psocoptera (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
psocoptera) wrote2023-07-15 02:56 pm
psocoptera) wrote2023-07-15 02:56 pm
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The Spare Man
The Spare Man, Mary Robinette Kowal, 2022 novel. I wasn't into this at all. I thought it was long and slow and tedious; I didn't like the main character or her husband or most of all her awful little dog. Some interesting stuff about a chronic-pain-management system that could dial sensation up and down - the protag was most sympathetic when she was navigating her disability, deciding how to trade off pain and sensation, or considering how the different gravities (Lunar/Martian/Terran) would affect her - but even that got a bit old. I mean, I think it was the correct writing choice for Kowal to make that an aspect of the character that was always with her in every scene and choice she made, I just think I would have gotten everything I was going to get out of it after a novella. The space cruise ship was also a kind of neat setting, but, again, a novella's worth of neat at most. And the mystery plot just always felt kind of muddy and ponderous? I don't know, I think this book needed really snappy dialogue to pull itself off, or a really sharp/snarky POV voice, and it just wasn't there.
Two more things: "ultra-rich celebrity who got six people killed playing engineer" felt a little unfortunate as the backstory a month after that poor kid got killed on the sub. I mean, that's probably unfair, I think Kowal wanted the protag to come off as more of a Tony Stark type who is both extremely rich and extremely competent. But then why have her have done Dancing with the Stars. (Okay, apparently Steve Wozniak and Buzz Aldrin were both on the real Dancing with the Stars, thank you list of unlikely celebrities who had been on it, so I guess occasionally people with actual competence in non-entertainment fields end up on there. But that feels like a reach to expect readers to know that or be willing to look into it?) And then, also, the fact that the conclusion of the mystery is "of course anybody who doesn't like the horrid dog must be the bad guy" - oh, fuck all the way off with that. I know you dog people are mysteriously fond of your gross little friends - I am mysteriously fond of my gross little children, we all get to have our inexplicable fondnesses. But I think we would all rightfully throw across the room a book that concluded with "that woman didn't like babies! of course she was the murderer!". In a world of true diversity, somebody is going to hate *everything* - children, dogs, romance, sex, art, music, cruise ships, booze, chocolate, reality television - whatever your most favorite delightful thing is, some wonderful real human doesn't want anything to do with it. So maybe don't sort your characters *morally* over how much they agree with your tastes??
Two more things: "ultra-rich celebrity who got six people killed playing engineer" felt a little unfortunate as the backstory a month after that poor kid got killed on the sub. I mean, that's probably unfair, I think Kowal wanted the protag to come off as more of a Tony Stark type who is both extremely rich and extremely competent. But then why have her have done Dancing with the Stars. (Okay, apparently Steve Wozniak and Buzz Aldrin were both on the real Dancing with the Stars, thank you list of unlikely celebrities who had been on it, so I guess occasionally people with actual competence in non-entertainment fields end up on there. But that feels like a reach to expect readers to know that or be willing to look into it?) And then, also, the fact that the conclusion of the mystery is "of course anybody who doesn't like the horrid dog must be the bad guy" - oh, fuck all the way off with that. I know you dog people are mysteriously fond of your gross little friends - I am mysteriously fond of my gross little children, we all get to have our inexplicable fondnesses. But I think we would all rightfully throw across the room a book that concluded with "that woman didn't like babies! of course she was the murderer!". In a world of true diversity, somebody is going to hate *everything* - children, dogs, romance, sex, art, music, cruise ships, booze, chocolate, reality television - whatever your most favorite delightful thing is, some wonderful real human doesn't want anything to do with it. So maybe don't sort your characters *morally* over how much they agree with your tastes??
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