Rainer Maria Rilke

"Live a while in these books, learn from them what seems to you worth learning, but above all love them. This love will be repaid you a thousand and a thousand times, and however your life may turn,-it will, I am certain of it, run through the fabric of your growth as one of the most important threads among all the threads of your experiences, disappointments, and joys."--Rainer Maia Rilke


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Sunday, November 6, 2011

Strange Steampunk

Camera Obscura by Lavie Tidhar
(Adult Steampunk)
One of the many complaints about steampunk from those who dont' like the genre is that they are too dark and retro-futuristic, which is an attention-intensive and sometimes hard read.  But that wasn't my complaint with this book.  To be brief, it was creepy and I didn't like ti.

MiLady de Winter is a private eye investigating for a mysterious organization.  A series of murders leads her to the trail of an ancient object capable of giving the dead new life, or new animation rather.  Great premise!

But......

I felt like I walked into this book in the middle of the story.  While I knew this book was a sequel, it read like the second half of a story I knew nothing about.  There was too much pre-history needed for a full comprehension and I felt off-kilter the whole ride, never catching up. 

The book very much reminded me of Kafka's The Metamorphosis, a story I have always hated.  The resemblance is eerie.  And, much like that classic, the reader's connection to de Winter changes and turns, eventually severing altogether.  As a reader, I lost the story with the break and didn't particularly care what happened to the creature who used to be the main character or the original mystery that intrigued me in the first place.

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