Michael Poore

You know right off the bad that Reincarnation Blues is written by a man. The main character is a man, all the female characters are his romantic partners except his mother is mentioned in one part and a leader who buckles to authority and allows her people to be terrorized is also female. OK, we're used to that sort of stuff. But add to it 2 things that tipped the scale for me. First, the main character is a man who has been reincarnated 10,000 times (yes, it does get a bit tedious). At one show more point he has a camel who throws up on him repeatedly day after day, yet after a few months he becomes inured to this unpleasantness because he knows the camel loves him. That sounds possible. However just before his last incarnation, he tells someone, "I hate being born, it's gross." The man has been born 10,000 times yet he cannot accustom himself to birth fluids. As a former labor and delivery nurse this is unbelievable and pretty insulting to me. Then the biggie. The main character in one incarnation is pretty much a nerd, very intelligent yet shy around girls. Somehow the author has to find a device to get him from his schoolboy existence to being sentenced to life imprisonment on a completely lawless penal planet where it is not expected he could survive more than a few months. How does he get there? Of course, he is falsely accused of rape by an emotionally disturbed girl. A false rape accusation as a plot device isn't unusual. Why not, women lie, right? Times are changing. Maybe this sort of off-hand dismissal of women will go by the wayside. I can't say I'll be recommending anything by [[Michael Poore]] to anyone. show less

I received an arc from Penguin in exchange for a review.

I loved this book. Comparing an author to Douglas Adams & Neil Gaiman? Those are tremendous shoes to fill. Poore did that easily and still set himself apart. When this book began Milo has lived thousands of lives. He enjoys being the wise man, old soul, until he learns it can't continue forever. Milo must achieve perfection before his 10,000th life or "your soul can be cancelled like a dumb TV show". There are so many interesting tales show more here, if you don't enjoy one, read on, it will change shortly. This book is poignant and witty. I hope I can read something as wonderful as this in all my lives. show less

I was super into this book at first, but it went wayyy downhill. As others have noted, the author sprinkles rape (including of minors), torture, animal cruelty, and other gratuitous violence throughout the entire second half of the book. He also makes the unjustifiable decision to use the n-word completely outside of any historical context, simply for the shock value I suppose. I kept hoping it was going somewhere despite all these issues, but the ending was completely anticlimactic. It's a show more shame because there were some wonderfully imaginative chapters, and I did like some of the humor. But overall, it felt like it was written by an edgy (and white/straight/male) teenager.

ETA Some people compared this to Neil Gaiman/Terry Pratchett, who happen to be some of my favorite authors. I get the comparison on a very surface level (overall zaniness, some dry humor), but this book spends so much time wallowing in the depths of human suffering that I can't imagine any of those three writing anything like it. Not even Gaiman at his darkest. I think the difference is that they are interested in finding some of the awe and wonder in our existence whereas Michael Poore would rather hit the reader over the head with how shitty humans can be to each other. show less

Ah Yes - Reincarnation Blues. Its about a man who loves death, and instead of becoming perfect, only wants to spend time with his love, whom he can only be with when between reincarnations.

The book is well written. It has a strong moral aspect to it, but doesn't beat you over the head. The main character, Milo, is warm, funny, tragic, and a sort of "every man" type character. His flaws are our flaws.

Susie (AKA death)is bit different. She wants something out of her life, but doesn't know show more what. She loves Milo, but wants something else.

This mix of fantasy and science fiction set in a book that uses reincarnation to move the story along with different consecutive lives being in the past, as well as in the future. It can feel a bit disjointed, but its okay. The lives Milo lives are heartbreaking - he has a limited time to become perfect before he becomes nothing, so each life he lives becomes more heart breaking.

Over all, a great book with an interesting premise that manages to hit the sweet spot of books - interesting character, interesting plot, and with a morality that is part of the story, not tacked on. show less