The City in the Middle of the Night

The City in the Middle of the Night, Charlie Jane Anders. About 2/3 of the way in, I decided that the lack of momentum and pacing problems were actually a deliberate literary technique to convey to the reader the disorientation of living on a planet with no day/night cycle. Having now finished the book, I'm not actually sure if that's bullshit or not. There's some interesting worldbuilding here (both in the ways that humans have tried to adapt to the planet, and in the native aliens) and some meaty investigation (of time, and living in a declining society, and politics, and, as it turns out, the challenge of trying to organize action in the face of growing climate catastrophe), but the structural choices make it a slow and sometimes frustrating read. (What do the characters want? What are they trying to do next? What am I as a reader hoping happens next? Why does the book stop where it stops instead of somewhere else?) I'm not exactly disrecommending it - there was some good stuff, especially with the titular city - but be prepared for some slogging, and for bleak and difficult character arcs.