G26 Book Review of The Best of all Possible Worlds by Karen Lord
Author: Karen Lord
ISBN: 978-0-345-53405-7
Publisher: Del Rey
Type of book: Science fiction, lack of women, future, different planets, destroyed society, Sadiri, multicultural
Year it was published: 2013
Summary:
A proud and reserved alien society finds its homeland destroyed in an unprovoked act of aggression, and the survivors have no choice but to reach out to the indigenous humanoids of their adopted world, to whom they are distantly related. They wish to preserve their cherished way of life but come to discover that in order to preserve their culture, they may have to change it forever.
Now a man and a woman from these two clashing societies must work together to save this vanishing race—and end up uncovering ancient mysteries with far-reaching ramifications. As their mission hangs in the balance, this unlikely team—one cool and cerebral, the other fiery and impulsive—just may find in each other their own destinies . . . and a force that transcends all.
Characters:
For all of the book one better start enjoying Grace (Delarua's) because that's who we're stuck with. I can't really tell the difference between the characters because they tend to sound alike, and didn't really register in my mind. Since I'm not a fan of science fiction, I can't tell what characters are modeled after what and so forth. Grace tends to be commitment-phobic, emotional and very, well, sassy. Dllenahkh is unemotional, logical, and opposite of Grace. I didn't feel the chemistry between them or any other characters.
Theme:
I honestly have no idea, probably the importance of women in a society maybe?
Plot:
Written in first person narrative from Grace (Delarua's) point of view, although once in a while we get Dllenahkh's point of view in third person narrative. The scenes didn't blend well together and have left me questioning their purpose. I also didn't sense the chemistry between the characters and could barely understanding what's going on and the mission in the story.
Author Information:
(from goodreads.com)
url
http://www.goodreads.com/Karen_Lord
born
Barbados
gender
female
website
http://merumsal.wordpress.com/
genre
Literature & Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy
influences
Ray Bradbury, C.S. Lewis
member since
March 2010
About this author
Karen Lord won the Frank Collymore Literary Award for 2008 with the manuscript of the fantasy novel Redemption in Indigo and again for 2009 with the science fiction manuscript The Best of All Possible Worlds. She was nominated for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer (2012).
Redemption in Indigo, which was published in July 2010 by Small Beer Press, won the 2011 William L. Crawford Award, the 2011 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature, the 2010 Carl Brandon Parallax Award and the 2012 Kitschies Golden Tentacle (Best Debut). It was also longlisted for the 2011 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature and nominated for the 2011 World Fantasy Award (Novel).
Opinion:
I have a secret to confess: I don't like science fiction AT ALL. I have tried taking a class in science fiction, but the class further convinced me to dislike science fiction. Unfortunately, this book didn't convince me to abandon my dislike of science fiction. This was book was a tolerable read, but for me very disjointed and not very interesting to boot. I wanted to like it and I wanted to feel the urgency for these characters, but nada, nothing. I could care less about the characters, and not enough information was given about them. Why does Grace detest marriage for example? And the whole race thing as well as who they are should have been stated in beginning instead of the very end. The whole year is not explained well in my opinion. Did that many years pass, or were the years measured against something else? One thing is that don't be fooled by the cover: the character is an African-American woman, not a white woman.
Quick notes: I won this book on goodreads.com thus this review will appear in its entirety on goodreads as well as the blog
2 out of 5
(0: Stay away unless a masochist 1: Good for insomnia 2: Horrible but readable; 3: Readable and quickly forgettable, 4: Good, enjoyable 5: Buy it, keep it and never let it go.)
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