Teadragon reviewed An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon
Review of 'An unkindness of ghosts' on 'Storygraph'
3 stars
The greatest strength here is the character writing. Different characters, starkly and distinctively portrayed. The characterization kept me reading to the end. Some weirdness with pacing/continuity, but this was the author's debut novel. I can't tell if it was an intentional tool to portray the neural atypical nature of several characters or just inexperience.
If you are widely read, you won't find anything new in this book. It is going to remind some people obviously of Snowpiercer. Warning. Snowpiercer spoiler:
This is Snowpiercer light, with everyone at the bottom of ship/back of train being people of color. Snowpiercer light, because they have many decks filled with varied crops on this generation ship. Horrid discrimination and abuse, with the lower/colored classes doing most of the manual labor (which for some reason this incredibly high tech generation ship does not automate), but lighter than Snowpiercer as the upper decks are not …
The greatest strength here is the character writing. Different characters, starkly and distinctively portrayed. The characterization kept me reading to the end. Some weirdness with pacing/continuity, but this was the author's debut novel. I can't tell if it was an intentional tool to portray the neural atypical nature of several characters or just inexperience.
If you are widely read, you won't find anything new in this book. It is going to remind some people obviously of Snowpiercer. Warning. Snowpiercer spoiler:
This is Snowpiercer light, with everyone at the bottom of ship/back of train being people of color. Snowpiercer light, because they have many decks filled with varied crops on this generation ship. Horrid discrimination and abuse, with the lower/colored classes doing most of the manual labor (which for some reason this incredibly high tech generation ship does not automate), but lighter than Snowpiercer as the upper decks are not literally cannibalizing the lower decks, and while abuse is rampant, some lower deck people do have meaningful jobs/careers of a sort.
I suppose the primary goal of this book must have been to portray rampant violent trauma and how that locks people into a cycle where more trauma and abuse continues to occur:
It seemed utterly unrealistic that The General, so incredibly revered as the Hand of God by the entire ship, would refrain from taking power when his uncle died. He was SO dreading the new level of cruelty, but didn't make a move, despite his aristocratic upbringing. We are told he has also been horrifically abused in his past, but it seems not quite believable that a character of tremendous intellect and true religious devotion to doing good, in a position of close inheritance to the throne as it were, wouldn't make any moves to take power in order to prevent great cruelty an evil.
Also, did not enjoy the very abrupt ending.
