If you like your detective novels to be decadent, dystopic and strange then this is the title for you. Hard boiled noir meets a strange future through sci-fi. Enjoyed it.
Tremendous disappointment, abandoned when it dawned on me that I was only slogging through it because I felt a twisted sense of obligation to all the "hidden gem" and "cult classic" reviews I have seen.
Scanning other one-star reviews, most of them ticky my boxes: flat writing, that relies too much on "tell don't show," and amazing clunky exposition; waste of the potentially intriguing "world" of Effinger's future, in which everyone is Muslim, but no one really pays much attention what it means to be Muslim; ridiculous, over the top kinky for the sake of being kinky.
Scanning other one-star reviews, most of them ticky my boxes: flat writing, that relies too much on "tell don't show," and amazing clunky exposition; waste of the potentially intriguing "world" of Effinger's future, in which everyone is Muslim, but no one really pays much attention what it means to be Muslim; ridiculous, over the top kinky for the sake of being kinky.
Kristin K. (escapeartistk) -
This novel is more successful as science fiction than as a mystery/detective story because the actual "detective" part is sort of missing. Although Marid, the protagonist, follows various clues, he sort of stumbles onto the answers rather than actually figuring anything out. In spite of that (or perhaps because I'm not much of a mystery reader anyway), I really enjoyed this book; it was engaging, suspenseful and well written. Effinger has created an interesting, unique world (that isn't too "science-y") and I intend, at some point, to check out the second book in the series.
