From Publishers WeeklyPrize-winning Brit Winterson applies her fantastical touch to a sci-fi, postapocalyptic setting. Heroine Billie Crusoe appears in three different end-of-the-world scenarios, allowing Winterson to explore the repetitive and destructive nature of human history and an inability (or unwillingness) of people to learn from previous mistakes. In the first section, inhabitants of the pollution-choked planet Orbus have discovered Planet Blue (Earth), and soon set about launching an asteroid at it to kill the dinosaurs that would prevent them from colonizing the planet. The second and third sections are set on Earth in 1774 and then in the Post-3 War era. Though passionate condemnations of global warming and war appear frequently, the book also contains a triptych love story: Billie meets Spike, a female Robo sapien capable of emotion and evolution, and falls (reluctantly) in love with her. In each of the scenarios, Billie and Spike (or versions of them) fall in love anew while encroaching annihilation looms in the background. Winterson's lapses into polemic can be tedious, but her prose—as stunning, lyrical and evocative as ever—and intelligence easily carry the book.
I don't think I understood this book. I read the first third and really like it. But then the next part didn't make any sense to me. The last part made more sense but I knew what was going to happen.
The same two characters meet in each part. They fall in love as a catastrophe looms. The first time they meet really sucked me in. I really liked Billie. She struggled against her feelings. She made sense to me. The world was slowly dying and she found a life worth living. The dichotomy of that was striking.
I can't really recommend this book and I can't not. I'm sort of conflicted. If you do read, let me know if I missed something.
There are some books that for some reason require more than one reading to really get them. those are the ones that I steer away from!!! I'm glad that the first 3rd and last 3rd you enjoyed!! I probably would've closed it for good. :)
ReplyDeleteI didn't finish this one. I have read two books by her, and one is one of the best books I have ever read. But she is sure strange
ReplyDeleteI'm curious what part of the world does the second 1774 story take place in? Is it set around the American Revolution?
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean by conflicted. I really enjoyed the first third of the book and then felt like I was hit head on by a different book when the second third appeared.
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