Reviews and Comments

Samit Basu doesn’t lack humour and imagination, which make this story very enjoyable. His previous books have mixed cultural and political elements of Indian life with fantasy and science fiction, enriching old westerner tropes and bringing new life to genres that have for too long been only explored by white dudes.

The heart of the story is the question: if you were living in a world menaced by sea rise and dominated by ultra rich factions, and if you found a magic lamp with a genie, what would you ask them? Of course you’d have first to find said magic lamp, and fight your way to keep it when the whole power structure wants it too. Luckily in this scenario you’d be a mischievous monkey robot with delusions of grandeur…

thoroughly enjoyable piece of thanato-core

Good follow-up: expands the story without repeating it

A surprising story about stories shaping history.

Comme mentionné dans mon commentaire sur le même titre, j’ai trouvé que le style péchait par trop de fioritures et le rythme par trop d’irrégularité. Et les cliffhangers, ça fait quand même passé. En plus de ça ma copie du livre avait des problèmes typographiques/SR (espaces avant/après les ponctuations)

En revanche le propos est vivant, l’histoire tient en haleine si on passe outre les défauts.

« Un peu », « assez », « plutôt »… il s’agirait pour l’auteur d’avoir le courage de ses description, là il dilue trop souvent ses adjectifs sans raison

A very good work of fantasy playing with deeper concepts than “magical secret orphan prince” tropes. The long time I spent reading it is unrelated to its quality (but more related to my brain's bandwidth capacity these last 6 months). The characters are compelling, the Aragorn-type is way more human than Tolkien’s Aragorn and the bad guys are well rounded and have interesting motivations. On the other hand I don’t remember if the book passes the Bechdel Test and the women roles could have been bigger.

Haven’t had the mental bandwidth to read it since April, but I don’t want to abandon a book by Kay

I love how Yoon Ha Lee manages to do so much in a sf setting.