seems a little over the top. But have I mentioned that damn, Richard Powers can fucking write?!
Interestingly, writer/activist Powers wanted to be an oceanographer as a child, then worked as a computer programmer, so he both knows his themes and gets the fascination, and it shows in his writing. He's driven to show that humans and the natural world are interconnected, and I applaud him for it, but I still think his masterpiece remains The Overstory. But to critique "Playground" is complaining on the highest level of literary talent, and this dude deserves all the praise.
You can watch Richard Powers being a wonderful human in this recent interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiIoG...
You can listen to the podcast crew discuss the German translation Das große Spiel in our Booker special: https://papierstaupodcast.de/podcast/...
Since The Overstory, which won him a Pulitzer in 2019, Powers has become a sort of Jonathan Franzen for ecofiction, and "Playground" is another attempt at the Great American Anthropocene Novel. Build as a sweeping epic, we get narrative strands that move and intertwine: There's Evie, the daughter of one of the inventors of the aqualung and herself a maritime explorer; Todd, a wealthy tech genius and the inventor of a parallel digital world called "Playground", who becomes fascinated by one of Evie's books; Todd's friend/rival Rafi, a Black writer; and Hawaiian-Tahitian sculptor Ina. Rafi and Ina get married, Rafi falls out with Todd, and the wedded couple moves to a small atoll threatened by investors trying to build floating cities around its perimeter, which is, you know, NOT good for oceanic life.
See, I'm torn when it comes to Powers' novel Bewilderment, because it's spectacularly written, the character depiction is just fantastic, the sense of urgency is palpable, but it's also partly simplistic, manipulative and overly moralistic - and that's also the case with "Playground": I loved every minute of it, because damn, Powers can write and make me care about his characters, but the the depiction of KI and digital communication in general is just so undercomplex, and the messages (save the oceans, people are highly questionable animals, eat the rich, KI bad, etc.) are hammered home in a sometimes obnoxious way. The level of complexity added towards the end also seems a little over the top. But have I mentioned that damn, Richard Powers can fucking write?!
Interestingly, writer/activist Powers wanted to be an oceanographer as a child, then worked as a computer programmer, so he both knows his themes and gets the fascination, and it shows in his writing. He's driven to show that humans and the natural world are interconnected, and I applaud him for it, but I still think his masterpiece remains The Overstory. But to critique "Playground" is complaining on the highest level of literary talent, and this dude deserves all the praise.
You can watch Richard Powers being a wonderful human in this recent interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiIoG...
You can listen to the podcast crew discuss the German translation Das große Spiel in our Booker special: https://papierstaupodcast.de/podcast/...
January 12, 2025
Perfectly correct. Too many themes. Unequal multiple perspectives. Bad ending. An environmental novel shouldn’t try to show the problems of the entire planet and resolve them just for 100 people. The best part was Evie's story. I rarely encounter stories like hers, where dreams become reality and turn out exactly as imagined.
March 24, 2025
Absolutely blown away. Playground is a timely read in so many ways. Two main themes are conservation and AI. Playground is the story of three friends and their pursuits of their passions. Todd is a computer programmer. Ina is an artist/sculpture. Rafi is a poet. Rafi writes his thesis in the novel and I feel I could write a thesis on this novel.
At its heart, Playground is a story grounded in friendship and relationships. But literature and story play a prominent part in the narrative, too. The story of creation, the story of progress, the story of colonialism, the story of life, and the story of death.
Not only do we delve into the inner depths of Rafi, Todd, and Ina, but also Evelyne “Evie” Beaulieu, the daughter of the engineer who made Jacques Cousteau’s aqualung a reality. On top of that, we meet the vast array of characters on the Isle of Makatea, where all storylines converge.
I highlighted SO many lines. Love that my favorite sci-fi author was quoted:
“As Arthur C. Clarke has observed: ‘How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean.’ ”
One of my favorite quotes is, "He just wanted to read until he discovered where all the pain of the world came from."
I have high praise for Powers and Playground. The highest compliment I can give is that I will dedicate my summer reading to devour his other novels. Also, if you have read Death of the Author, I strongly recommend Playground. A very similar reading experience. If you have not, read it. If you haven’t read either, do yourself a favor and read both. They will blow you away.
At its heart, Playground is a story grounded in friendship and relationships. But literature and story play a prominent part in the narrative, too. The story of creation, the story of progress, the story of colonialism, the story of life, and the story of death.
Not only do we delve into the inner depths of Rafi, Todd, and Ina, but also Evelyne “Evie” Beaulieu, the daughter of the engineer who made Jacques Cousteau’s aqualung a reality. On top of that, we meet the vast array of characters on the Isle of Makatea, where all storylines converge.
I highlighted SO many lines. Love that my favorite sci-fi author was quoted:
“As Arthur C. Clarke has observed: ‘How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean.’ ”
One of my favorite quotes is, "He just wanted to read until he discovered where all the pain of the world came from."
I have high praise for Powers and Playground. The highest compliment I can give is that I will dedicate my summer reading to devour his other novels. Also, if you have read Death of the Author, I strongly recommend Playground. A very similar reading experience. If you have not, read it. If you haven’t read either, do yourself a favor and read both. They will blow you away.
September 15, 2024
Brilliant. The book I've been waiting for someone to write. Bravo Richard Powers.
In Playground, Powers explores the oceans. They cover nearly three quarters of the planet and we know less about them than we do about space. And yet we are still managing to pollute them to such an extent that plastic has been found in the Mariana Trench - 6.7 miles down at Earth's lowest point.
The book revolves around the tiny island of Makatea, an atoll in French Polynesia in the middle of the Pacific ocean. It has a fascinating history that Powers delves into suffice to say it has been ravaged before by outsiders.
The main characters are Rafi, a young brilliant black guy from the wrong side of the tracks; Todd, the son of wealthy parents; Ina, an artist who becomes Rafi's girlfriend; and Evelyne, a deep sea diver.
Todd narrates the present, explaining how he and Rafi came to create Playground, an all encompassing "game" that has made its creator billions of dollars. Juxtaposed with this technology is life in Makatea where people live a natural life that depends on the ocean that surrounds it.
The clash of cultures comes when a new project to create floating living spaces off the coast is mooted to the islanders. Should they accept the offer to create more jobs and wealth or should they preserve their way of life and save the ocean.
I thought Overstory lost its way and Bewildered just a rehash of Flowers for Algernon. This book, however, did not disappoint in any way. The writing is superb. The characters are engaging. The situations believable yet horrifying and all I could think when I'd finished was "if only".
The narrative talks a lot about the oceans and AI and many other issues that affect every one of us on this planet. I'll be honest, it took me a little while to get into this book but once I saw where it was going I was hooked.
I loved it. I've always been fascinated by the deep oceans and so I fell hook, line and sinker for this incredible novel. Powers must have done some heavy duty research for this novel. It was worth it. Stunning. (And if you struggle imagining these creatures and the amazing lives they lead then watch Sir David Attenborough's Blue Planet and Blue Planet II).
Thankyou so much to Netgalley and Random House for the advance review copy. Most appreciated.
In Playground, Powers explores the oceans. They cover nearly three quarters of the planet and we know less about them than we do about space. And yet we are still managing to pollute them to such an extent that plastic has been found in the Mariana Trench - 6.7 miles down at Earth's lowest point.
The book revolves around the tiny island of Makatea, an atoll in French Polynesia in the middle of the Pacific ocean. It has a fascinating history that Powers delves into suffice to say it has been ravaged before by outsiders.
The main characters are Rafi, a young brilliant black guy from the wrong side of the tracks; Todd, the son of wealthy parents; Ina, an artist who becomes Rafi's girlfriend; and Evelyne, a deep sea diver.
Todd narrates the present, explaining how he and Rafi came to create Playground, an all encompassing "game" that has made its creator billions of dollars. Juxtaposed with this technology is life in Makatea where people live a natural life that depends on the ocean that surrounds it.
The clash of cultures comes when a new project to create floating living spaces off the coast is mooted to the islanders. Should they accept the offer to create more jobs and wealth or should they preserve their way of life and save the ocean.
I thought Overstory lost its way and Bewildered just a rehash of Flowers for Algernon. This book, however, did not disappoint in any way. The writing is superb. The characters are engaging. The situations believable yet horrifying and all I could think when I'd finished was "if only".
The narrative talks a lot about the oceans and AI and many other issues that affect every one of us on this planet. I'll be honest, it took me a little while to get into this book but once I saw where it was going I was hooked.
I loved it. I've always been fascinated by the deep oceans and so I fell hook, line and sinker for this incredible novel. Powers must have done some heavy duty research for this novel. It was worth it. Stunning. (And if you struggle imagining these creatures and the amazing lives they lead then watch Sir David Attenborough's Blue Planet and Blue Planet II).
Thankyou so much to Netgalley and Random House for the advance review copy. Most appreciated.
May 13, 2025
Longwinded and disappointing. One of those books that tries to wow with intellect without digging very deep into any of the stories threads. Topic wise, written about in more interesting novels within the past 2 years by several other great authors… see In Ascension, The MANIAC, The Morning Star Trilogy… heck you could watch Planet Earth or Blue Planet on Disney + and get most of the ocean stuff.. Also just not sure about the conceit of symbolizing the game of Go with a lifelong back and forth between a Black man and a white man. Then using dementia as a plot driver… just all felt super misguided. Oh, and get ready for Richard Powers describing what it’s like to grow up Black in Chicago, with use of AAVE as well. Incredibly cringe. I’m gonna go out on a limb and say if you need this story then you really need to change what it is you’re reading and paying attention to. 😬😬😬😬
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 26, 2024
Powers continues to be as subtle as a sledgehammer. His dialogue and characterizations are always so on-the-nose, it drives me nuts.
But I guess his nerdy passion for his environmental and social activism is commendable and inspiring. Whereas with THE OVERSTORY, he introduced us to a new way of thinking of trees. This time, he zeroes in on the ocean and its kingdom. With characters and locations ranging from Montreal (yayyy), Chicago, and French Polynesia, which always keeps the narrative pulsating.
However, Powers’ depiction and/or exploration of race and women needs work. At times, this book felt so dated and out of touch. There are times when I seriously wonder if Powers has ever interacted with other humans. Maybe he’s more about writing allegories and metaphors, instead of characters. But ironically, what tries to be progressive comes off as reductive. But I’ll digress. Am I being generous or not generous enough?
PLAYGROUND is an exhilarating ride, sometimes tedious but mostly the former. Overall, I did enjoy my time with it, in comparison to my muted or incredulous reaction to THE OVERSTORY. The oceanic scenes are wondrous. And there’s also a clear-eyed innocence in the way Powers decided to write this. Even though you can always see Powers peeking in on every page, you can also pick up on his child-like innocence and fascination. Maybe I like my literature to have a bit more acidity and cynicism, but I gotta admit this gave me a nice feeling
But I guess his nerdy passion for his environmental and social activism is commendable and inspiring. Whereas with THE OVERSTORY, he introduced us to a new way of thinking of trees. This time, he zeroes in on the ocean and its kingdom. With characters and locations ranging from Montreal (yayyy), Chicago, and French Polynesia, which always keeps the narrative pulsating.
However, Powers’ depiction and/or exploration of race and women needs work. At times, this book felt so dated and out of touch. There are times when I seriously wonder if Powers has ever interacted with other humans. Maybe he’s more about writing allegories and metaphors, instead of characters. But ironically, what tries to be progressive comes off as reductive. But I’ll digress. Am I being generous or not generous enough?
PLAYGROUND is an exhilarating ride, sometimes tedious but mostly the former. Overall, I did enjoy my time with it, in comparison to my muted or incredulous reaction to THE OVERSTORY. The oceanic scenes are wondrous. And there’s also a clear-eyed innocence in the way Powers decided to write this. Even though you can always see Powers peeking in on every page, you can also pick up on his child-like innocence and fascination. Maybe I like my literature to have a bit more acidity and cynicism, but I gotta admit this gave me a nice feeling
November 2, 2024
I read this twice, just to make sure I could fully absorb and appreciate the magnificent twist at the end. What a story, and told so perfectly. Complex and finely nuanced, with characters I won’t soon forget.
All the stars.
All the stars.
November 23, 2025
DAS GROSSE SPIEL- für mich auch ein großer Wurf von Richard Powers.
Virtuos verwebt er das Leben vierer Menschen mit dem letzten wilden Ort unserer Erde: dem Ozean.
Dieser vielschichtige Roman mit zahlreichen Schauplätzen, zeigt wie beeindruckend das Reich unter Wasser ist und macht demütig.
Evie Beaulieu, einst von ihrem Vater ins Wasser geworfen und die erste Frau, die das Tauchen für Frauen revolutioniert. Lose angelehnt ist diese Figur an die Meeresbiologin und Taucherin Dr. Sylvia Earle, die in der damaligen akademischen Welt mit Sexismus konfrontiert und zu einer erfolgreichen Persönlichkeit in der Forschung und im Naturschutz wurde.
Ina Aroita, Künstlerin und Tochter eines hawaiianischen Bootsmanns und einer tahitischen Flugbegleiterin, sucht die Strände nach Plastikmüll ab und machte daraus Skulpturen.
Rafi Young, Schriftsteller, kommt aus prekären Verhältnissen, hochbegabt und ein wenig verträumt, freundet sich schon früh mit Todd Keane an. Ein Mann, der sich und sein Schreiben ständig hinterfragt.
Todd Keane, reicher Sohn eines Börsenmaklers und Computer-Nerd, dessen Leben verschiedene Wendungen nimmt um am Ende da zu sein, wohin er anfangs wollte.
Über Umwege und Gezeiten finden sich diese vier Personen auf der Koralleninsel Makatea, in Französisch-Polynesien, wieder zusammen.
Künstliche Intelligenz, Erderwärmung, Umweltzerstörung und der ausufernde Kapitalismus aber auch farbenprächtige und so wunderschön beschriebene Unterwasserwelten und eine tiefe Freundschaft, zeichnen diesen wortgewaltigen und mit profunden Wissen erzählten Roman aus.
Vielschichtig, faszinierend, fesselnd, und klug ist " Das große Spiel " und auch gelegentlich moralisch.Die Protagonisten/Protagonistinnen sind sehr gut gezeichnet und werden in verschiedenen Tonfällen erzählt.
R. Powers ist für mich ein sehr angenehmer und wunderbarer Geschichtenerzähler.
Powers über sich selbst:
Ich wollte immer Wissenschaftler werden, zunächst Ozeanograf, später studierte ich Physik. Nach und nach bekam ich unter den Physikern Platzangst, durch ihren Reduktionismus, der eine so extreme Spezialisierung verlangt, dass jede Entscheidung für eine Sache die Entscheidung gegen Millionen andere Sachen bedeutet. Damals entpuppte sich mein altes Hobby Lesen und Schreiben als Berufung.
R. Powers, geb. am 18.06.57 wurde vor allem bekannt durch die Verarbeitung von literarischen, naturwissenschaftlichen und philosophischen Themen in seinen Büchern. 2019 erhielt er den Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
Von mir eine 100%ige Leseempfehlung!
Auch habe ich eine wunderschöne gebundene Ausgabe der Büchergilde Gutenberg, also Lesegenuss pur.
Virtuos verwebt er das Leben vierer Menschen mit dem letzten wilden Ort unserer Erde: dem Ozean.
Dieser vielschichtige Roman mit zahlreichen Schauplätzen, zeigt wie beeindruckend das Reich unter Wasser ist und macht demütig.
Evie Beaulieu, einst von ihrem Vater ins Wasser geworfen und die erste Frau, die das Tauchen für Frauen revolutioniert. Lose angelehnt ist diese Figur an die Meeresbiologin und Taucherin Dr. Sylvia Earle, die in der damaligen akademischen Welt mit Sexismus konfrontiert und zu einer erfolgreichen Persönlichkeit in der Forschung und im Naturschutz wurde.
Ina Aroita, Künstlerin und Tochter eines hawaiianischen Bootsmanns und einer tahitischen Flugbegleiterin, sucht die Strände nach Plastikmüll ab und machte daraus Skulpturen.
Rafi Young, Schriftsteller, kommt aus prekären Verhältnissen, hochbegabt und ein wenig verträumt, freundet sich schon früh mit Todd Keane an. Ein Mann, der sich und sein Schreiben ständig hinterfragt.
Todd Keane, reicher Sohn eines Börsenmaklers und Computer-Nerd, dessen Leben verschiedene Wendungen nimmt um am Ende da zu sein, wohin er anfangs wollte.
Über Umwege und Gezeiten finden sich diese vier Personen auf der Koralleninsel Makatea, in Französisch-Polynesien, wieder zusammen.
Künstliche Intelligenz, Erderwärmung, Umweltzerstörung und der ausufernde Kapitalismus aber auch farbenprächtige und so wunderschön beschriebene Unterwasserwelten und eine tiefe Freundschaft, zeichnen diesen wortgewaltigen und mit profunden Wissen erzählten Roman aus.
Vielschichtig, faszinierend, fesselnd, und klug ist " Das große Spiel " und auch gelegentlich moralisch.Die Protagonisten/Protagonistinnen sind sehr gut gezeichnet und werden in verschiedenen Tonfällen erzählt.
R. Powers ist für mich ein sehr angenehmer und wunderbarer Geschichtenerzähler.
Powers über sich selbst:
Ich wollte immer Wissenschaftler werden, zunächst Ozeanograf, später studierte ich Physik. Nach und nach bekam ich unter den Physikern Platzangst, durch ihren Reduktionismus, der eine so extreme Spezialisierung verlangt, dass jede Entscheidung für eine Sache die Entscheidung gegen Millionen andere Sachen bedeutet. Damals entpuppte sich mein altes Hobby Lesen und Schreiben als Berufung.
R. Powers, geb. am 18.06.57 wurde vor allem bekannt durch die Verarbeitung von literarischen, naturwissenschaftlichen und philosophischen Themen in seinen Büchern. 2019 erhielt er den Pulitzer Prize for fiction.
Von mir eine 100%ige Leseempfehlung!
Auch habe ich eine wunderschöne gebundene Ausgabe der Büchergilde Gutenberg, also Lesegenuss pur.
November 9, 2024
6 🌠🌠🌠🌠🌠🌠
I searched adjectives and their synonyms hoping I would discover a new one that could represent my feelings about this book because none of the ones I know seem good enough.
I’m pretty sure I can count the times on both hands that a book has held such sway and power over my emotions and one of them was The Overstory.
The only words that come to mind right now are thank you Richard Powers, otherwise I find I have no words.
I searched adjectives and their synonyms hoping I would discover a new one that could represent my feelings about this book because none of the ones I know seem good enough.
I’m pretty sure I can count the times on both hands that a book has held such sway and power over my emotions and one of them was The Overstory.
The only words that come to mind right now are thank you Richard Powers, otherwise I find I have no words.
January 25, 2025
Lately I have been taking refuge in books that are straightforward, that present no emotional or intellectual challenges. But for some reason this book called out to me last week - maybe I just couldn’t resist that gorgeous cover any longer.
As with The Overstory (another stunning cover), Powers populates this book with characters from disparate backgrounds who come together in a struggle over political and environmental issues. There are fewer characters in this one, though, and for the most part their stories intertwine organically, and earlier in the book.
Describing the four principals out of context in any way that is meaningful to gaining an understanding of Powers’ story is challenging. For my part none of the summaries I read really tempted me. It was my fondness for The Overstory, the generally positive reviews, and that cover that drew me in.
I’m a tree person, always have been, and that was clearly behind my attraction to The Overstory. My connection to oceans and lakes is more limited, and so this book had to find its way into my heart on some other basis.
It was the storytelling that did it. Powers’ scope is broad, but he humanizes it with compelling individual stories. The book’s structure is complex, but each section is smooth, as are the transitions between the events in each character’s life.
The twist at the end is masterfully done. As with most readers, it left me stunned, but then a sense of its inevitable rightness washed over me.
No question this will be one of my top reads for 2025.
As with The Overstory (another stunning cover), Powers populates this book with characters from disparate backgrounds who come together in a struggle over political and environmental issues. There are fewer characters in this one, though, and for the most part their stories intertwine organically, and earlier in the book.
Describing the four principals out of context in any way that is meaningful to gaining an understanding of Powers’ story is challenging. For my part none of the summaries I read really tempted me. It was my fondness for The Overstory, the generally positive reviews, and that cover that drew me in.
I’m a tree person, always have been, and that was clearly behind my attraction to The Overstory. My connection to oceans and lakes is more limited, and so this book had to find its way into my heart on some other basis.
It was the storytelling that did it. Powers’ scope is broad, but he humanizes it with compelling individual stories. The book’s structure is complex, but each section is smooth, as are the transitions between the events in each character’s life.
The twist at the end is masterfully done. As with most readers, it left me stunned, but then a sense of its inevitable rightness washed over me.
No question this will be one of my top reads for 2025.
December 5, 2024
“The Age of Humans was coming to an end" -- from "Playground"
"Men have become the tools of their tools." -- Thoreau
Here’s the challenge of writing about a book by Richard Powers: No matter how much you say, there’s always more you want to say. Always. No matter how much you write, though, you can never really capture the book.
For most of his career, Powers' books were explorations: of memory, technology, genetic engineering, music, consciousness, race. They were erudite, almost philosophical, occasionally difficult to read, but invariably thought-provoking. More recently — since “The Overstory,” certainly — exploration has ceded space to message. The novels have become more accessible and the warnings more dire. Understandably, because in recent years — with climate change, political unrest, assaults on the idea of shared reality, social media, nihilistic algorithms, artificial intelligence, etc. — the stakes have become so much bigger. “Playground” continues this trend.
The novel begins, suitably enough, with the creation of the world: how it was that Everything came to be where there was Nothing at all. This is not the "In the beginning" story most readers will be familiar with, however. There’s no Garden of Eden, no Adam and Eve, snake or forbidden tree. Instead, we read this:
Playground before the earth,
before the moon,
before the stars,
before the sun,
before the sky,
even before the sea,
there was only time and Ta’aroa.
This creation myth comes from a Pacific atoll called Makatea, a real place. It speaks of a god named Ta’aroa who first creates himself and after that, the world with its artists and fish and birds and humans and other gods, both cruel and kind. For Ta'aroa the unformed universe was a playground.
From here the novel jumps into our own age. Or more accurately, our time as it may well be in only a few decades. When Makatea was part of French Polynesia it was scoured and plundered for the phosphorous that was used in the new fertilizers that fed the world. Now, more than a century later, its few remaining residents must decide whether Makatea will open itself to the world again and become the base for a fleet of floating, self-supporting cities that are proposed responses to rising water levels.
Two of the main characters -- Todd Keane (White, wealthy) and Rafi Young (Black, poor) -- meet in a school for gifted students. Both are products of dysfunctional families. They bond over games: first chess, then Go. Over time their friendship will be stressed and ultimately dissolve. Todd will go on to become a social media titan (in the manner of Mark Zuckerberg). His greatest achievement is a sophisticated platform called “Playground” and, later, an AI entity called “Profunda” (an allusion to De Profundis, Psalm 30's "Out of the depths"?). Todd, inventor of artificial minds, has been diagnosed with Lewy body dementia. It is untreatable, fatal, affects both body and mind. Rafi's life takes a different path. He will become a poet and bibliophile. He'll fall in love with Ina, an artist who integrates waste into her art as a means of protest and warning. The two of them will marry, move to Makatea, and adopt two children. The other major character is Evelyne Beaulieu. A professional diver, author, a pioneer in her field, 90+ years old, and our eyes into a vast world that most of humanity knows nothing about.
Now this is where the urge to say more about the book becomes truly problematic because there is no way to talk about the complex interplay of themes and imagery or the emotional power certain scenes bear. "Playground" cuts back and forth through time, alighting now on the relationship between Todd and Rafi, and then across the world to events on Makatea as it decides its future, and then to Evelyne's story from her Canadian childhood, her experiences as a woman in a man's field of science, and her moments of epiphany.
Images of games and playgrounds run throughout the novel: Todd (conceived, he says, specifically so his father will have someone to play chess with “any time of day or night”) speaks of the unending “war game” that was his parents’ marriage. From one perspective, the idea of games is a familiar enough metaphor. But over time it becomes something more. Reflecting on his life, the path from gaming to coding, from pawns to people, the effect social media has had on our culture, Todd concludes, “Games now ruled humanity.” (Reading these words I couldn't help thinking about Benjamin Labatut's wonderful book, "Maniac.")
For Todd, a fascination with games will lead to increasingly sophisticated computer programming. Looking back on this part of his life, he thinks, “Neither Rafi nor I saw what was happening. No one did. That computers would take over our lives: Sure. But the way that they would turn us into different beings.” Portable encyclopedias and videoconferencing could be anticipated, but Facebook and WhatsApp and TikTok and Bitcoin and QAnon and Alexa and Google Maps and smart tracking ads based on keywords stolen from your emails and checking your likes while at a urinal and shopping while naked and insanely stupid but addictive farming games that wrecked people’s careers and all the other neural parasites that now make it impossible for me to remember what thinking and feeling and being were really like, back then? Not even close.
In opposition to technology Powers holds Nature. In particular, the ocean: vast, unknown, unknowable, the engine of life on Earth: The course of civilization is carved in ocean currents. Where sea layers mix, where rains travel or wastelands spread, where great upwellings bring deep, cold, nutrient-rich waters to the energy-bathed surface and fish go mad with fecundity, where soils turn fertile or anemic, where temperatures turn habitable or harsh, where trade routes flourish or fail: all this the global ocean engine determines. The fate of continents is written in water.*
It is here that Evelyne becomes so central to Powers' project. In her late years makes her way to Makatea, and it is through her that Powers shares spectacular scenes of the astonishing abundance of life in the ocean. “Ninety percent of the biosphere is underwater,” we read. The diversity of this arena is nothing less than miraculous: There were the two hundred eyes of a scallop. Starfish that see with the tips of their arms. Fish whose eyes are split in two so they can see both above and below the surface at once. The cock-eyed squid, which points its large eye upward toward great moving shadows and its small eye downward to the twinkling creatures of the deep. But down where the light was powerless, even the world’s largest eyes could not make out the stunning, jagged mountain ranges, vast waterfalls with a thousand times the flow of Niagara, trenches and crenellations and pits and crevasses like nothing known on land, panoramas never to be seen by any living thing.
(I have to share this one fact that really blew me away: “Lion’s mane jellyfish in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic—a four-hundred-pound glowing creature with more than a thousand tentacles, the longest one reaching half the length of a city block.” I had no idea... A 400 pound, glowing jellyfish! Fascinating to read about but terrifying to contemplate encountering.)
“Playground” is not a flawless book. Some of the material concerning Todd and Rafi is a bit cringe-inducing, cliched. As always, though, Powers’ novel is ambitious, its vision vast, demanding, and complex, and it ends with a twist I didn't see coming. What the book says about human arrogance, the Faustian bargains we make daily in our effort to control our world, is powerful and provocative. It challenges the reader to think about what the costs of technology are on our lives and the planet. Had we to do it again would we (should we) have made the same choices in how our technology developed? One passage in "Playground" -- evoking, for me, Plato's allegory of the cave -- struck me as capturing the essence of what Powers asks of us in the novel: “You’ve spent your whole existence in a windowless room, getting everything you know of the living universe through symbols and metaphors, analogies and correlations. You don’t know anything for real.”
* I'm writing this shortly after reading Elizabeth Kolbert's sobering New Yorker article "When the Arctic Melts." She discusses the dire implications of human-induced changes in ocean currents.
My thanks to WW Norton and Netgalley for providing a digital ARC in return for an honest review.
"Men have become the tools of their tools." -- Thoreau
Here’s the challenge of writing about a book by Richard Powers: No matter how much you say, there’s always more you want to say. Always. No matter how much you write, though, you can never really capture the book.
For most of his career, Powers' books were explorations: of memory, technology, genetic engineering, music, consciousness, race. They were erudite, almost philosophical, occasionally difficult to read, but invariably thought-provoking. More recently — since “The Overstory,” certainly — exploration has ceded space to message. The novels have become more accessible and the warnings more dire. Understandably, because in recent years — with climate change, political unrest, assaults on the idea of shared reality, social media, nihilistic algorithms, artificial intelligence, etc. — the stakes have become so much bigger. “Playground” continues this trend.
The novel begins, suitably enough, with the creation of the world: how it was that Everything came to be where there was Nothing at all. This is not the "In the beginning" story most readers will be familiar with, however. There’s no Garden of Eden, no Adam and Eve, snake or forbidden tree. Instead, we read this:
Playground before the earth,
before the moon,
before the stars,
before the sun,
before the sky,
even before the sea,
there was only time and Ta’aroa.
This creation myth comes from a Pacific atoll called Makatea, a real place. It speaks of a god named Ta’aroa who first creates himself and after that, the world with its artists and fish and birds and humans and other gods, both cruel and kind. For Ta'aroa the unformed universe was a playground.
From here the novel jumps into our own age. Or more accurately, our time as it may well be in only a few decades. When Makatea was part of French Polynesia it was scoured and plundered for the phosphorous that was used in the new fertilizers that fed the world. Now, more than a century later, its few remaining residents must decide whether Makatea will open itself to the world again and become the base for a fleet of floating, self-supporting cities that are proposed responses to rising water levels.
Two of the main characters -- Todd Keane (White, wealthy) and Rafi Young (Black, poor) -- meet in a school for gifted students. Both are products of dysfunctional families. They bond over games: first chess, then Go. Over time their friendship will be stressed and ultimately dissolve. Todd will go on to become a social media titan (in the manner of Mark Zuckerberg). His greatest achievement is a sophisticated platform called “Playground” and, later, an AI entity called “Profunda” (an allusion to De Profundis, Psalm 30's "Out of the depths"?). Todd, inventor of artificial minds, has been diagnosed with Lewy body dementia. It is untreatable, fatal, affects both body and mind. Rafi's life takes a different path. He will become a poet and bibliophile. He'll fall in love with Ina, an artist who integrates waste into her art as a means of protest and warning. The two of them will marry, move to Makatea, and adopt two children. The other major character is Evelyne Beaulieu. A professional diver, author, a pioneer in her field, 90+ years old, and our eyes into a vast world that most of humanity knows nothing about.
Now this is where the urge to say more about the book becomes truly problematic because there is no way to talk about the complex interplay of themes and imagery or the emotional power certain scenes bear. "Playground" cuts back and forth through time, alighting now on the relationship between Todd and Rafi, and then across the world to events on Makatea as it decides its future, and then to Evelyne's story from her Canadian childhood, her experiences as a woman in a man's field of science, and her moments of epiphany.
Images of games and playgrounds run throughout the novel: Todd (conceived, he says, specifically so his father will have someone to play chess with “any time of day or night”) speaks of the unending “war game” that was his parents’ marriage. From one perspective, the idea of games is a familiar enough metaphor. But over time it becomes something more. Reflecting on his life, the path from gaming to coding, from pawns to people, the effect social media has had on our culture, Todd concludes, “Games now ruled humanity.” (Reading these words I couldn't help thinking about Benjamin Labatut's wonderful book, "Maniac.")
For Todd, a fascination with games will lead to increasingly sophisticated computer programming. Looking back on this part of his life, he thinks, “Neither Rafi nor I saw what was happening. No one did. That computers would take over our lives: Sure. But the way that they would turn us into different beings.” Portable encyclopedias and videoconferencing could be anticipated, but Facebook and WhatsApp and TikTok and Bitcoin and QAnon and Alexa and Google Maps and smart tracking ads based on keywords stolen from your emails and checking your likes while at a urinal and shopping while naked and insanely stupid but addictive farming games that wrecked people’s careers and all the other neural parasites that now make it impossible for me to remember what thinking and feeling and being were really like, back then? Not even close.
In opposition to technology Powers holds Nature. In particular, the ocean: vast, unknown, unknowable, the engine of life on Earth: The course of civilization is carved in ocean currents. Where sea layers mix, where rains travel or wastelands spread, where great upwellings bring deep, cold, nutrient-rich waters to the energy-bathed surface and fish go mad with fecundity, where soils turn fertile or anemic, where temperatures turn habitable or harsh, where trade routes flourish or fail: all this the global ocean engine determines. The fate of continents is written in water.*
It is here that Evelyne becomes so central to Powers' project. In her late years makes her way to Makatea, and it is through her that Powers shares spectacular scenes of the astonishing abundance of life in the ocean. “Ninety percent of the biosphere is underwater,” we read. The diversity of this arena is nothing less than miraculous: There were the two hundred eyes of a scallop. Starfish that see with the tips of their arms. Fish whose eyes are split in two so they can see both above and below the surface at once. The cock-eyed squid, which points its large eye upward toward great moving shadows and its small eye downward to the twinkling creatures of the deep. But down where the light was powerless, even the world’s largest eyes could not make out the stunning, jagged mountain ranges, vast waterfalls with a thousand times the flow of Niagara, trenches and crenellations and pits and crevasses like nothing known on land, panoramas never to be seen by any living thing.
(I have to share this one fact that really blew me away: “Lion’s mane jellyfish in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic—a four-hundred-pound glowing creature with more than a thousand tentacles, the longest one reaching half the length of a city block.” I had no idea... A 400 pound, glowing jellyfish! Fascinating to read about but terrifying to contemplate encountering.)
“Playground” is not a flawless book. Some of the material concerning Todd and Rafi is a bit cringe-inducing, cliched. As always, though, Powers’ novel is ambitious, its vision vast, demanding, and complex, and it ends with a twist I didn't see coming. What the book says about human arrogance, the Faustian bargains we make daily in our effort to control our world, is powerful and provocative. It challenges the reader to think about what the costs of technology are on our lives and the planet. Had we to do it again would we (should we) have made the same choices in how our technology developed? One passage in "Playground" -- evoking, for me, Plato's allegory of the cave -- struck me as capturing the essence of what Powers asks of us in the novel: “You’ve spent your whole existence in a windowless room, getting everything you know of the living universe through symbols and metaphors, analogies and correlations. You don’t know anything for real.”
* I'm writing this shortly after reading Elizabeth Kolbert's sobering New Yorker article "When the Arctic Melts." She discusses the dire implications of human-induced changes in ocean currents.
My thanks to WW Norton and Netgalley for providing a digital ARC in return for an honest review.
March 26, 2025
“If you want to make something smarter, teach it to play.”
I had mixed feelings about “The Overstory.” But because it was a Pulitzer Prize winner, I decided to read it. And, I still had mixed feelings about it by the time I got to the almost end. If curious as to what I am talking about, please feel free to read my review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
So, when this author’s new book came out, I was reluctant to read it. I had already had an emotional reaction to his previous book, “Bewilderment.” Review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Could I get through this one?
Since the reviews were good, I thought that maybe I might have a different feeling about it. And, when one of the characters, Todd Keane is diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia, I couldn’t help but feel a personal sadness about it, since the complications from that dis-ease is what took my mother’s life, 7 years ago. Still, this character is racing against his dis-ease in hopes of changing “the future of mankind.” Will he? What kind of ending will readers experience?
This story also takes readers to technical and future places, with artificial intelligence (AI) playing a central role. To be honest, these focuses are not my favorite type of stories. So, now what am I to do?
Still, Powers writing does focus on nature, and the wonders of our world. Where “The Overstory” had its central characters trees, with “Bewilderment” it was about the natural world, and this one has the ocean – and why it is worthy of our attention.
Powers is certainly a message writer.
And, with the author writing of the evolving capabilities of AI, perhaps his message is that we might want to be concerned. What powers will AI have over humanity? Over life as we know it?
The story goes back and forth in time and place. It is a story of friendship and the emotional bonds formed, as much as it is an oceanic tale. It is also a tale of a woman in a male-dominated scientific field. And a mother of two children who lives on an island in French Polynesia being considered as a platform for future floating cities.
The drama within these pages feels like a soap opera with so many storylines it appears like we are reading several novellas at once.
But the most compelling feeling about this book is a sense that the author is also sending a strong message that as humans we have a responsibility to be stewards of our planet. And, as readers we can’t help but ask if we are doing enough to ensure her future.
Still, maybe there is something more that the author wanted to convey here. Perhaps it is his love for and belief in humanity and our planet, the fragility and enchantment of it – all worth appreciating and saving. How can we not be moved by that?
I had mixed feelings about “The Overstory.” But because it was a Pulitzer Prize winner, I decided to read it. And, I still had mixed feelings about it by the time I got to the almost end. If curious as to what I am talking about, please feel free to read my review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
So, when this author’s new book came out, I was reluctant to read it. I had already had an emotional reaction to his previous book, “Bewilderment.” Review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Could I get through this one?
Since the reviews were good, I thought that maybe I might have a different feeling about it. And, when one of the characters, Todd Keane is diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia, I couldn’t help but feel a personal sadness about it, since the complications from that dis-ease is what took my mother’s life, 7 years ago. Still, this character is racing against his dis-ease in hopes of changing “the future of mankind.” Will he? What kind of ending will readers experience?
This story also takes readers to technical and future places, with artificial intelligence (AI) playing a central role. To be honest, these focuses are not my favorite type of stories. So, now what am I to do?
Still, Powers writing does focus on nature, and the wonders of our world. Where “The Overstory” had its central characters trees, with “Bewilderment” it was about the natural world, and this one has the ocean – and why it is worthy of our attention.
Powers is certainly a message writer.
And, with the author writing of the evolving capabilities of AI, perhaps his message is that we might want to be concerned. What powers will AI have over humanity? Over life as we know it?
The story goes back and forth in time and place. It is a story of friendship and the emotional bonds formed, as much as it is an oceanic tale. It is also a tale of a woman in a male-dominated scientific field. And a mother of two children who lives on an island in French Polynesia being considered as a platform for future floating cities.
The drama within these pages feels like a soap opera with so many storylines it appears like we are reading several novellas at once.
But the most compelling feeling about this book is a sense that the author is also sending a strong message that as humans we have a responsibility to be stewards of our planet. And, as readers we can’t help but ask if we are doing enough to ensure her future.
Still, maybe there is something more that the author wanted to convey here. Perhaps it is his love for and belief in humanity and our planet, the fragility and enchantment of it – all worth appreciating and saving. How can we not be moved by that?
September 24, 2024
Of all the things we humans excel at, moving the goal posts may be our best trick.
This was an incredible read, somewhat all-encompassing, and impressive. So, why only four stars?
That's probably just a personal thing. Honestly, the worst thing I can say about the book is that I found it a bit . . . uncompelling.
I adored the parts about Evelyne and her love of the sea. The passage where she is diving, and a giant manta swims over her head literally took my breath away with its astonishing beauty.
Unfortunately, I really didn't care much about Rafi, Todd, and Ina. Their stories enchanted me not at all.
So, for me anyway - an interesting, occasionally fascinating, but uneven read.
Many thanks to W.W. Norton for the physical ARC.
This was an incredible read, somewhat all-encompassing, and impressive. So, why only four stars?
That's probably just a personal thing. Honestly, the worst thing I can say about the book is that I found it a bit . . . uncompelling.
I adored the parts about Evelyne and her love of the sea. The passage where she is diving, and a giant manta swims over her head literally took my breath away with its astonishing beauty.
Unfortunately, I really didn't care much about Rafi, Todd, and Ina. Their stories enchanted me not at all.
So, for me anyway - an interesting, occasionally fascinating, but uneven read.
Many thanks to W.W. Norton for the physical ARC.
October 11, 2024
Powers really knows how to write a deep dive about the intersection of humanity and nature that is still a banging good story. This is the third of his books I’ve read and loved, and surely not the last. In Playground, Powers turns his attentions to the magnificent, mysterious, absorbing world that are our oceans. Through this medium, he tells a story about big issues and ideas like technological development, AI, capitalism and its environmental impact, and the tentacles of colonialism. Where it could be didactic, it never feels it, because it’s a story with a living, breathing heart. A world where characters, and the planet are alive. It’s the best book I’ve read this year. Exquisite. A travesty this wasn’t even shortlisted for the Booker, it should have won.
September 29, 2024
It gives me no pleasure at all to write this review. No pleasure whatsoever. But I must be honest.
Back when I was nineteen, I found this intriguing volume in a used bookstore on Ninth Avenue in San Francisco called THE GOLD BUG VARIATIONS. And it rocked my world. I felt seen when I had been poor and invisible. Stupidly, it had never occurred to me that there were other people (like me) who were intense about intellectual curiosity, who could express what I was feeling. Who could tell me, as Powers did so well, that there was a wide world of knowledge out there and that differing branches of knowledge -- often the unlikeliest ones -- contained major moral dilemmas that affected human existence. I valiantly read everything Powers had written up to that point and followed him like a student discovering that one professor who could get through to me like no other. When he finally got the well-deserved attention for THE ECHO MAKER -- which itself represented a major sea change in Powers's work -- I was nothing less than ecstatic. When he CONTINUED growing and evolving all the way up through THE OVERSTORY, I was still learning from the man. Still realizing how little I knew. Still realizing that Powers's great oeuvre was going to carry on like this, possibly well into my autumn years.
And then came BEWILDERMENT -- a novel that was so awful and maudlin, the first Richard Powers novel I didn't care for. (To this very day, I will still defend OPERATION WANDERING SOUL!) And I was stunned. What had happened? Success? A desire to build the mass audience? The drop in quality came with Richard Powers starting to do more interviews and put his author photo on his books. A Faustian bargain with Norton? Well, I had hoped that it was an aberration. Surely, the Richard Powers whom I had always known -- the kind and gentle genius -- would return with the next volume!
Alas, no. Sadly, no. My heart was completely crushed reading this book -- which is little more than a poorly crafted replay of Powers's excellent volume, PLOWING THE DARK. It attempts to recapture the magic of THE OVERSTORY by transposing the cynosure to oceans, but it fails to capture the awe and wonder of that richly deserved success. And given how sensitive Powers was to Black people in THE TIME OF OUR SINGING (perhaps his most underrated novel), I was stunned to see how tone-deaf, how oh so white and privileged he was, in his embarrassingly clueless depiction of Rafi. Todd Keane's italicized chapters are pretty much a replay of the budding programmer that we've seen so many times before in Powers's fiction, though without anything fundamentally original to say (for the first time!). Richard Powers's characters are far more passive this time. Consider one moment in which the budding oceanographer Evelyne is asked to pose for cheesecake photos in the 1970s. Previous Powers volumes would have shown Evelyne pushing back against this denigrating sexism. Powers would have allowed the very magic of intellectual discovery to triumph over the crass ask. But, no, he doesn't do this here. It's like he's fucking phoning it in. And even when Evelyne DOES make a discovery, it feels surprisingly ho-hum. And the one thing that you depend on Richard Powers for is to feel a renewed excitement about the world around us and the possibilities of knowledge. This is why I have long defended him.
Until now.
I'm forced to concede that either (a) Powers's writing talents have significantly plummeted or (b) more likely, I've simply outgrown Richard Powers. I clearly haven't lost my ability to get excited about the unlikeliest intellectual niches. When I -- an inveterate urban dweller -- read Gerald Durrell's wonderful books on naturalism earlier this year, I was completely locked into a subject that I frankly knew fuck all about it. And the vicarious joys of young Gerald reconciling his interests in the animal kingdom with his own family, I was spellbound and completely in Gerald's corner. I even began reading books on animals.
No such luck with the late-career Richard Powers. And I'm just gobsmacked by how poor this novel is. It starts off well. And Powers seems a lot more relaxed in his prose this time around. But it soon became apparent that he was TOO insouciant. That the very quality that causes us to become spellbond by a Richard Powers novel is this intense and uncertain impetus towards some dawning realization. There's nothing about AI here that Richard Powers hasn't written about more eloquently in GALATEA 2.2. With GAIN, Powers showed a far more instinctive command with the way that women are vitiated. He proved with GENEROSITY that he was nimble with completely wild concepts. What the hell happened to that Richard Powers? Long gone, I fear.
I'm sure that the johnnies and janes come lately will swoon over this book. But I'm telling you, painfully telling you, that this book, despite dealing with ostensibly new territory, is more of the same. Powers's heart is gone. And even his digs at techbros feel less genuine these days.
God, I feel so rotten after reading this. As if some once awesome uncle has signed on for the MAGA Cult after hearing one too many dog whistles from FOX News. Richard Powers, you are too GREAT to cave like this. Maybe the writer I loved is still there and will show up again. But after two strikeouts in a row, I think he's moved on.
Back when I was nineteen, I found this intriguing volume in a used bookstore on Ninth Avenue in San Francisco called THE GOLD BUG VARIATIONS. And it rocked my world. I felt seen when I had been poor and invisible. Stupidly, it had never occurred to me that there were other people (like me) who were intense about intellectual curiosity, who could express what I was feeling. Who could tell me, as Powers did so well, that there was a wide world of knowledge out there and that differing branches of knowledge -- often the unlikeliest ones -- contained major moral dilemmas that affected human existence. I valiantly read everything Powers had written up to that point and followed him like a student discovering that one professor who could get through to me like no other. When he finally got the well-deserved attention for THE ECHO MAKER -- which itself represented a major sea change in Powers's work -- I was nothing less than ecstatic. When he CONTINUED growing and evolving all the way up through THE OVERSTORY, I was still learning from the man. Still realizing how little I knew. Still realizing that Powers's great oeuvre was going to carry on like this, possibly well into my autumn years.
And then came BEWILDERMENT -- a novel that was so awful and maudlin, the first Richard Powers novel I didn't care for. (To this very day, I will still defend OPERATION WANDERING SOUL!) And I was stunned. What had happened? Success? A desire to build the mass audience? The drop in quality came with Richard Powers starting to do more interviews and put his author photo on his books. A Faustian bargain with Norton? Well, I had hoped that it was an aberration. Surely, the Richard Powers whom I had always known -- the kind and gentle genius -- would return with the next volume!
Alas, no. Sadly, no. My heart was completely crushed reading this book -- which is little more than a poorly crafted replay of Powers's excellent volume, PLOWING THE DARK. It attempts to recapture the magic of THE OVERSTORY by transposing the cynosure to oceans, but it fails to capture the awe and wonder of that richly deserved success. And given how sensitive Powers was to Black people in THE TIME OF OUR SINGING (perhaps his most underrated novel), I was stunned to see how tone-deaf, how oh so white and privileged he was, in his embarrassingly clueless depiction of Rafi. Todd Keane's italicized chapters are pretty much a replay of the budding programmer that we've seen so many times before in Powers's fiction, though without anything fundamentally original to say (for the first time!). Richard Powers's characters are far more passive this time. Consider one moment in which the budding oceanographer Evelyne is asked to pose for cheesecake photos in the 1970s. Previous Powers volumes would have shown Evelyne pushing back against this denigrating sexism. Powers would have allowed the very magic of intellectual discovery to triumph over the crass ask. But, no, he doesn't do this here. It's like he's fucking phoning it in. And even when Evelyne DOES make a discovery, it feels surprisingly ho-hum. And the one thing that you depend on Richard Powers for is to feel a renewed excitement about the world around us and the possibilities of knowledge. This is why I have long defended him.
Until now.
I'm forced to concede that either (a) Powers's writing talents have significantly plummeted or (b) more likely, I've simply outgrown Richard Powers. I clearly haven't lost my ability to get excited about the unlikeliest intellectual niches. When I -- an inveterate urban dweller -- read Gerald Durrell's wonderful books on naturalism earlier this year, I was completely locked into a subject that I frankly knew fuck all about it. And the vicarious joys of young Gerald reconciling his interests in the animal kingdom with his own family, I was spellbound and completely in Gerald's corner. I even began reading books on animals.
No such luck with the late-career Richard Powers. And I'm just gobsmacked by how poor this novel is. It starts off well. And Powers seems a lot more relaxed in his prose this time around. But it soon became apparent that he was TOO insouciant. That the very quality that causes us to become spellbond by a Richard Powers novel is this intense and uncertain impetus towards some dawning realization. There's nothing about AI here that Richard Powers hasn't written about more eloquently in GALATEA 2.2. With GAIN, Powers showed a far more instinctive command with the way that women are vitiated. He proved with GENEROSITY that he was nimble with completely wild concepts. What the hell happened to that Richard Powers? Long gone, I fear.
I'm sure that the johnnies and janes come lately will swoon over this book. But I'm telling you, painfully telling you, that this book, despite dealing with ostensibly new territory, is more of the same. Powers's heart is gone. And even his digs at techbros feel less genuine these days.
God, I feel so rotten after reading this. As if some once awesome uncle has signed on for the MAGA Cult after hearing one too many dog whistles from FOX News. Richard Powers, you are too GREAT to cave like this. Maybe the writer I loved is still there and will show up again. But after two strikeouts in a row, I think he's moved on.
October 27, 2024
So fuckin' awesome.
Awkward family dynamics in childhood, friendship, love, vocation, gaming (chess, Go, and some video), the rise of information systems and artificial intelligence, and most deeply, that source of all life on the planet, mother ocean. Deep, insightful, wonderful, filled with awe of where we are and who we are. Another big win from Powers, whose Overstory I also loved.
Awkward family dynamics in childhood, friendship, love, vocation, gaming (chess, Go, and some video), the rise of information systems and artificial intelligence, and most deeply, that source of all life on the planet, mother ocean. Deep, insightful, wonderful, filled with awe of where we are and who we are. Another big win from Powers, whose Overstory I also loved.
September 30, 2024
Stunning. It leaves me speechless.
March 16, 2025
Time for another ‘Blind Library-pic’ 📚
First up I have to say this book was a MASSIVE undertaking and a HUGE accomplishment! It is my first Richard Powers’ book and I have been totally blown away by his writing ability. 👏🏼
This story is essentially a love letter to the Ocean 💙
…but the scary thing is, whilst reading this book, I couldn’t tell if it was real or dystopian 🤨
Quick summary: Richard Powers draws together the lives of 4 individuals in this far-reaching novel. Evie Beaulieu. Ina Aroita. Rafi Young. Todd Keane. They all meet on the tiny island of Makatea in French Polynesia. This special little corner of the world has been chosen for humanity's next experiment: a floating, independent city out into the open sea. But first, the island's residents must vote to greenlight the project or turn the seasteaders away. This magnificent story is set in the world’s largest ocean, exploring topics from colonisation, AI, destruction and preservation of our environment and deep, complex human connections.
Personally, I found the first 50 pages a bit hard to wrap my head around. I wasn’t sure who’s POV I was looking at; It seemed to be a random collection of different lives mashed together…then it got GOOD! The thing was, it was a collection of different lives, weaving in and out through time and place. I just had to get my head around where I was and who was narrating.
The characters in this book are what really and truly made this a very special read. Evie - WOW, was she a powerhouse. At the age of only 12, she was first person in the world to use Aqualungs; allowing her to dive deep into the ocean. To breathe underwater. A whole new grace came over her. She had never felt at home on land, above the surface, with its noise and politics. She was made for the water. 80 years later, at the age of 92, Evie had secretly nursed the wish to die diving. But first, she had one last task to accomplish: to compile another book - ‘to try one more time to make the land dwellers love the wild, unfathomable God of waters.’
Evie was adventurous, fearless, naive, and crazy passionate, but only about the sea. ‘She swam at night, in waters full off bioluminescent plankton. The sea sparkled like silent fireworks….’
‘With luck, Evelyn might live to see the stunning ritual one more time: the great mating courtship train of two dozen or more mantas swimming head to tail, twisting and weaving and corkscrewing through the reef like a high-speed, crazed conga line.’
Then, we have Ina Aroita who was born in Hawaii before moving to the tiny island of Makatea to garden and fish and weave and knit a little and raise two children, all the while trying to remember why she was alive. In her youth, she was liquid confidence. She grew up on naval bases across the Pacific. Art was, and still is her only home.
And then, we have the boys. They were total opposites, yet they created a deep bond over a 3 thousand year old board game. Rafi Young, a man after my own heart - he was a book man: “I can get free. Sometimes. But only when reading. When I read… the other place is more real than this one.” He totally lost, and found, himself in literature.
Todd Keane was probably my least favourite character. He was a computer man. AI was his thing. His startling ability to create computer codes was slightly concerning to me, as he created crossed the line into controversial computerised territory.
The story follows the lives of these four individuals, going back and forth in time and changing POV frequently. These characters were so complex and unique. I wanted them to be real; they certainly felt real.
The story was told in such a unique fashion, and very much character driven. However, the way Powers’ intricately described the underwater world was phenomenal. The core of this book was about protecting the environment, largely focused on the ocean; yet it felt so much greater. The way Powers’ created a deep connection between nature and humanity was brilliant and beautiful. I can’t put into words how expansive and powerful this book was. All I can do is highly recommend it, to one and all.
“How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean.” 🌎
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
First up I have to say this book was a MASSIVE undertaking and a HUGE accomplishment! It is my first Richard Powers’ book and I have been totally blown away by his writing ability. 👏🏼
This story is essentially a love letter to the Ocean 💙
…but the scary thing is, whilst reading this book, I couldn’t tell if it was real or dystopian 🤨
Quick summary: Richard Powers draws together the lives of 4 individuals in this far-reaching novel. Evie Beaulieu. Ina Aroita. Rafi Young. Todd Keane. They all meet on the tiny island of Makatea in French Polynesia. This special little corner of the world has been chosen for humanity's next experiment: a floating, independent city out into the open sea. But first, the island's residents must vote to greenlight the project or turn the seasteaders away. This magnificent story is set in the world’s largest ocean, exploring topics from colonisation, AI, destruction and preservation of our environment and deep, complex human connections.
Personally, I found the first 50 pages a bit hard to wrap my head around. I wasn’t sure who’s POV I was looking at; It seemed to be a random collection of different lives mashed together…then it got GOOD! The thing was, it was a collection of different lives, weaving in and out through time and place. I just had to get my head around where I was and who was narrating.
The characters in this book are what really and truly made this a very special read. Evie - WOW, was she a powerhouse. At the age of only 12, she was first person in the world to use Aqualungs; allowing her to dive deep into the ocean. To breathe underwater. A whole new grace came over her. She had never felt at home on land, above the surface, with its noise and politics. She was made for the water. 80 years later, at the age of 92, Evie had secretly nursed the wish to die diving. But first, she had one last task to accomplish: to compile another book - ‘to try one more time to make the land dwellers love the wild, unfathomable God of waters.’
Evie was adventurous, fearless, naive, and crazy passionate, but only about the sea. ‘She swam at night, in waters full off bioluminescent plankton. The sea sparkled like silent fireworks….’
‘With luck, Evelyn might live to see the stunning ritual one more time: the great mating courtship train of two dozen or more mantas swimming head to tail, twisting and weaving and corkscrewing through the reef like a high-speed, crazed conga line.’
Then, we have Ina Aroita who was born in Hawaii before moving to the tiny island of Makatea to garden and fish and weave and knit a little and raise two children, all the while trying to remember why she was alive. In her youth, she was liquid confidence. She grew up on naval bases across the Pacific. Art was, and still is her only home.
And then, we have the boys. They were total opposites, yet they created a deep bond over a 3 thousand year old board game. Rafi Young, a man after my own heart - he was a book man: “I can get free. Sometimes. But only when reading. When I read… the other place is more real than this one.” He totally lost, and found, himself in literature.
Todd Keane was probably my least favourite character. He was a computer man. AI was his thing. His startling ability to create computer codes was slightly concerning to me, as he created crossed the line into controversial computerised territory.
The story follows the lives of these four individuals, going back and forth in time and changing POV frequently. These characters were so complex and unique. I wanted them to be real; they certainly felt real.
The story was told in such a unique fashion, and very much character driven. However, the way Powers’ intricately described the underwater world was phenomenal. The core of this book was about protecting the environment, largely focused on the ocean; yet it felt so much greater. The way Powers’ created a deep connection between nature and humanity was brilliant and beautiful. I can’t put into words how expansive and powerful this book was. All I can do is highly recommend it, to one and all.
“How inappropriate to call this planet Earth, when clearly it is Ocean.” 🌎
🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
September 23, 2024
A love letter to the ocean and its hidden depths. Much like The Overstory, Powers employs astounding reverence for one of our most complex and abundant natural resources.
Speculative fiction can hold up a mirror to our current moment — extrapolating, distorting, and ultimately exploring the ripple effects of what our future could hold. Playground succeeds in doing just that as the plot converges and collides with the dawn of the AI age in surprising ways. On those marks alone, it’s a winner. It’s elegantly crafted and consistently engaging, but it never fully won me over.
The narrative ebbs and flows between characters and timelines, with each thread carefully fleshed out and fully realized. My hope that these individual strands would tightly weave back together in the end was not to be. Instead, the ending left me puzzled. I had to consult with other readers and do a careful re-read of the final portion of the book to understand just what transpired. And still, I’m not sure. This may be an issue of comprehension on my end, so I look forward to seeing what others think upon the book's release. That said, I genuinely enjoyed reading Playground, and I believe many others will find it just as captivating.
My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
Blog | Twitter | Instagram
Speculative fiction can hold up a mirror to our current moment — extrapolating, distorting, and ultimately exploring the ripple effects of what our future could hold. Playground succeeds in doing just that as the plot converges and collides with the dawn of the AI age in surprising ways. On those marks alone, it’s a winner. It’s elegantly crafted and consistently engaging, but it never fully won me over.
The narrative ebbs and flows between characters and timelines, with each thread carefully fleshed out and fully realized. My hope that these individual strands would tightly weave back together in the end was not to be. Instead, the ending left me puzzled. I had to consult with other readers and do a careful re-read of the final portion of the book to understand just what transpired. And still, I’m not sure. This may be an issue of comprehension on my end, so I look forward to seeing what others think upon the book's release. That said, I genuinely enjoyed reading Playground, and I believe many others will find it just as captivating.
My thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an advanced reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
Blog | Twitter | Instagram
October 21, 2024
I was so excited about this. I have wanted to read Powers for a long time (this is my first) and this is about tech stuff and ocean stuff - two things I really like! But I did not like this book; I struggled to finish it. The characters did not make sense to me in any way, they seemed to be scripted to carry a story (what story I'm not entirely sure) not to actually work as human beings (so many contradictions and not in the human kind of way!). The depiction of the central black character is also pretty tone-deaf, to say the least, I think. But what got me frustrated the most: the book clearly tries to convey passion for the ocean but in such a clunky and in-your-face way that it just made me wonder whether Powers actually shares any of the passion. To me, it felt like more like what he _thinks_ passion for the ocean would sound like. The diving scenes especially - I cannot believe the person who wrote this has ever tried diving himself (especially because he loves to describe 'beautiful red and orange colours' underwater - but you cannot even see red just 5m below the surface! Something the book at some point even points out itself!! This stuff makes me so frustrated!!!). And the tech parts are just unmotivated - random bits of real-life tech-news and some vague ideas just thrown into the whole thing.
I wanted to like this - but this is the worst book I have read in quite a while. I will try again with The Overstory once I have forgiven him this one...
I wanted to like this - but this is the worst book I have read in quite a while. I will try again with The Overstory once I have forgiven him this one...
October 17, 2024
Well beyond page 300, I was still not feeling the mojo. My best friend - still unsure just how much of the Booker longlist he wanted to tackle - asked me for an "elevator pitch" and I gave him this:
David Attenborough and Oliver Sacks partner to write a book about Gaming, AI, and Dementia for Marvel (after it was purchased by Disney). All four major characters are invested with superhuman gifts and abilities.
The final 20 pages were a revelation to me. And that elevator pitch still stands, except now I think there's more than a little genius behind this latest and best novel from Richard Powers. Add mine to the growing chorus of voices who can't believe this didn't advance to the shortlist.
4.5 stars
David Attenborough and Oliver Sacks partner to write a book about Gaming, AI, and Dementia for Marvel (after it was purchased by Disney). All four major characters are invested with superhuman gifts and abilities.
The final 20 pages were a revelation to me. And that elevator pitch still stands, except now I think there's more than a little genius behind this latest and best novel from Richard Powers. Add mine to the growing chorus of voices who can't believe this didn't advance to the shortlist.
4.5 stars
October 5, 2024
Pas op drie kwart van deze roman - wanneer 'Profunda' haar opwachting maakt - begon ik écht overstag te gaan. Alsof de auteur dan pas zijn 'Zet37' doet (lees de roman om deze spoiler te vatten). Tot dat moment wist Richard Powers me zoals altijd wel te boeien met de uitgezette lijnen voor alweer een op hedendaagse wetenschap en gedurfde verbeelding drijvende nieuwe roman. Hij neemt - net als wie het eeuwenoude bordspel Go speelt (nog zo'n spoiler-glimp) - ruim de tijd om de levens van zijn protagonisten uit te werken en daaraan synchroon een kleurrijke oceaan aan spel-ideeën en diepmenselijke emoties op te roepen. Maar het voelde voor mij eerder als afwachtend lezen, dan als meegevoerd worden in het kielzog van zijn intelligente vertelkracht.
Toegegeven, ik had hem graag in het Engels gelezen, maar kreeg de Nederlandse vertaling cadeau. Die was best ok, behalve in de vele dialogen die Powers in de eerste helft van het boek inzet en die zich omwille van personage-gebonden spreek- en straattaal gewoonweg lastig laat vertalen. Of toch niet zonder verlies van die eerder genoemde vertelkracht en de couleur locale die ze kan oproepen. Hetzelfde probleem geldt hier voor de titel, maar daar worstelden wel meer van zijn romans mee, zoals De Dubbele Helix van het Verlangen en Tot in de hemel.
Lange tijd dobberde ik dus een beetje rond op die zee van spel-ideeën, met in mijn achterhoofd hoogstens 3,5 *. Maar de laatste honderd pagina's brachten alles in een verrassende stroomversnelling die erin slaagde mijn perspectief omver te werpen, mijn horizon te verruimen en mijn ziel te raken. Alles wat gedurende die eerste drie kwart werd aangeraakt en opgebouwd vloeide samen in de wat mij betreft enige mogelijke juiste ontknoping ... precies zoals Powers zijn personage Evie het perfecte laatste hoofdstuk van haar oceaanboek laat ontdekken.
En zo werd het alsnog een vintage RP (niet te verwarren met AI) die zich moeiteloos kan meten met andere artificieel intelligente auteurs en romans als Klara and the Sun, Machines like Me en De Mitsukoshi Troostbaby Company. Mogelijk overtreft hij ze zelfs omwille van de vele borden of balletjes die hij tegelijk in de lucht weet te houden en de bij hem altijd breed gedragen filosofisch-wetenschappelijke basis om ons aan het denken te zetten over actuele problemen.
Ik laveer nog tussen 4* en 4,5*, me voornemend hem ooit nog eens in het Engels te herlezen.
Toegegeven, ik had hem graag in het Engels gelezen, maar kreeg de Nederlandse vertaling cadeau. Die was best ok, behalve in de vele dialogen die Powers in de eerste helft van het boek inzet en die zich omwille van personage-gebonden spreek- en straattaal gewoonweg lastig laat vertalen. Of toch niet zonder verlies van die eerder genoemde vertelkracht en de couleur locale die ze kan oproepen. Hetzelfde probleem geldt hier voor de titel, maar daar worstelden wel meer van zijn romans mee, zoals De Dubbele Helix van het Verlangen en Tot in de hemel.
Lange tijd dobberde ik dus een beetje rond op die zee van spel-ideeën, met in mijn achterhoofd hoogstens 3,5 *. Maar de laatste honderd pagina's brachten alles in een verrassende stroomversnelling die erin slaagde mijn perspectief omver te werpen, mijn horizon te verruimen en mijn ziel te raken. Alles wat gedurende die eerste drie kwart werd aangeraakt en opgebouwd vloeide samen in de wat mij betreft enige mogelijke juiste ontknoping ... precies zoals Powers zijn personage Evie het perfecte laatste hoofdstuk van haar oceaanboek laat ontdekken.
En zo werd het alsnog een vintage RP (niet te verwarren met AI) die zich moeiteloos kan meten met andere artificieel intelligente auteurs en romans als Klara and the Sun, Machines like Me en De Mitsukoshi Troostbaby Company. Mogelijk overtreft hij ze zelfs omwille van de vele borden of balletjes die hij tegelijk in de lucht weet te houden en de bij hem altijd breed gedragen filosofisch-wetenschappelijke basis om ons aan het denken te zetten over actuele problemen.
Ik laveer nog tussen 4* en 4,5*, me voornemend hem ooit nog eens in het Engels te herlezen.
May 8, 2024
Written from multiple narrative perspectives and moving back and forth in time gives this novel a somewhat disorientating feel. At times, I felt a little 'at sea'. At no point did I find this an easy read but like Powers' novels 'The Overstory' and 'Bewilderment', 'Playground' is thought-provoking and leaves the reader willing to invest in it: changed.
Powers is clearly a literary genius.
The theme of exploration is considered through our exploration of the oceans as well as exploration of AI as we enter the fourth industrial revolution. The theme of 'play' overlays both these ideas.
This novel encapsulates what it means to be alive in 2024 - with concerns over climate change and the accelerating speed that AI is taking off and is inevitably going to change how we live and die and live.
This is a remarkable read. I would be shocked not to see this make the Booker lists in 2025.
Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC.
Powers is clearly a literary genius.
The theme of exploration is considered through our exploration of the oceans as well as exploration of AI as we enter the fourth industrial revolution. The theme of 'play' overlays both these ideas.
This novel encapsulates what it means to be alive in 2024 - with concerns over climate change and the accelerating speed that AI is taking off and is inevitably going to change how we live and die and live.
This is a remarkable read. I would be shocked not to see this make the Booker lists in 2025.
Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC.
April 25, 2025
Rating: Pulitzer material
Richard Powers has demonstrated his mastery of theme, plot, characters and premise for years and with this story, he ups the ante. Evocative, enlightening and engaging, the reader is immersed in a story world that toggles character back story to the present as 'building blocks' for whats to come.
Driven by themes of friendship, family and advancing technology, we're introduced to Todd Keane, Rafi Young, Ina Aroita and Evie Beauleau whose lives will impact one another's on the island of Makatea. As the narrative progresses, contrast plays a role as do ecology vs technology that illuminate critical issues facing humanity and Mother Earth.
Powers' lyrical prose and research engage the reader as does the emotional context. The title can be interpreted a variety of ways due to Evie's experiences with giant mantas rays, Keane's billion dollar company or Rafi and Todd's friendship. Regardless, this is a remarkable work and for those who prefer inspired storytelling as I do, it can't be recommended enough!
I feel its a disservice to expose details, plots, back story and specifics especially for narratives of this quality, however if you feel a need to know, read reviews from others :) Do yourselves a favor and add it to your list and immerse yourselves in a remarkable journey.
Richard Powers has demonstrated his mastery of theme, plot, characters and premise for years and with this story, he ups the ante. Evocative, enlightening and engaging, the reader is immersed in a story world that toggles character back story to the present as 'building blocks' for whats to come.
Driven by themes of friendship, family and advancing technology, we're introduced to Todd Keane, Rafi Young, Ina Aroita and Evie Beauleau whose lives will impact one another's on the island of Makatea. As the narrative progresses, contrast plays a role as do ecology vs technology that illuminate critical issues facing humanity and Mother Earth.
Powers' lyrical prose and research engage the reader as does the emotional context. The title can be interpreted a variety of ways due to Evie's experiences with giant mantas rays, Keane's billion dollar company or Rafi and Todd's friendship. Regardless, this is a remarkable work and for those who prefer inspired storytelling as I do, it can't be recommended enough!
I feel its a disservice to expose details, plots, back story and specifics especially for narratives of this quality, however if you feel a need to know, read reviews from others :) Do yourselves a favor and add it to your list and immerse yourselves in a remarkable journey.
November 9, 2024
The themes were interesting, including the environment, AI, colonialism. I also liked some of the characters However, at times it felt like the author was just presenting a laundry list of ocean life. I also found the structure needlessly confusing. Basically, I hated all of the jumping around among the characters and times. This just wasn’t for me. I received a free copy of this audiobook from the publisher.
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