What is this? Evelina is giving you another 5 reasons to read something space related? What are all these reasons all about lately?? (*faints*) This time I’m going to talk about yet another non-American sci-fi. Enjoy!
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★★★✬☆ 3.5 stars
IT’S A SLICE OF LIFE, BUT THAT LIFE IS SEVERAL HUNDRED YEARS LATER AND MUCH WEIRDER THAN YOURS.
If you can still imagine that as a slice of life? Granted, there are no aliens (any I can think of, at least…), but there are robots, half-robots, computer generated life forms… Basically, anything on the spectrum of human and machine. The ways this society meshes are pretty amazing!
#DIVERSITY IS ALL AROUND, BUT IT’S ALSO COMPLETELY NATURAL
You know how diversity is almost always forced in books these days? It’s because it has to ‘fit a quota’. We all know how much fun that is. And want to know why this isn’t like that? Because it’s actually written by a non-American. (Here she goes again with her “Read A Non-American Sci-Fi For Once™” stuff…) First of all, the story is based in Israel. How many other scifis can you think of with that setting? Second, there are just so many lifeforms – like I mentioned earlier, there’s basically anything from natural to synthetic life, even life that’s purely computerized and has no body. Third – society is formed from many nationalities of people who moved there as immigrants centuries ago. None of them are Western. Simply speaking? LGBT in this book is the smallest and most natural kind of diversity, because the rest of… the diversity… is so diverse you can’t even. (Way to go with that sentence.)
THE STRIGOI
So basically… The Strigoi is pretty much the best thing in the book! It’s a kind of space vampire..? That feeds on data, not on blood. It will erase a person’s memory only to gorge itself up on it. Nobody really knows what they are or why they’re here. Either it’s a former bioweapon… Or it’s a means for other lifeforms to coexist. I won’t spoil it for you.
ALL THE SCIFI AND CULTURAL REFERENCES!
I barely caught half of them. If you’ve read a lot of scifi or are familiar with the smart pop of this and the last century, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. The book is full of words like ubicked, Urbonas death machine, Shambleau, etc. There’s even an invented Asteroid pidgin which I thought was pretty amazing.
THE WORLD ACTUALLY WENT INTO A NON-WESTERN DIRECTION
There’s just something so cool about scifi going there. I live in a Western society. That’s not what I want to see in my books. I want something outlandish. I want to see something that makes me ponder diffferent possibilities. I’m so tired of the world being only America! Write about the rest of the world please! Yes, we exist too!
However…
Admittedly, nothing really happens. It feels like what it is – a lot of different novelletes or even short stories, welded together into a book. It tells about a world that is very different from yours, but also strikingly similar. It doesn’t tell of a plot though. And I felt like that’s where the story lost some of its charm. That’s why only 3.5 stars!
I thank Tachyon Publications and Edelweiss for giving me a free copy in exchange to my honest review. You can grab it here at Book Depository, and yep, that’s an affiliate link, so it supports my blog!
Have you read Central Station? Maybe you have other non-Western scifis to recommend to me?
I’m Evelina and I blog about books that made an impression on me. I love middle grade, women’s, scifi and some literary too.
This is one of the many, many stale ARCs clogging my Kindle that I really ought to get to.
Stale? Did you get it a year ago? I only got it like… last month 🙂 maybe they’re making a second round of promotion. It’s really worth it to read at least once though, especially now that you know what you’re in for 🙂 (the biggest problem for me was the no-plot bit)
It came out in the States in May of last year.
Ah yes, I seem to be remembering the date 2016.
Ooh I legitimately love what you said about the diversity being natural- yes please! And the Strigoi make me curious! The world building in this sounds great- it’s just such a shame it was uneventful. Might check it out anyway though. Great review!
Thanks! Yes, all the non-plot details are still worth it, like the Strigoi. That was an amazing bit, I thought 🙂 thanks for reading!
Ooh, this sounds really good! There you go with making me add more Non-Western scifi to my TBR.
Well, that is always an accomplishment 🙂 I hope you enjoy it. When/if you review, and if you still remember me, feel free to spam me with the review links for these 🙂 I’d love to see them.
Great review, Evelina. I do love the sound of a “diverse” book that doesn’t force it into the story! I see wayyyyy too much of that and I am sort of tired that everyone is now forcing it into the story only to please certain people… And that space vampire that prefers data over blood is fascinating! :O
Exactly 🙂 I also dislike the books which just try to make the diversity quota, basically. The space vampire! That was the most amazing bit. You know, I thought this book lacked plot a little, but I think you’d really enjoy it. Because I’ve seen you enjoy other books that I thought were slow, plus this one has all these extra perks like the space vampire, the robotniks, the digital sentient life 🙂 I’d love to see your review of it.
Nothing to suggest you in sci-fi genre 🙁
Haha, that’s alright 😀 maybe one day 😀
This is on my wishlist, but I haven’t picked it up yet. Lack of plot sometimes works really well for me, and sometimes falls flat.
Yeah… in this one, it sort of fell flat for me. It works well as a background audiobook though (I can say that cause I’ve read it both ways, lol)
Maybe I’ll pick it up on audio then. Thanks for the suggestion.
My pleasure 🙂
I can totally understand why you might be intrigued with this book based purely on the synopsis and background. I personally have always saught non-Western fantasy… but never sci-fi! I honestly never thought about it… But, I guess that’s because I feel like my sci-fi TBR is SO LONG. I’ve got to get to those classics first! Did you find that you recognized all the sci-fi references, or did you have to look them up? Sometimes I feel a bit left out when I’m reading books full of references. It’s a shame that the plot is basically non-existent. That is… Read more »
Actually, I never sought this one out, I just sort of accidentally found it on Edelweiss, and only as I started reading it I realized it was non Western and thought that’s really cool 😀 Actually, most of the references went over my head, so I googled what I didn’t know. After finishing it I found someone’s article about them and thought that’s really cool, it really linked it all up for me 🙂 I recognized a few, though. I haven’t noticed that sci-fi doesn’t have a plot. Usually it has a lot of plot, I’d even say this one… Read more »
Central Station was wonderful, I need to reread it so I can enjoy it again. You’re 100% right, that nothing really happens. This isn’t so much a novel as it is a bunch of interconnected stories. The author wrote them over the course of I don’t know, maybe 5 years? and when he wrote the first one I don’t know if he knew he was going to write more. So treat it as a collection of short stories that all take place in the same city, rather than a novel with an over arching story line. I loved how characters… Read more »
Yeah, as a collection of short stories it’s very different. Thing is, it isn’t presented as a collection… You know, I think if I’d read them separately as short stories, I probably would have immensely enjoyed them 🙂 the whole “what’s going on” and “is anything going on, am I missing something?” thing prevented me from enjoying it more, I guess 😀
I bought a copy of this one, but haven’t read it yet. I think it will help to go into it expecting a bunch of connected stories but not a lot happening. I like weird slice of life sometimes :).
I’ve read “Osama” by Lavie Tidhar before, which was weird and sad and probably still very relevant in a world full of terrorism and war.
I haven’t read that one of his! I hope you enjoy Central Station though 🙂 yes, knowing it’s a collection of stories should help indeed. My problem must’ve been that I was expecting a plot like in a novel 🙂
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