Close but not quite
Nov. 5th, 2006 04:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catalyst2I have just finished reading "Gene" by Stel Pavlou.
This is one of those books I just couldn't quite get into. I understood the story, I liked the genre and the "science" behind the fiction was at least plausible. Something in the writing though just did not flow for me - I understand that the flashback were supposed to be disorienting and confusing for both North and for Gene but in the end they became intrusive and repetitive. Rather than push the story on, I felt they actually hindered the story. It is a story about reincarnation (of a type) and the participants were fated to face each other in each incarnation - I get it, I really do so you don't have to do it quite so often. They each do terrible things in each of these incarnations - again I get it, I really, really do so, again, you don't have to do it over and over and over and over and over ....... THE PATTERN REPEATS - I GET IT!
Also, I realise that I lost all interest in North after a while - his blind stumbling just bored me. I started to get more interested in Gene, to be honest - don't know if that is good or bad because Gene was supposed to be the antagonist, I think.
I suppose that then other thing I feLt after a while was that the flashback were written in incredibly vivid, almost excessive detail while the dull grey of the streets was emphasised very heavily. Again, I get it: hallucinations/past lives vivid, current existence dull but after a while the overblown descriptions of the former went over the top and the blandness of the latter became boring.
Don't get me wrong, this wasn't a bad book - it just didn't quite mix the ingredients the right way but the ingredients were, in the main, good quality.
This is one of those books I just couldn't quite get into. I understood the story, I liked the genre and the "science" behind the fiction was at least plausible. Something in the writing though just did not flow for me - I understand that the flashback were supposed to be disorienting and confusing for both North and for Gene but in the end they became intrusive and repetitive. Rather than push the story on, I felt they actually hindered the story. It is a story about reincarnation (of a type) and the participants were fated to face each other in each incarnation - I get it, I really do so you don't have to do it quite so often. They each do terrible things in each of these incarnations - again I get it, I really, really do so, again, you don't have to do it over and over and over and over and over ....... THE PATTERN REPEATS - I GET IT!
Also, I realise that I lost all interest in North after a while - his blind stumbling just bored me. I started to get more interested in Gene, to be honest - don't know if that is good or bad because Gene was supposed to be the antagonist, I think.
I suppose that then other thing I feLt after a while was that the flashback were written in incredibly vivid, almost excessive detail while the dull grey of the streets was emphasised very heavily. Again, I get it: hallucinations/past lives vivid, current existence dull but after a while the overblown descriptions of the former went over the top and the blandness of the latter became boring.
Don't get me wrong, this wasn't a bad book - it just didn't quite mix the ingredients the right way but the ingredients were, in the main, good quality.
