Customer Comments

I loved this book because it does everything great science fiction should do: it takes the reader somewhere amazing and exotic, a distant planet where bioluminescent life forms live in permanent darkness, yet the real focus of the story is on humanity and what it means to be human. The story is set among a small and inbred society, the descendants of two stranded humans. They have evolved traditions and mythology based on the instructions of their ancestors, Angela and Tommy. Most members of this large family are content to stay put, waiting for rescue from Earth, but a teenage boy named John Redlantern insists on asking questions that will change everything. Reading this book made think about the ways that humans have set out for unknown destinations throughout history, risking everything on the belief that what they will find is better than what they left.

A brilliant and moving study of the flip side of the American dream.

A blazingly original story that demands the reader's complete attention from the very first page, Embassytown describes life among an alien species whose very concept of language is beyond human understanding. An engaging, vividly drawn narrator makes the strangeness of this reality comprehensible. This is another truly brilliant book from the author of The City and the City.

This book was a real delight, an original and enjoyable read with characters I grew to love.

This novel from the author of 20th Century Ghosts and Heart-Shaped Box is a searing glimpse into the soul of a good man consumed by guilt and regret, a man who suddenly knows the worst about everyone around him. It was a highly original and absolutely riveting story, and one I'll never forget.

Set in a dystopian Bangkok, The Windup Girl is a fascinating glimpse of an all too plausible future when the oil has run out, the oceans are rising and calories are a scarce commodity. What makes this novel truly brilliant is the way the author has grounded his story in Thai culture and history: it remains the unconquered, never colonized country. Each character--an expat "calorie man", an ethnic Chinese refugee from Malaysia, a genetically engineered Japanese "windup girl," and a pair of Thai officials--is deeply flawed yet sympathetic, planning and scheming to get ahead, unaware of the larger forces that will determine Bangkok's future.