Dreaming in Smoke

I found the ending of this rather unsatisfying, but I seem to have enjoyed the journey more than most of the other reviewers to date. While a significant chunk of the story takes place in virtual reality, it felt more akin to Hal Clement than William Gibson to me. In fact, as I read the middle half of this book, I couldn't help imagining that the trangendered ghost of Hal Clement had been sentenced to eternity in the appropriate circle of Dante's Inferno, with their only hope of redemption being to produce a story that manages to be the perfect simulteneous pastiche of both Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and J.G. Ballard's The Day of Creation, and that this resulting book came close, but wasn't quite perfect enough to bring redemption.

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3422081.html

I felt there was a good book in here trying to get out. It's a feminist take on human colonisation of an alien planet, spoiled by the annoyingly lazy and passive character of the protagonist, and by various dream sequences which aren't really all that descriptive and don't take the plot further. I found it rather hard to engage with, frankly, and perhaps it is a novel that demands more effort from the reader than I was in the mood to give.

Awful. I liked the main character and what I could gather about the story but the writing is not good enough to tempt me to engage my brain - and so the plot was clear as mud. I do suspect the plot might have been clear as mud even if I did engage my brain.

Awful. I liked the main character and what I could gather about the story but the writing is not good enough to tempt me to engage my brain - and so the plot was clear as mud. I do suspect the plot might have been clear as mud even if I did engage my brain.

Great extrapolation on the problems of colonising alien worlds. Winner of the Clarke Award. Well worth the time to read this striking novel.