Reviews
In Michael Springer's review of Ship Breaker, he uses a narrative account of his experience working at Rally's Hamburgers as a parallel to the type of work the book's characters are engaged in, and follows this lengthy digression with a political rant that goes on in one seemingly endless sentence for several hundred words. The actual time invested in discussing characters or events from the book come in a brief paragraph at the end, almost as an afterthought to the rants that have come before. This is fairly typical for the reviewer's style, although it's a vast improvement over his review of the children's book, In the Night Kitchen: in that review, he entirely avoids the book itself, the author of the book, and any themes contained in the book. That said, what can we say about the quality of this review of Ship Breaker? If one were interested in deciding whether or not they'd enjoy the book, it's hard to imagine how the reviewer's multiple experiences wounding himself while cooking hamburgers will help us determine whether we ought to read it or not. Likewise, the reviewer's ravings about the madness of the political system in the United States, and his accusations that "all of us, every one of us on this website, all of my goodreader friends, are just pawns to the American Empire, forever blinded by the superficial bickering of political hacks while those with the money lurk behind the scenes, pushing an agenda that subjugates those in Puerto Rico, Hawaii, and all of the middle east, those most of us would rather embrace than marginalize..." and he continues in that vein for quite a while. It seems that overstatement is the rule of the day, considering the reviewer chooses to portray his own mediocre job at a fast food restaurant (which he admits he only worked at for two months) with the slavery-like conditions experienced by the children in the book. At their jobs extracting copper from abandoned ships, they ran the risk of death on a daily basis, whereas Michael's worst experience involves a fairly mild burn on his finger. Similarly, he portrays the United States government as filled with conspiracies to systematically take all the money from all of those who aren't in the wealthiest 1%. In one of the few evaluative statements in the entire review, Michael states that, in comparison to Paolo Bacigalupi's previous novel, The Windup Girl, "This book gargles donkey cum." If anyone was inclined to take Michael's views on this book seriously before reading that statement, this crass overstatement most likely changed their minds. When attempting to actually review the book in his final paragraph, Michael proves himself inept: he relies on blanket statements, such as "The book was, overall, okay." Thank you for that amazing insight, Michael. He mentions the book is part of the science fiction movement known as "biopunk," but quickly moves on to other territory without defining this term, or explaining why this term matters in our understanding of the book. Perhaps, if the reviewer were to view this "review" as a rough draft, or a brainstorm for ideas, he might eventually develop something worth reading. However, the review seems to have happened as a stream-of-consciousness rant that only tangentially has any connection with the novel in question, and then attempts to flesh out a review at the last minute before fizzling out ambivalently. If one is inclined to read a review of Ship Breaker on the goodreads.com website, one would be much better off reading the reviews written by Eric or Kathleen. In comparison to these reviews that actually contain substance, Michael's review clearly gargles donkey cum.
I wasn't sure what to make of the first few pages, but after a bit of adjustment into the dark post-apocalyptic (& probably quite realistic) world, I was hooked. And then came the last quarter of the book which seemed a bit slog in comparison. I was losing interest fast and while I was thrilled that it ended without a "wait-for-book-two" ending, me and this book ended without much fanfare. Still a good, adventurous read for the most part.
Paolo Bacigalupi shines in this novel set off the gulf coast in the creepy future where the divide between the “have” and the “have-nots” seems as vast as the seas.What struck me in this novel was the fantastic use of language. Bacigalupi creates a whole shanty society complete with their own slang that permeates every thought and conversation. You get a real feel for the world with that language. You get a real sense for how the poor in this area are beyond uneducated, they are generations of uneducated. They learn what they need to survive and little more, because surviving takes up every scrap of time from a young age. The book makes you wonder what will happen to America once we finally give up on oil. Will we turn from our addiction to oil only when forced to look for other ideas? The other theme of the future that I saw centered around the effects of the weather changes we see today. It does not matter if you believe in global warming or not, we live in a time with some extreme weather patterns, and what will happen to the world if those patterns continue? Could we see “city killer’ hurricanes, as described in this novel? Will we truly see New Orleans built three times over? And what will it take for us to finally learn that perhaps we need to change our thinking in regards to these weather patterns? I truly enjoyed the high adventure as Nailer runs away with Nita in an attempt to save her from the very people he grew up with, including his father. Nailer’s hard work and determination saves his life time and time again, in ways showing how when put to to the test you can do mighty things. If you are looking for a rosy look towards the future, go back to “Star Trek”. You won’t find world peace here. Instead you find a rusty, oily future where family will turn against family at the drop of a hat and survival is a matter of cunning and luck more than anything else.
Es ist offiziell: ich mag die Bücher von Bagigalupi nicht. Schon "Windup Girl" hat mir nicht gefallen, aber da ich jedem Autor eine zweite Chance gebe, habe ich es nun mit diesem Buch versucht. Zwar ist die Geschichte flüssig geschrieben, aber es gibt so einige Dinge, die mir sauer aufstoßen: der erhobene Zeigefinger, der sich durch das ganze Buch zieht, der Vater-Sohn-Konflikt, Geschehnisse am Rande, die nur wenig zum Gesamten beitragen,... Es hat so ein bißchen was von "Twilight für Jungs" - eine "saubere" Abenteuergeschichte. Vielleicht bin ich auch einfach nur die falsche Zielgruppe...
fun book. want to read the rest of the series. not as good as wind up girl, though.
