leeroyjenkins's reviews
193 reviews

I'm not sure how to feel about this. I rated it highly, a 4/5, which is good on any scale. But there are some problems with this book that keep me from going over the edge and giving it a 5. 

On the one hand, when I committed to reading it in earnest I tore through it in roughly two days. So, that speaks to the interest it held and the quality of the prose. There were only a few areas where it was clunky and left me wondering what the heck just happened. I'm on the fence as to whether those areas were intentional. 

On the other hand, I saw the great reveal coming from around 100 miles away. I wondered while I was reading whether I was right. I was. This was a little disappointing because, though well written and interesting, this story is equal parts Gattaca, The Velveteen Rabbit, and The Brave Little Toaster. 

I must be a Thark now because I'm going to say that on the other hand, despite being seemingly derivative, there were some interesting ideas there which were new to me, at least. Klara's view of the world, both literal and figurative, was at times hard to follow but made sense once I realized the author was describing how her perception sliced the world into pieces, which she could understand. Sometimes context would shift the perception in a way that would bring meaning to Klara. I have some experience in this particular area and I feel this helped me fathom it despite the jarring way it's described. Your mileage may vary. 

I found Klara's self-generated belief system interesting. It spoke simultaneously to the complexity and simplicity of her mind. It also served to further humanize her beyond mere anthropomorphism. This was profound because only the reader and Klara knows about it. The rest of the characters were in the dark and, so, their perceptions of Klara were forever clouded by the mist which had been lifted from our eyes. This was important to serve what I think the author was trying to do. It was more or less successful. And it made her eventual fate bittersweet, as are all our fates.

There was a plot device - a literal device - which was a little out of place for me. I thought the story could have worked fine - perhaps better - without it. The whole side quest felt a bit contrived. Actually, both of the side quests were a bit contrived now that I think about it. They did not flow as naturally as the main story and at a couple points I failed to see the purpose one of them served. It was almost as if the author was bound and determined to hit every point in the hero's journey bullet list. In my opinion the story would have worked fine without it. 

The other plot device was clearly exposition in service of building the world, which can be described as a slow burn at best. It takes a long, long time for the author to fully explain the society in which the characters live. I was able to piece most of it together, though I was missing a few bits and pieces. While the worldbuilding is organic, which is the superior method used by competent authors, it moved at the rate of continental drift. If the author had been any less skilled and the story had been any less engaging, this would have been a DNF for me because there's only so much, "what the heck is going on" I can take.

I will say the final curtain call could have been completely stripped from the story. I appreciate the author may have felt the need to tie up some loose ends but there were other loose ends which were not tied up. He could have left this alone and let the reader speculate. In my opinion it cheapened the story unnecessarily. you'll know it when you see it. 
 
So, this one was weird for me. I enjoyed it very much until I realized how the story was bound to unfold. That was about 25% in for me. I still enjoyed it after my epiphany, mind you. But for over half of the book I felt as though I'd seen all of this before. 

<update>
I originally rated this a 4. But I realized this was due to recency bias. Upon reflection, I've revised it to a 3 which, I feel, reflects my true feelings about it. It's not bad. And I see the author's skill in it. But it lacks greatness.
</update>

This book bounces between hallucinations and reality to keep the reader unsure. But the gimmick is overdone, leaving the end product a mess, seemingly intentionally difficult to follow.  This, coupled with overly symbolic, flowery descriptions of literally everything in the story, make it almost unpleasant to read. At one point I was astonished to learn the protagonist had won the gratitude of a local warlord for his part in what had seemed at the time to be a drug induced phantasm. It's as if the author wanted to show off and impress us with how clever she was. I found this annoying. An author can impress me by writing a good story.

And that's where Ice falls flat. The author has an interesting end of civilization scenario but doesn't engage in anything but rudimentary world building.  She has a tight command of the language yet relies heavily on deus ex machina to move the story along. There were many times when "somehow" the protagonist "managed to" get out of an unfavorable situation. The girl seems nothing more than a plot device. She's the white whale but we have no inkling of the roots of the main characters obsession over her, other than her unusual appearance. But they both will pursue her to the end of the Earth because, reasons, I guess. I'm not asking for all the reader's questions to be answered. I just want people behave like real people, even if the protagonist may or may not be the same person, except they probably aren't, but they might be, maybe. It all seems almost lazy in its execution, a "what do you, the viewers at home, think" delivery. 

Overall I found Ice interesting on the surface but not particularly enjoyable. The clunkiness of the storytelling seemed to serve no purpose other than to be difficult for the sake of it. And the author seemed desperate to use her obviously wide vocabulary to dazzle the reader rather than to tell a good story.

It was... OK... Clarke got better later in his career. This was definitely a product of the time in which it was written. It wasn't bad but it was not up to Clarke's standard. The mystery was not great. The characters were a bit two dimensional. It was enjoyable enough but I'm not sure it deserves classic status. Were it written by someone without a "name" it would not receive the praise it has.