SciFi and Fantasy eBook Club discussion

Sorry. I intended to put this thread up yesterday. I'm 16% into the book now and set it aside as I'm itching too much to re-read A Meeting at Corvallis .... :(

So, what are your initial thoughts on the Book and does anyone want to be the discussion leader for this book?

I got about 2/3 of the way through the sample and set it aside. I suspect I will not buy it unless I see an overwhelming wave of support here. I found the narration to be too annoying: full of slang, jargon, and whatnot (not just in the dialog, all the time) to make him sound like a blue-collar roughneck while at the same time going off on long philosophical rants full of big words; with the sum of the whole being less than either of those parts.

Out of the four books I've read for this group, this by a far and clear margin the best book we done so far. (I skipped a few fantasy selections.) But I have a feeling it's not going to be to everyone's taste. It takes a good long while for the science fiction elements to kick in, but there is a scientific idea that drives the plot later on when the Go Away Bombs start dropping. I loved the slower, more detailed pace compared the the fast action of some of the other titles.

So far so confused... Oh well, I'm just entering the Of colleges, sex and politics... we shall see...

Charles wrote: "I got about 2/3 of the way through the sample and set it aside. I suspect I will not buy it unless I see an overwhelming wave of support here. I found the narration to be too annoying: full of slan..."
Very interesting. I had exactly the same initial reaction as you, I hated the smarmy know-it-all dialogue and writing (except I can't get the samples so I'd already bought it and I'm a finish-it-once-I-start-it person anyway). It was so long though I was not happy. But at some point, I can't remember the %, it shifted to his early life and suddenly became a very different, very interesting book. I remember thinking "This is why I always finish books, because I would have missed this."

I'm at 60% now and the plot has been thrown for a huge loop so I'm curious to see what happens. I do think it doesn't really feel like a science fiction book to me, although I don't know what else I would classify it as.

So I would recommend you stick with it but I totally understand where you're coming from.

DonnaR wrote: "But at some point, I can't remember the %, it shifted to his early life and suddenly became a very different, very interesting book."

I was surprised about that too. I thought this was going to be a post-apocalyptic pseudo-cyberpunk geared towards young hipsters. And you're right, it suddenly changed into a very different - albeit still strange - book. Once I return to reading it, I'm about to start the college years and I'm really curious where this one is going.

You should be reading very carefully. Here is a snippet from Nancy Pearl's Book Review:

And without giving anything away, I'm pretty sure that I can tell you that there's a spectacular plot twist that totally changes the way you read the book. (As a result of that, I suspect that you'll want to go back to the beginning and reread it, just as I did, looking for the clues that Harkaway helpfully planted for us along the way, but that we didn't understand were clues at the time.)

I heard her read the review on Seattle's NPR station one morning, so I was a little forewarned. It's a plot twist that reminds me of another famous SF writer's predilections.

Greg wrote: "You should be reading very carefully. Here is a snippet from Nancy Pearl's Book Review:

And without giving anything away, I'm pretty sure that I can tell you that there's a spectacular plot twi..."

I had seen a plot twist at 60% but it didn't seem to fit with your post. Then I read farther and Wow! now that's a twist! I just finished the book and am off to start a spoiler thread.

Well I made it to 50% and I could give 2 shakes about it. 1 star review, I would have given it .5 stars but I couldn't. Oh well, next please!?

Greg wrote: "Well I made it to 50% and I could give 2 shakes about it. 1 star review, I would have given it .5 stars but I couldn't. Oh well, next please!?"

I guess all readers have different ideas of what makes a book good. I'd rake The Gone Away World as one of the better novels I've read this year. I also loathed The Hunger Games but just about everyone else is pissing golden comments about it.

I finished my other book last night so I picked this up and read another 800 or so locations before bed. It's still a very strange book but I'm really sucked into it. I'm curious why things are happening at all - like why is Master Wu even in the story - and I think I need to dig in further and further....