Mindscape, Andrea Hairston
Feb. 21st, 2009 11:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rydra_wong posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
50books_pocOMFG I LOVE THIS BOOK READ THIS BOOK NOW.
Um.
Okay.
You know what it was like when you read early Delany for the first time? Babel-17 and Nova, all multi-faceted dazzle and chutzpah, gorgeous outrageous sf opera?
Like that.
It's dense in a very Delany-esque manner -- the opening will leave you drowning in characters and backstory, struggling to keep track of who's who and what's what and Barrier and Vermittler and Extras and Los Santos and New Ougadougou and ethnic throwbacks and Tadeshi Mifune and gene-art and Paradigma and fire-ants and OMGWTFSENTIENTHAIR.
Refer to the cast list in the back of the book, fasten your seatbelt, and make sure that your tray-table has been put away and your seat is in the upright position. It will all make sense. Eventually. Probably.
After a first read, I'm still trying to disentangle who was double-crossing who, and (also as with Delany) I'm not entirely sure the plot logic would all stand up to close examination (OMG DOLPHINS ALIEN SPACESHIP WTF).
But the glory is in the sheer richness of invention, the skill with which Hairston wrangles the huge cast (all three-dimensional, flawed, vulnerable and surprising -- Hairston handles her characters with a generosity that I found very moving), and the luscious and complex things it has to say about ethnicity, identity, the past, and survival.
Also I want to steal the line "You can't blame multiple personality disorder for aesthetic choices" and find opportunities to use it in conversation.
Um.
Okay.
You know what it was like when you read early Delany for the first time? Babel-17 and Nova, all multi-faceted dazzle and chutzpah, gorgeous outrageous sf opera?
Like that.
It's dense in a very Delany-esque manner -- the opening will leave you drowning in characters and backstory, struggling to keep track of who's who and what's what and Barrier and Vermittler and Extras and Los Santos and New Ougadougou and ethnic throwbacks and Tadeshi Mifune and gene-art and Paradigma and fire-ants and OMGWTFSENTIENTHAIR.
Refer to the cast list in the back of the book, fasten your seatbelt, and make sure that your tray-table has been put away and your seat is in the upright position. It will all make sense. Eventually. Probably.
After a first read, I'm still trying to disentangle who was double-crossing who, and (also as with Delany) I'm not entirely sure the plot logic would all stand up to close examination (OMG DOLPHINS ALIEN SPACESHIP WTF).
But the glory is in the sheer richness of invention, the skill with which Hairston wrangles the huge cast (all three-dimensional, flawed, vulnerable and surprising -- Hairston handles her characters with a generosity that I found very moving), and the luscious and complex things it has to say about ethnicity, identity, the past, and survival.
Also I want to steal the line "You can't blame multiple personality disorder for aesthetic choices" and find opportunities to use it in conversation.
