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May. 4th, 2014 10:40 amIt's actually kind of weird to go from talking about Otherland to talking about Zoo City, because the books actually have a surprising amount in common:
1. They probably both feature about 400 pages that take place in South Africa! It's just that in Zoo City this is the whole book and in Otherland this is only a small percentage of the THOUSANDS OF PAGES OF TEXT.
2. They both feature black South African heroines who work with computers, who are racked by guilt over something terrible that happened to her brother, and who have animal companions who usually shows better judgment than they do. It's just that a.) in Otherland the heroine is an engineering instructor and in Zoo City the heroine writes scam emails, and b.) in Zoo City the animal companion is one of the supernatural soul-bonded animal that you get in this universe when you commit a terrible crime, and in Otherland the animal companion is actually the heroine's love interest trapped in the shape of a baboon.
3. They both use the device of including snippets of in-universe news clips and journal articles and research studies and so on to build out the world beyond the immediate plot, which ... actually I have nothing sarcastic to say here, I love this device and I think it is used well in both cases.
4. They both include plotlines about a set of twin teenaged pop sensations looking to explore future musical careers separate from the other! YES, OTHERLAND HAS THAT TOO. Way, way in the background, but still, it weirded me out.
5. Both of them include REALLY HORRIBLE AND GROSS RITUALIZED MURDERS.
...uh, obviously though in other ways they are very different....
I mean, I think the other most relevant thing to say about Zoo City is that it is very, very noir. In addition to her job as a scam email writer, the heroine is a private eye with a dark past trying to go clean; her employer is a sinister millionaire; the teen pop idol that she's been hired to track down might be an innocent victim or might be a femme fatale; the city of Johannesburg is corrupt and untrustworthy and full of secrets and shadows. It's also a supernatural world in which various people come with soulbonded animals and/or low-key superpowers. I liked the worldbuilding, a lot. I also generally like noir, and I appreciated how much Zoo City full-on embraced noirland, but, like ... be braced for the horrible and gross ritualized murders ... and also for the noir attitude that all victories are hollow, all your effort is eventually futile, and success in a corrupt system is one hundred percent un-possible ...
1. They probably both feature about 400 pages that take place in South Africa! It's just that in Zoo City this is the whole book and in Otherland this is only a small percentage of the THOUSANDS OF PAGES OF TEXT.
2. They both feature black South African heroines who work with computers, who are racked by guilt over something terrible that happened to her brother, and who have animal companions who usually shows better judgment than they do. It's just that a.) in Otherland the heroine is an engineering instructor and in Zoo City the heroine writes scam emails, and b.) in Zoo City the animal companion is one of the supernatural soul-bonded animal that you get in this universe when you commit a terrible crime, and in Otherland the animal companion is actually the heroine's love interest trapped in the shape of a baboon.
3. They both use the device of including snippets of in-universe news clips and journal articles and research studies and so on to build out the world beyond the immediate plot, which ... actually I have nothing sarcastic to say here, I love this device and I think it is used well in both cases.
4. They both include plotlines about a set of twin teenaged pop sensations looking to explore future musical careers separate from the other! YES, OTHERLAND HAS THAT TOO. Way, way in the background, but still, it weirded me out.
5. Both of them include REALLY HORRIBLE AND GROSS RITUALIZED MURDERS.
...uh, obviously though in other ways they are very different....
I mean, I think the other most relevant thing to say about Zoo City is that it is very, very noir. In addition to her job as a scam email writer, the heroine is a private eye with a dark past trying to go clean; her employer is a sinister millionaire; the teen pop idol that she's been hired to track down might be an innocent victim or might be a femme fatale; the city of Johannesburg is corrupt and untrustworthy and full of secrets and shadows. It's also a supernatural world in which various people come with soulbonded animals and/or low-key superpowers. I liked the worldbuilding, a lot. I also generally like noir, and I appreciated how much Zoo City full-on embraced noirland, but, like ... be braced for the horrible and gross ritualized murders ... and also for the noir attitude that all victories are hollow, all your effort is eventually futile, and success in a corrupt system is one hundred percent un-possible ...
