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3.4 AVERAGE
3.4 AVERAGE
I was very disappointed in this book. There were several plot holes that just took me out of the book every time I encountered them. I'm also not a fan of using a different voice for each chapter. It works OK in The Expanse series because you care about the people who are telling the story and if you don't like them they are sufficiently complex that they are interesting. Unfortunately, every time the chapter switched to Dixon or Carthage I toyed with the idea of skipping it. I don't need to hear from Dixon more than once to draw a picture of what a pig of a man he is. Just really bogged down the flow of the story. Same with Carthage. Life is too short to read the inward prattle of a maglignant narcissist. Thankfully Carthage's chapters were short. In the end, just so I could get through the book, I skimmed both character chapters for plot points. Surprisingly few with both of them.
I probably would have liked this book in spite of my personal dislike for the storytelling framework. The characters of Jeremiah and Kate were really well written. Their relationship was nuanced and didn't fall into the usual romance tropes. The other "non-voiced" characters in the lab were also interesting. In addition, the sub-plot of the man organizing the protestors was chillingly spot-on in light of the Januay 6th Capitol riots.
The main problem for me were the logical inconsistencies. If this book had a critical editor some of those might have been cleared up. The only way to explain what I mean is to describe the plot holes that kept pulling me out of the story. Read on at your own risk.
*****Spoilers follow******
Plot hole One: Early in the book, we are told they can only find useable specimens in hard ice because we don't have the technology to freeze living organisms. If cryogenically frozen people can be reanimated, why can't krill be cryogenically frozen and then reanimated? After this point was made, I thought the project would be exposed as a fraud because Carthage's promises were empty. It would be revealed that everyone who had been cryogencically frozen couldn't be reanimated and he was just conning contributors out of their money. Nope. Everyone talks and acts as if it is possible to bring frozen people back to life.
Plot Point Two: So... you can, in fact, cryogenically freeze without cell damage. The reason you'd want to be frozen is so you could be revived after science has cured certain fatal diseases or figured out a way to reverse the aging process. Advanced pancreatic cancer is still fatal, yet a woman gets very angry that her husband won't be revived. It would have been funny, if that had been explained to her and she still wanted her husband revived because she was pissed off at him for abandoning her. Nope. The book never addresses that cryogenically frozen people should not be brought back because they would still be old or have an uncurable disease.
Plot Hole Three: I'm reasonably certain a human rights lawyer would have been all over the Judge's case from Day 1. For the story, we had to have Kate rescue him, but his imprisonment went on way too long with no legal intervention. I mean, the man was a judge, surely even in the early 20th century the law would have something to say about imprisoning a person who has not been accused of a crime.
Plot Hole Four: The idea that a public figure from the early 20th century would be impossible to trace. Honestly, even way back in 2013, his descendants would have been identified within 24 hours. He was a judge. He had standing in his community. His daughter would be easy to track down as would her descendents. A simple DNA test would have confirmed that his great-grand-daughter was in fact his great-grand-daughter or at least a direct blood-relative. I have baby pictures of my grandmother who was born in 1898 to farmers in rural Arkansas. I think a photo or two of the judge and his family would have survived the years. (side-note - I was also expecting more from the mysterious woman in a white beret. Why the hell didn't Kate figure that one out. I thought she was supposed to be a genius.)
Since the fraud accusation is critical to how the whole story plays out, that last plot hole is the most irritating. A better editor might have suggested that Jeremiah was an anonymous guy on the expedition. One of the many scientists who go unnamed in history. He could have had a common name. If his daughter didn't have children there wouldn't be any descendents. It's not like much was done with that plot point anyway. The whole fraud idea would be harder to disprove.
So disappointing. I really expected more from this book.
I probably would have liked this book in spite of my personal dislike for the storytelling framework. The characters of Jeremiah and Kate were really well written. Their relationship was nuanced and didn't fall into the usual romance tropes. The other "non-voiced" characters in the lab were also interesting. In addition, the sub-plot of the man organizing the protestors was chillingly spot-on in light of the Januay 6th Capitol riots.
The main problem for me were the logical inconsistencies. If this book had a critical editor some of those might have been cleared up. The only way to explain what I mean is to describe the plot holes that kept pulling me out of the story. Read on at your own risk.
*****Spoilers follow******
Plot hole One: Early in the book, we are told they can only find useable specimens in hard ice because we don't have the technology to freeze living organisms. If cryogenically frozen people can be reanimated, why can't krill be cryogenically frozen and then reanimated? After this point was made, I thought the project would be exposed as a fraud because Carthage's promises were empty. It would be revealed that everyone who had been cryogencically frozen couldn't be reanimated and he was just conning contributors out of their money. Nope. Everyone talks and acts as if it is possible to bring frozen people back to life.
Plot Point Two: So... you can, in fact, cryogenically freeze without cell damage. The reason you'd want to be frozen is so you could be revived after science has cured certain fatal diseases or figured out a way to reverse the aging process. Advanced pancreatic cancer is still fatal, yet a woman gets very angry that her husband won't be revived. It would have been funny, if that had been explained to her and she still wanted her husband revived because she was pissed off at him for abandoning her. Nope. The book never addresses that cryogenically frozen people should not be brought back because they would still be old or have an uncurable disease.
Plot Hole Three: I'm reasonably certain a human rights lawyer would have been all over the Judge's case from Day 1. For the story, we had to have Kate rescue him, but his imprisonment went on way too long with no legal intervention. I mean, the man was a judge, surely even in the early 20th century the law would have something to say about imprisoning a person who has not been accused of a crime.
Plot Hole Four: The idea that a public figure from the early 20th century would be impossible to trace. Honestly, even way back in 2013, his descendants would have been identified within 24 hours. He was a judge. He had standing in his community. His daughter would be easy to track down as would her descendents. A simple DNA test would have confirmed that his great-grand-daughter was in fact his great-grand-daughter or at least a direct blood-relative. I have baby pictures of my grandmother who was born in 1898 to farmers in rural Arkansas. I think a photo or two of the judge and his family would have survived the years. (side-note - I was also expecting more from the mysterious woman in a white beret. Why the hell didn't Kate figure that one out. I thought she was supposed to be a genius.)
Since the fraud accusation is critical to how the whole story plays out, that last plot hole is the most irritating. A better editor might have suggested that Jeremiah was an anonymous guy on the expedition. One of the many scientists who go unnamed in history. He could have had a common name. If his daughter didn't have children there wouldn't be any descendents. It's not like much was done with that plot point anyway. The whole fraud idea would be harder to disprove.
So disappointing. I really expected more from this book.
I think the comparisons to The Time Traveler's Wife are misleading; there isn't as much of a romance component (or as compelling a component) to this novel. I did enjoy the writing, pacing, switching points of view, and unique plot. Very nice commentary on the news cycle, obsession with celebrity (how we build people up just so we can tear them down). The author gets these points across without lecturing; I thought the characters were compelling and there were some unexpected twists and turns.
Weer een boek waar ik steeds naar uitkeek om verder te luisteren. Verteld door 4 verschillende personen met duidelijk herkenbare stemmen. Prettige voorlezers. Er waren best wel wat zaken in het plot die beter hadden gekund, maar dat stond het leesplezier voor mij niet in de weg. De personages zijn boeiend en de gebeurtenissen verrassend. Mooi om de huidige maatschappij te beschrijven vanuit een (m.i. vrij progressieve) persoon die ruim 100 jaar geleden leefde. We leven in een rare tijd...
Ok, I did not finish this book. I skimmed and read the last chapter, which told me all I needed to know about what happened. I found this book to be boring, the writing was stilted and the emotions just were not there. The idea of bringing a frozen man back to life is a good one, but this story could have been much better. I hate saying bad things about any book, but the truth is the truth.
Really lovely story of love, memory, science, and belief.
A good premise, this is a contemporary fish out of water (ok, man out of ice) story.
The story could have gone one of two ways: either as satire with perhaps less developed characters, or straight-ahead with well-developed characters. We get neither.
Erastus Carthage and his flunky Thomas are practically indistinguishable from Mr Burns and Smithers in the Simpsons. And don't get me started on the cardboard cut-out quality of the journalist Dixon. And the social commentary is all too predictable (Oooh! There's a religious group protesting this development in science! Ohhh, there's a hint of dishonesty to the science. Yawn.)
I lost interest pretty quick. But I'm sure it will be a blockbuster movie -- which perhaps seems the point of the story.
The story could have gone one of two ways: either as satire with perhaps less developed characters, or straight-ahead with well-developed characters. We get neither.
Erastus Carthage and his flunky Thomas are practically indistinguishable from Mr Burns and Smithers in the Simpsons. And don't get me started on the cardboard cut-out quality of the journalist Dixon. And the social commentary is all too predictable (Oooh! There's a religious group protesting this development in science! Ohhh, there's a hint of dishonesty to the science. Yawn.)
I lost interest pretty quick. But I'm sure it will be a blockbuster movie -- which perhaps seems the point of the story.
it was okay. I found myself skimming through the characters I didn't like. the humanity shown by Kate and Jeremiah was interesting.
This book was fascinating. It gave me so much to think about and I learned, learned, learned new things. The ending, hmmm, I am still thinking about it. On to another book by this author, I think he is wonderful!