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A review by grogu_djarin
A River Called Time by Courttia Newland
challenging
dark
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
1.0
Overall Thoughts:
In the afterward the author said he'd had ideas for two different books, one on a world without colonialism and the other on astral projection, and decided to merge the ideas into one book. I don't think he did himself any favors doing so as both ideas are under-developed in my opinion and the end result is a largely incoherent mess where not a lot happens until the final 20% or so.
First, with the world without colonialism I felt he achieved the exact opposite of what he intended. That world is dystopian, far more stratified, highly corporate with few liberties, and somehow substantially more advanced with the Ark (built in the early 1900's) being a 4 mile tall and 5 mile underground super-structure built over London where everyone sleeps in VR pods. Meanwhile, in real life, the Industrial Revolution largely happened due to the stolen wealth and labor exploited by colonial powers so is he arguing we'd have been more advanced without colonialism? Then, the few chapters that do explore the real life London arguably depict a life better for all the characters even though they struggle with the lingering effects of British colonialism and racism in society. It's unfortunate this was such a small part of the book because it was superbly written and I would have loved an entire book of this.
Second, the astral projection is really underutilized. There are only a few instances throughout the book of Markriss using it, but the majority is used to explore alternate Diniums. None of the cosmology behind it gets explained until the last pages either, and I feel it would have been better if some of it is mentioned earlier. For the book supposedly centering around the astral projection, a lot of times it feels like an afterthought.
Lastly, this was a really painful and slow read for a lot of reasons. I'm not one to DNF a book because I feel I can't judge it fairly until I've read the entire thing, but I don't think I've ever been so tempted to DNF a book every 2 pages. The book is needlessly vivid and over-detailed, to the point where every environment and person is described in excruciating detail and it really makes the story feel choppy. There are also a lot of passive voice and sentence fragments sprinkled throughout which exacerbates this.
In the afterward the author said he'd had ideas for two different books, one on a world without colonialism and the other on astral projection, and decided to merge the ideas into one book. I don't think he did himself any favors doing so as both ideas are under-developed in my opinion and the end result is a largely incoherent mess where not a lot happens until the final 20% or so.
First, with the world without colonialism I felt he achieved the exact opposite of what he intended. That world is dystopian, far more stratified, highly corporate with few liberties, and somehow substantially more advanced with the Ark (built in the early 1900's) being a 4 mile tall and 5 mile underground super-structure built over London where everyone sleeps in VR pods. Meanwhile, in real life, the Industrial Revolution largely happened due to the stolen wealth and labor exploited by colonial powers so is he arguing we'd have been more advanced without colonialism? Then, the few chapters that do explore the real life London arguably depict a life better for all the characters even though they struggle with the lingering effects of British colonialism and racism in society. It's unfortunate this was such a small part of the book because it was superbly written and I would have loved an entire book of this.
Second, the astral projection is really underutilized. There are only a few instances throughout the book of Markriss using it, but the majority is used to explore alternate Diniums. None of the cosmology behind it gets explained until the last pages either, and I feel it would have been better if some of it is mentioned earlier. For the book supposedly centering around the astral projection, a lot of times it feels like an afterthought.
Lastly, this was a really painful and slow read for a lot of reasons. I'm not one to DNF a book because I feel I can't judge it fairly until I've read the entire thing, but I don't think I've ever been so tempted to DNF a book every 2 pages. The book is needlessly vivid and over-detailed, to the point where every environment and person is described in excruciating detail and it really makes the story feel choppy. There are also a lot of passive voice and sentence fragments sprinkled throughout which exacerbates this.
Likes:
- The parts set in modern London were superb. The writing was compelling and there were powerful examples of how colonialism and racism have affected people. Unfortunately, this is such a small section of the book and the fact that all the characters were better off in modern London seems to make the argument that the London without colonialism (Dinium) is worse off.
Dislikes:
- The book was way too needlessly vivid and descriptive. It was a laborious read because something would happen and then several paragraphs were spent describing their surroundings in vivid detail, and if a new character shows up another paragraph or two describing their appearance, and then finally you have to scroll back a couple pages to remember what was going on in the scene before to continue reading. It's like this almost the entire book.
- There are a lot of passive voice and sentence fragments sprinkled throughout the book which makes it even more painful to read.
- I didn't like a majority of the world-building surrounding Dinium and if the purpose was depicting a world without colonialism it seemed to only argue that colonialism made a better world with how much worse that world was. In particular, Dinium seems simultaneously far more advanced yet substantially worse than modern London.
- I had a lot of nitpicky things about the world-building too. The Ark is powered by harvesting the kinetic energy from people in their sleep pods? He knows kinetic energy is the energy of motion, right? Spaghetti Bolognese exists? Interestingly, he said he received criticism from an editor about this that black people don't eat it (they do), but my issue is tomatoes came from the Americas via colonialism and in a world where English is a near extinct language, somehow Italian culture is preserved to an extent they have identical foods.
- The needed background on the cosmology of astral projection doesn't arrive until the last pages and it's too little, too late.
- There is a scene of people being executed by a machete and with the excessive vividness and detail the book has it ends up being a very uncomfortable and gory scene.
Other Notes:
- There is an E-Lul Corporation in the book which humorously means something derogatory in Dutch.
Would Recommend To:
- If you're interested in anti-colonial work, the chapters set in modern London are very powerful, but unfortunately you need to muck through hundreds of pages that seem to tell the opposite story of "look how bad the world is without colonialism".
Do Not Recommend To:
- I don't really recommend this to anyone. I think it had a lot of potential but it needed a few more drafts and to commit to one idea rather than trying to do too much (and accomplishing little of it). I have a feeling it made sense in the author's head, but unfortunately he didn't communicate that on paper.