Paperback, 320 pages
Published May 30, 2006 by Tor Books.
Alan, a middle-aged entrepreneur, is fixing up a house in contemporary Toronto. This brings him into contact with a variety of people. Including a young woman living next door, who has wings which grow back after every attempt to cut them off. Now Alan's secrets are coming back to haunt him. His father is a mountain, his mother a washing machine, and among his brothers are a set of Russian nesting dolls. Two of his brothers have returned, with the news that another sibling killed years ago, may have returned...bent on revenge.
I'd give this 2.5 stars if I could because I'm torn. This was definitely an interesting book, but I don't think it was a good book.
There's a few different things going on in this book, none of which I really understood as well as I feel like I should have. The absurdity had no purpose sometimes and I'm not sure what the point of this story was.
I like Cory Doctorow, but I wouldn't recommend this one.
short review in ukrainian:
http://www.tivasyk.info/2010/08/blog-post_17.html
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як на мене, найцікавіший твір докторова з усього прочитаного. навіть не намагатимусь переказати фабулу, це треба читати. мікс романтичної драми та детектива з елементами містичного хорору — мабуть, ось так можна було б визначити жанр, але самі ці слова ні про що не скажуть, текст треба читати. твір не ідеальний, деякі фрагменти та ідеї мені видалися… м’яко кажучи, недостатньо опрацьованими — але часом мені видавалося, що така «шерехуватість» оповідки може навіть додає щось таке, чого в ідеальному тексті забракло б… читати обов’язково, в будь-якім випадку =)
текст також доступний навільно в різних форматах.
Hmm, Cory seems to be suffering from diminishing returns. I loved "Down and Out..."; "Eastern Standard Tribe" was pretty good; but this novel kinda blew. I just never got around to caring about either of the two plot threads - the struggle to bring free wi-fi to the citizens of Toronto and the attempt to reconcile flaws of the main character's disfunctionally supernatural family. That said, the writing is good, and Cory excels as usual in his ability to paint cool pictures.
Very fun read. Imaginative and delightful overall. I only wish I understood the purpose of changing everyone's name every third sentance.
Oy. Is it a bad sign that I was most interested in the proselytizing portion of our program? The stuff with our hero's family was just too disjointed for me. Which is a shame, because I really like [a:Cory Doctorow|12581|Cory Doctorow|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1212526024p2/12581.jpg] and loved [b:Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom|29587|Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom|Cory Doctorow|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1168033624s/29587.jpg|1413], so I really wanted to like this book. I'm just not the reader for it.
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/18224.