The Apolyton Science Fiction Book Club: Perdido Street Station

[JohnT]

Ahhh.. I see. Yeah, GM was kind of a rehash of RM: "we'll still have the revolution, but kinder and gentler."

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yeah, and Hiroko's way is all good and nice. BAH! I want REAL division and conflict among the first 100. That is what made RM good for me.

[JohnT]

Well,

Spoiler:

the ones of the First 100 that were either on the side of the "evil corporations" or indecisive were pretty much killed off in the first book, so KSR lost what little ideological balance the protagonists had to begin with. In the second book, the big moral crises is Maya/Phyllis, meaning that the differences between the first 100 is merely one of degrees: in essence, the big issue was how violent should the revolutionary movement get?

[Jon Miller]

I liked the book (it has been over a year since I read it)

I also noticed the grotesque

there were a few images that I am not eager to relive again

but even though that is true I enjoyed it, and am ok with it in my collection

I am just not sure when I will want to reread it

I remember thinking that a few things at the end were a liitle rushed (but that might have been compared to the first part)

I was expecting that birdlike being to have done something more heinous (I consider rape to be horrid, I was just expecting something more on the level of mass rapist/murderer)

more thoughts later (perhaps)

Jon Miller

[Imran Siddiqui]

JohnT: Yeah, and that made it for me. You may be a commie, but at least make it interesting for those that ain't .

[St Leo]

I AT LEAST read 30 pages before deciding if I hate it (like I did with Green Mars ).

You should have read a hundred. It doesn't get good until after the Hiroko BS.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Maybe I'll pick it up again. I HATE Hiroko!

[JohnT]

Oh, and in regards to whether this book was science fiction... I'm not too sure. While most SF takes license with contemporary knowledge (eg, FTL), it can at least be said that SF science depends upon reasonable extrapolations from current knowledge.

This book doesn't. While a physics based upon potential pain is an intriguing concept, it isn't truly science nor is there evidence that such a thing is possible: I'm not even too sure how you could eat in such a world.

[St Leo]

My favourite Mars trilogy characters are Sax, Nadia, Arkady, and Frank. Two of them are killed off in the first one and another is ruined in the third one.

[chequita guevara]

See. my book was so cool, it's invading other book threads.

[Jon Miller]

I tried to read it in highschool (red mars)

it was one of the only books I didn't finish

Jon Miller