Book Reviews: Amatka, Tidbeck; Centaur Rising, Yolen; The Three-Body Problem, Liu

[juushika]

Title: Amatka
Author: Karin Tidbeck
Translator: Karin Tidbeck
Narrator: Kirsten Potter
Published: Random House Audio, 2017 (2012)
Rating: 4 of 5
Page Count: 215
Total Page Count: 236,140
Text Number: 752
Read Because: reviewed by Kalanadi, audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: A researcher travels to a sister colony, whose exceptionally fragile permanence calls into question a number of things about their society's nature and origin. Tidbeck has a restrained, almost cold voice, focusing on daily life and minutia; meanwhile, the worldbuilding is high concept, with a slowly unfolding mystery. If the plot reveals and inevitability of the ending are too convenient, it's counterbalanced by the haunting, wondrous tone (especially lovely in audio). It's a bit like Emma Newman's Planetfall, a bit like Jeff VanderMeer's Annihilation, but is uniquely itself, haunting, bizarre, with engaging linguistic and dystopic elements. I enjoyed and recommend this, and plan to read more by Tidbeck.


Title: Centaur Rising
Author: Jane Yolen
Published: Henry Holt and Co., 2014
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 270
Total Page Count: 236,110
Text Number: 753
Read Because: reading more from the author, ebook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: After one of Ari's family's horses mysteriously becomes pregnant, she gives birth to a centaur. There are good elements that play here—Ari's search for magic, her realistically complicated family, a compassionate presentation of disability; combining centaurs with equine therapy is an effective source of inspiration. Even the corny songs may have worked for me when I was in this age group—the predictable and trite and exaggerated elements are all well within genre standards. Yet I find myself disappointed. Compare to Peter S. Beagle's In Calabria, which has a near-identical concept: it's not the intended audience that separates these books, but that in In Calabria magic is pervasive and profound, and informs character arcs and the climax; here, it's confined to the edges (and literal prologue and afterward), it's restrained, insufficient, immemorable—Ari herself would have been disappointed.


Title: The Three-Body Problem (Remembrance of Earth's Past Book 1)
Author: Liu Cixin
Translator: Ken Liu
Narrator: Luke Daniels
Published: Tor Books and Macmillan Audio, 2014 (2007)
Rating: 2 of 5
Page Count: 400
Total Page Count: 236,510
Text Number: 754
Read Because: co-read with Teja, ebook and audiobook borrowed from the Multnomah County Library
Review: In the past, one woman changes the course of Earth's history via her work at a military base; in the present, strange events are destroying the Earth's scientific community. I suppose I expected this to be more technical, challenging, dense, but instead it reminds me of Andy Weir's The Martian: an abundance of diverse, kitchen-sink speculative concepts, lots of infodumping, clunky writing with especially stiff dialog, and more momentum than culmination. The tone is aggressively dry with a hint of the absurd, an unenjoyable combo which is somewhat aggravated by audio narration (and perhaps was compounded by translation). This is a big-concept book, almost playful in its excess, certainly indulgent in an aliens-conspiracy-nerds way, but not particularly well-rendered. I won't read the sequels.

I read the first two-thirds as an ebook and then switched to audio for the last bit; I'd decided against audio earlier on because it was so long and I assumed the technical details would be easier to track in print, but it was the technical details that made me want to skim, or, in the tradition of a just-okay audiobook: mostly listen but also multitask.

We both had a ?? reaction to this. It's very big-concept, but Liu as often seems to be talking to himself about some cool speculative concept he's thought up (the section with the protons is especially awful, the stiffest dialog, the most tedious infodumps); the reader's participation isn't necessary. It's welcome, maybe, in figuring out the mystery, and Teja found the pacing more effective than I did (I thought it were pretty predictable). Ye Wenjie is really very good (think of the book this would have been with a narrower focus!), but the tone smothers any human connection; the social commentary (esp. re: who plays the Three Body game, also the themes in the resolution) range from uninspired to vaguely stupid (and may be cultural markers? don't care; still didn't like). He called it a "strange book" especially as regards plot structure, concepts; it is that. But I was more distracted by the fact that it's not an especially good book.

Comments

[thawrecka]

I did enjoy The Three Body Problem because of Ye Wenjie. But I also think the translation made it more likeable rather than less; the second book has a different translator and I didn't finish it.

[juushika]

Late reply because I was traveling, apologies! I've read some of Ken Liu's work elsewhere, and enjoyed it, so I was hoping this wasn't a case of poor translation; interesting that he may have actually helped elevate the text. What I interpreted as transliteration was probably just really stiff writing in the original.

[thawrecka]

I found, when trying to read the second one, that I didn't care about any of the characters or what was happening at all, and wondered how much of that was translation, and how much was just not having any of the elements that drew me in about the first one. The weird structure in 3BP is on Ken Liu, though, because apparently he rearranged things in the translation process.