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comment by OftenBen
OftenBen  ·  3137 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: August 24th: What are you reading this week?

I read a book monday night called The Games by Ted Kosmatka. It was about a dystopian near future where a new event has been added to the Olympics, elimination by death Gladiator matches. BUT, each country, rather than being represented by a condemned prisoner, or military psycho, each nation develops a chimera creature of some kind, genetically. It was a pretty good read, with a few of very interesting discussions about evolutionary biology, xenobiology and sentience. That said, there were some really bad moments, and plot devices that shone like grease on cheap pizza. Yeah, you enjoy it in the moment, but you know it's not good for you long-term. There's a quote on the Goodreads page that sums up the (somewhat limited) appeal quite nicely

    You had me at, "In this amoral future, genetically engineered monsters fight to the death at public Olympic gaming events."

Edit, I'm also supposed to start Oryx and Crake and it's sequels this week.I have The Year of the Flood and MaddAddam at the moment, Oryx and Crake is coming back to the library today or tomorrow then I pick it up. I'm not feeling to hopeful about the series. I leafed through The Year of the Flood just to try and get a feel for Atwoods style and I can't say I'm impressed so far. Her language is pretty simple (Yeah yeah the character she was dealing with at the moment was kind of dumb, but the language-environment of a dumb character doesn't have to succumb to stereotype) and the dystopian-sci-fi-horror thing is really ham handed, considering how much praise these books have gotten. Maybe I'm just missing something.





thundara  ·  3137 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I liked both O&C as well as TYotF, but really disliked MaddAddam. Fwiw, all three occur in the same universe, but O&C is told from a very different perspective from the other two.