Warwick Stubbs > Recent Status Updates

All of these algebraic equations make my eyes blur, but when I refocus again I enjoy reading all the words that make up the sentences afterwards....

Finally! We're getting some actual background about the war.

Shepard tends to get so enamoured by his own descriptions that he forgets there's a plot waiting to happen. This entire section following the original R&R short-story, The Good Soldier, has a completely distasteful indulgence in describing the state of women's breasts. Easy to dismiss as character development, but sadly, most of it was unnecessary and ended up giving me a distasteful look into the author's mind.

Sadly, I have not found this novel as engaging or as interesting as either Dawn or Kindred. Butler's writing doesn't evoke atmosphere or empathetic depths of her main character.

"In every country in the world a huge tribe of party-hacks and sleek little professors are busy 'proving' that Socialism means no more than a planned state-capitalism with the grab-motive left intact. But fortunately there also exists a vision of Socialism quite different from this. ...to the vast majority of people, Socialism means a classless society, or it means nothing at all."
- p.87

The premise is intriguing, the story isn't. The writing doesn't quite capture the strangeness of the environment, or (what should be) the emotional tug of events.