Enjoyable but flawed

by rogerco on Sun 5th Nov 2023.

It was a good read, and I liked the way a couple of characters from her previous book, The Glass Hotel which I read recently, were woven in. 

But...there is a problem with writing fiction dealing with the next 300 years in that the tech fanatasy of space travel, moon colonies and beyond, seem now so unlikely on that horizon as to be unbeliveable. If you want that stuff for your plot it has to be set millenia in the future when the survivors of our current situation, or a replacement species, have had time to rebuild a civilization which can suport that stuff.

There also seems to me a problem with the whole simulation hypothesis as a hook for a plot. It's an entertaining idea to play with but at the end of the day its actually not very convincing - and if it were then so what. We experience life as being valid which is all that matters at the end of the day. And if you do pursue the simulation idea then the interesting question is not whether or not it is valid, but why, and to what end, are the future time lords running this simulation, or these simulations. what are they trying to achieve here.

So ultimately an unsatisfying book although very enjoyable in itself.