Reviews and Comments

A fine tale, tough in the telling, of the struggles you have with doomed love.
I wonder however if it would’ve been quite so successful if it had less of the working class porn so beloved of the bleeding hearts, making them feel better about their plain, unexciting, drunken lives.
Or mebbe I’m just a cynic.

Conceptually it’s fine in the overall scheme of what could happen in a theoretical human future. And using members of an environmental religious cult to outline how the changes wrought on the planet might bring about our downfall is clever.
The narrative Style did however grate over time, especially when it started to pace like a trashy holiday novel toward the end.
The end reminded me that despite everything that was good about Oryx and Crake - the opening chapters - much of the rest of that novel is already lost to my memory and I suspect this one will do the same.

There’s a moment where Uncle Rory decides to Just Use It. I sense that Banks had a similar moment about half way through where the pace and structure of the novel changes quite a bit. Thankfully, just like Prentice, it does settle down and allow us to better enjoy the prose, the characters and – dare I say – the whiskey.

Finding out who Barrington really is leaves the rich saviour sour taste in my mouth as always.
Aside from that the study of human frailty and fear, especially when you’re living daily on the edge is a good one.
But of course now I need to read the actual book and hope it’s not quite such a sugar coated ending.

An interesting concept which held steady almost right to the end, where i found it difficult that one of the characters would accept their partner’s plans.

As a guide to where Bill was coming from and where he went to, this is a fantastic resource. New Rose Hotel is among the greatest short stories I've ever read. And most of the rest aren't too bad either.

If you can accept the bigotry and racism in the text as “character driven” and required, the often predictable characters and the author’s addiction to military hardware and associated slaughter, this is a bit of a fun read. Though you’ve got to wonder why only 2 of the 6 story arcs ended up overlapping.

A game of you would be enough, but the surrounding art and stories add almost as much.

How to review this? What would you have me say? His descriptions of his tees are good or bad? Or do we have to get all philosophical about the fact that, just with his running book, this wouldn’t be published if it was just about a regular guy’s tees?