(no subject)

[skygiants]

Okay, so Space Opera is a bit like Cat Valente wrote a book, and then ran it through a Douglas Adams filter, and then looked at the output and ran it through the Douglas Adams filter again but this time set to word-density=(2x), and then ran it back through a very light Cat Valente filter and dunked it in three layers of glitter and presented it to the world.

It's ... I don't think I disliked it? I probably liked it more than most Cat Valente I've read since The Orphan's Tales, on account of the fact that it doesn't feel like a less-interesting-to-me version of The Orphan's Tales and instead feels like Douglas Adams writing a sequel to Pratchett's Soul Music, but in space. It is A LOT, though. I don't think I'd ever quite realized that plain text on a page could approximate the sensation of complete sensory overload, but this book definitely does it. And it absolutely means to do it! There's a disco ball on the front cover, that's all part of the point, but like ... I'm pretty boring actually? I've never sampled mind-altering substances beyond alcohol? I don't actually go to discos very often? I haven't built up the stamina for this much glitterpunk.

The plot? The plot. Technically, there is a plot! Space Eurovision happens! Two Washed-Up Former Rock Star Humans Must Represent Humanity At Space Eurovision And Not Completely Lose ... OR WE ALL DIE! This plot advances precisely every other chapter; in the interim chapters, some more Space Eurovision happens, generally consisting of a lengthy satirical description of a weird alien culture and concluding with something like 'and the Googledyplexes won that year by vomiting up a horde of tiny singing butterflies who hovered in front of the eyes of every spectator and disgorged hallucinogenic spores that made them feel something magical.'

It's all very impressively inventive! Cat Valente's Imagination could probably power a nuclear plant on its own. Not infrequently I felt a bit like I was starting to drown under the sheer weight of intense space fabulism being thrown at me and had to flail around desperately for a single spar of a simple simile-free sentence to keep myself afloat, but, you know, that's not an unfamiliar part of the Valente Experience nor yet the Douglas Adams experience ... but I do feel a bit like I need to go detox with some extremely terse prose and a cup of black tea.

Comments

[raven]

While it seems very relevant to my interests otherwise I haven't tried this simply because it's by Valente; I always feel like she's a little too pleased with her style and it distracts from what she's trying to say. I'm thinking I probably wouldn't like this one?

[maplemood]

This was exactly the vibe I was getting off the book just from the title and the summary; I haven't even tried to read it yet! Valente is so tricky for me--I always feel like in theory I should love her stuff, but the execution doesn't always work for me.

[scribe]

This had been recommended to me and I read the first few pages on amazon preview (or google books? something) and had...pretty much this exact experience, yup.

[cofax7]

HAH. I love it.

I listened to this on audiobook just a few weeks ago, and yes, it was just kind of overwhelming. laurashapiro loved it, but she's way more into glam and glitter than I am...

I did think it was very witty, though. And I would like a complete copy of the Unkillable Rules.

[kore]

I like some of her stuff (Orphan's Tales, short pieces) but she always reminds me of the advice that "Half the effort would have twice the effect." Or Yeats's advice about building in hills and valleys so your reader kind of has time to catch their breath in between dazzling effects.

[kore]

I always feel like she's a little too pleased with her style and it distracts from what she's trying to say

YEAH, that's really it -- I hadn't been able to put it into words for myself.

[sovay]

... but I do feel a bit like I need to go detox with some extremely terse prose and a cup of black tea.

I like your choice of icon for this review.

[monanotlisa]

that intro description tho...

;)

[sophia_sol]

that sounds like exactly what I was expecting it to be, thank you for confirming my decision that it's probably not for me! But also I really enjoyed reading your description of it.

[chomiji]

Yes, I have this problem with Valente also. I feel like I am too ordinary to appreciate her. Which is funny, because most people make me feel like I am very weird.

It's like ... I'm glad I read Palimpsest. But I don't feel the need to re-read it. And re-reading is normally a favorite thing.

[ceitfianna]

Another to say this sounds like a great description of a book I probably won't read. I think Deathless was the book of hers that made me go, okay, done that. I can admire her style and imagination but its overwhelming and for me the characters get lost in the style.

[landingtree]

Space Opera was sort of on my books-to-read list, and this review... leaves it in exactly the same vague place on that list! I didn't find either Deathless or Palimpsest quite satisfying, plotwise, and I think it's something to do with the way Valente characters all think and experience the world at the same level of fabulousness. Like the four characters in Palimpsest: so different from each other in terms of zinging-off-the-walls details, but at the same time they seemed to occupy a weirdly narrow imaginative range. But Valente writes some of my absolute favourite sentences, there are definitely moods where I'd read a whole book just for five perfect Valente sentences...

And these comments do leave me thinking that the actual next book of hers I read should be The Orphan's Tales

[conuly]

I always want to like her books, and I always don't.

[tempestsarekind]

Cat Valente is funny for me: I always feel like I've read a lot of her work, and then I realize it's only two books (the first Fairyland book and Deathless). I really liked the first Fairyland book...and then only made it a handful of sentences into the second one, because I realized I didn't really feel the need to read another one. And I absolutely adored the first few chapters of Deathless, and the Siege of Leningrad section (mainly for the rusalka!), but the entire rest of the book is a total blur. *shrug*

But I bought a paperback copy of Radiance, a while ago; maybe one day I will actually read it!

[skygiants]

Yeah, I'd say probably not -- it's a consciously different style than her usual, but it's still very STYLE!!!

And, I mean, to be fair, the entire thesis of the book is 'we're judging sentience by ability to have STYLE!!!' so it's not exactly like it distracts from what she's trying to say so much as it's ... uh ... making the form the function? Which is certainly a way to play to one's strengths!

[skygiants]

I have loved exactly one (well, two) Valente books and they were the first ones I encountered -- but, in fairness, I haven't tried the ones that likely would be most targeted towards my interests out of a vague fear of finding that I dislike them ...

[skygiants]

IT'S JUST SO EXTREMELY MUCH ALL THE TIME. I'm not sure Cat Valente could write a sentence without a clause in it if you held a gun to her head.

[skygiants]

There are a lot of extremely good lines! It's super technically impressive -- I can absolutely see why somebody would love it, especially if they do have experience with and stamina for that level of glam and glitter.

[skygiants]

Yeah, it's a bit like watching an Olympic gymnast do their best routine for an hour, isn't it? By like ten minutes in you're just like "wow, you're not tired? I -- I would be so tired ...."

[skygiants]

It was really the only option! (Unsurprisingly, Bowie is namechecked SO MANY times.)

[skygiants]

If there's such a thing as MORE DOUGLAS ADAMS THAN DOUGLAS ADAMS, Cat Valente is striving for it with great commitment!

[sovay]

(Unsurprisingly, Bowie is namechecked SO MANY times.)

Glam in space was sufficiently his thing that I am almost surprised a book with this premise does not just feature him.

[skygiants]

I probably wouldn't have read it if someone hadn't given it to me as a present, but I think I am glad to have done so -- at the very least to have confirmed that Cat Valente can do other styles than the one I'm already familiar with, so long as she's doing them at ELEVEN!!!

[skygiants]

Yeah, Valente's books are just all so determinedly ... un-grounded? I don't mean that in a negative way, it's just that her books are always this intensely fierce rejection of the mundane, and I'm just like 'I get it but ... this is where I live ......'

[skygiants]

Yeah, the style is always so foregrounded in her books, and it definitely very impressive! but it's hard for me to deeply attach to pure style in the same way one does to, say, characters. Or a plot.