KindredKindred by Octavia E. Butler

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


This book really hit me. I kept trying to reassure myself 'this is made up, it's fiction' but then you think again -things like these happened to real people and in some parts of the world still do. It was probably a lot worse than what we read in the book, having recently learnt that Maryland was supposed to be a more liberal state in relation to slavery.

The characters are believable, they feel real and human in most cases and you care for them and their fate. The time-travel device is by now well worn and I for one am grateful that it's not explained in the book, partly because there is no possible scientific explanation and when sci-fi tries to explain something like this it often gets in a horrible muddle (Star Trek Discovery, I'm looking at you..). It is, at any rate, more history-fiction or sociology-fiction than science fiction and it is a very powerful book that I very much recommend.

This was March's set book for Bibliogoth. We had already read and discussed another book by Octavia Butler in Bibliogoth ('Dawn', the first in the Lilith's Brood series) and I already knew I liked her writing. This very much confirms that.



View all my reviews
Juggling two books at the moment. One is the book set for the next Bibliogoth meeting, 'Rainbow's End' by Vernor Vinge. For some reason I had to look up the name of the book and of the author, they don't seem to stick in my mind. It's ok. It is a near future semi science-fiction novel with a large world threat, a blurring between reality and virtual space (to call it something), a conspiracy that includes a sarcastic talking virtual bunny -and a 75 year old adolescent. Finding it difficult to warm up to any of the characters, in part perhaps because most of them are rather unpleasant people in small, mean ways. Also, up to the point where I am in the book (about 40%), not a lot has happened.

The other book is 'The Better Angels in Our Nature' by Steven Pinker. His thesis in this book is that, contrary to what we feel after reading the news and examining recent history, this epoch is the least violent time in the history of humankind. It is a very interesting book and I have a lot of time for Pinker but making slow progress as I have it in paper copy (from the library), it's a bit heavy to carry around (most of my reading these days lives in my phone and my iPad as ebooks). I'll probably buy it as an ebook as I am finding it interesting but I carry too much stuff around to add nearly 1 Kg more that I also have to clumsily take out of my bag when in a tube train, instead of taking the phone out and just picking up where I left. I love paper books, but between the practicality of ebooks and my diminishing eye-sight I'm finding, as I'd said, that I do almost all my reading in electronic form.
Tags:
.

Profile

flaviomatani: (Default)
flaviomatani

Syndicate

RSS Atom

Most Popular Tags

Powered by Dreamwidth Studios

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags