Reviews and Comments

I really liked this book when it started out. A historical fiction looking at new York during the aids crisis from the perspective of a young gay black kids. It had a ney York specific star studded cast with significant enemies and hero's of the gay and civil rights movements and Republicans represented. I loved the world building and the significant cruising spots, bath houses and gay/fetish clubs name dropped in it.

But there was so many downsides I often encounter with literature from a pretty left of center perspective on grassroots politics. There was icon and quotable lines, and a strong beginning third of the book but as they tried to represent struggle, non violence, political struggle and the gay agenda it really fell apart for me and had me almost hate reading until the end.

I wish I could rate this a 4 star and a 1 star at the same time because I felt like so conflicted about the book as a whole piece in the end.

So I've been a big fan of the shining movie and wanted to see how the book told the story cause I heard that a) Stephen King didn't like the movie b) the story was different.

So considering that I felt like I was reading a story I really enjoyed specifically to appreciate the differences. At points it felt like a slog, with date rusty and clumsy politics and such. But some of the differences I really appreciated about the book included the greater sympathetic lens we view jack Torrence through, his suicidal tendencies, struggles with alcohol, and love for danny cast him in a much more sympathetic light, which makes his descent into unhinged murderous rage much more disturbing and tragic.

The shining and magic of the world is also much more prevalent and explored and even the jump scares and horrors focus on hornets, hedges, anthropomorphic ghouls, and possession than the blood tidal waves, and creepy twins that are so iconic from the film.

Definitely better appreciate all the liberties that were taken with the film and world building shoved aside that make up the novel. I can see why Stephen King felt antagonistic to the film, and appreciate the story better for it all.

But all in all, don't think I really like Stephen King's writings that much, this being my first read, and might just stick to how pop culture interprets and bastardizes his works in the world of b-rate horror films.

Some things are just better seen than read.

Ok, this book was very fun and gave me some of those excitement in the streets feels at moments I am just always there for. Going in blind to the story, it took me way to long to feel invested in the story, it being fantasy and starting off with a tale about god, I was pretty much ready to swipe left on this one. But then the world came into focus and I was hooked.

I read a review that said in the fantasy world, it's hip to be exploring the magic/creatures/polygod world's through a lens of the industrial revolution rather than bronze or medieval developments. And within this modern trend this is Adrian Tchaikovsky's contribution to that.

I couldn't help but map Marx's capital onto this world, updated by my stronger and stronger appreciation of Tchaikovsky's work and left politics. We have main characters from the factory works, lumpen proles, sex workers, students, immigrants, and heretic theologians. The book explores a world colonized by an analogue of Roman Catholic conservatism and empire. There is even a parallel of Marx's theory of dead-labour embodied in commodities as magic embed in objects, which lends them value and can be distilled and extracted to produce further value.

Definitely a strong nationalist anti-colonialism bent to the societal tensions, with nostalgia and ghosts of feudal ethnic powers and the folk cultures and traditions lost to urbanization and proletarianization.

Reading it as a Marxist, one would be happy by its interpretation of struggle, class and modernization with greater heed paid to the lumpen proles and gender. Reading it as an anarchist, there are critiques to be made around the appeal of nationalism, hierarchy, and power as little fiefdoms and warlords struggle to remain dominant above and sometimes oblivious to the peoples struggles in the streets.

I would highly recommend this book, 1 of 2 in the series as of yet, as a fun read that gets your heart racing while both escaping from this world to better view it as an outsider.

Probably gonna stay in my top 5 of 2024!

This was a really fantastic novel and I think you should read it. With a heavy hand in world building and exploration of linguistics and translation this novel gave so many hints and tidbits of the world without creating a complete picture which left you will so many paintings of these worlds with just enough to have you pondering the world just outside the frame.

It is really impressive the amount of world building that was built into a standalone novel, I would read anything, including fan fiction, created in the universe after finishing it.

The story itself and it's interactions were fantastic. There was many times I was left feeling so alien from the valleys that divided characters that I truly believed that there was alien consciousnesses so different than ours, rather than a metaphor for human struggles.

The plot was very hard to predict and kept my rapt attention as it twisted and turned building and referencing with clues and surprises that I honestly didn't know where we were going including the conclusion.

China mieville is one of my favourite contemporary authors because his writings bring in politics, class and revolution in such honest and contextual ways that I am left feeling like through the story I am newly a revolutionary within a different world and power dynamics.

I think everyone should read it. And talk about it with friends.