New Reviews: Iain M Banks's Excession and Julian Barnes's A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters
July 25, 2003 (12:22 AM) ( link )

ADDED reviews of Iain M Banks's Excession and Julian Barnes's A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters.

I've started reading Cory Doctorow's Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, and I don't like it. The first chapter provides thinly disguised exposition in the tired form of a "dialogue" between two strangers, and Doctorow uses all sorts of annoying writing techniques. Of course, maybe there's a reason for his style: I'll have to read a few more chapters before I decide whether to drop the book for good.

I've also started Sean McMullen's Souls in the Great Machine. It has a great setting, in a subgenre that I love: the far future world where extreme high tech has come and gone and the world has reverted to an earlier stage of technology. Unfortunately, McMullen is another terrible writer, with paper-thin characters and some really awful plot turns. Here's hoping the setting will sustain me through another, let's see, 300 pages.

Sigh. So nothing good so far. I get the feeling my top 10 list in September won't have a lot of highlights from the past year.