Chelsea's Reviews > Holy Fire
Holy Fire
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What would you do if you had a second chance at life? If you found the fountain of youth? Apparently the answer is "go apeshit crazy and live like a BoHo, wandering around Europe."
Snark aside, I wanted to like this book; I felt like I *should* like this book, but there's just something about his writing style that I just can't get through. It's set far enough in the future that things are supposed to be familiar-yet-foreign, and the author seems to dwell on descriptions of things that are supposed to be common. He seems to stand up and say "hey! look at how weird this is! Isn't this weird?!?!" and it's just plain distracting. For example, apparently 100 years in the future, animal cruelty is accepted practice, and rich people's pets can be "augmented" with technology to be plot devices, appearing at just the moment when the narrative has fallen so deep into a rat hole that nothing but a mad talking dog can get it out again.
To be fair, one of the talking dogs (yes, there are more than one) is a bit of a slap for the main character, revealing in one brief scene that the do-whatever-the-hell-I-want attitude of the main character and her new social group does indeed have consequences. In fact, that seems to be the only major consequence of ANY of the characters actions. There's this feeling that these characters are supposed to be "edgy" and "outside the law" but with the exception of one law enforcement official that has very little actual presence in the action of the novel, there's a lot of laying/sitting/standing around and not a lot of "running from the law."
And don't even get me started on the "But we're ARTISTS!" thread. The title of the book, "Holy Fire" is a metaphor for the inner passion felt by an artist, that force that drives them to create, and the fuel that powers their creativity. There is constant referral to "artifice" which I think we are supposed to think of as a future melding of all of the creative arts - architecture, painting, photography, etc. Supposedly all these artistes are creating amazing things that are going to change the world, but at no point are we really ever told about them. There's reference to some of the characters programming human-machine interfaces that apparently intend to do what they've been torturing animals with for a while, but the work of the rest of the characters doesn't seem to have any influence on the world. And maybe that's the point?
I certainly can identify with the frustration that the youth of this novel feel, trapped under the control of an aging aristocracy; a theme that is perhaps even more relavant today than when the novel was written over a decade ago. But it's hard to see how they're being oppressed. Socialism is widespread, drugs are readily available, and there seems to be a magic "tincture" for everything, and escapism on the 'net is common.
I... just don't know about this one.
Snark aside, I wanted to like this book; I felt like I *should* like this book, but there's just something about his writing style that I just can't get through. It's set far enough in the future that things are supposed to be familiar-yet-foreign, and the author seems to dwell on descriptions of things that are supposed to be common. He seems to stand up and say "hey! look at how weird this is! Isn't this weird?!?!" and it's just plain distracting. For example, apparently 100 years in the future, animal cruelty is accepted practice, and rich people's pets can be "augmented" with technology to be plot devices, appearing at just the moment when the narrative has fallen so deep into a rat hole that nothing but a mad talking dog can get it out again.
To be fair, one of the talking dogs (yes, there are more than one) is a bit of a slap for the main character, revealing in one brief scene that the do-whatever-the-hell-I-want attitude of the main character and her new social group does indeed have consequences. In fact, that seems to be the only major consequence of ANY of the characters actions. There's this feeling that these characters are supposed to be "edgy" and "outside the law" but with the exception of one law enforcement official that has very little actual presence in the action of the novel, there's a lot of laying/sitting/standing around and not a lot of "running from the law."
And don't even get me started on the "But we're ARTISTS!" thread. The title of the book, "Holy Fire" is a metaphor for the inner passion felt by an artist, that force that drives them to create, and the fuel that powers their creativity. There is constant referral to "artifice" which I think we are supposed to think of as a future melding of all of the creative arts - architecture, painting, photography, etc. Supposedly all these artistes are creating amazing things that are going to change the world, but at no point are we really ever told about them. There's reference to some of the characters programming human-machine interfaces that apparently intend to do what they've been torturing animals with for a while, but the work of the rest of the characters doesn't seem to have any influence on the world. And maybe that's the point?
I certainly can identify with the frustration that the youth of this novel feel, trapped under the control of an aging aristocracy; a theme that is perhaps even more relavant today than when the novel was written over a decade ago. But it's hard to see how they're being oppressed. Socialism is widespread, drugs are readily available, and there seems to be a magic "tincture" for everything, and escapism on the 'net is common.
I... just don't know about this one.
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Reading Progress
Started Reading
December 13, 2011
–
Finished Reading
December 14, 2011
– Shelved
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Jan 09, 2014 09:50AM
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