施 曉恬 từ Fenils TO, Italy

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05/10/2024

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施 曉恬 Sách lại (10)

2018-05-26 18:30

Nhân Tố Enzyme – Trẻ Hóa Thư viện Sách hướng dẫn

Sách được viết bởi Bởi:

I'm having trouble writing something coherent and meaningful about this book. (Although, to be fair, I usually have trouble writing anything coherent and meaningful.) The books is a collection of some of Cordwainer Smith's short stories and his only complete novel, "Norstrilia". I was unfamiliar with the author before this, aside from the famous short "Scanners Live in Vain". I was also unaware of the fact that all of his works fit into the same future history, spanning thousands of years. Now, having read up on the author's life and works, I do feel admiration for his body of work, but I can't say I completely enjoyed this book. I make an effort to read a "classic" of the genre once in a while. Invariably, I come away disappointed. I'm sure part of this is due to overly high expectations. On the other hand, I also think that in the golden age of SF, ideas were considered more important than little things like character development and narrative flow. Unfortunately, the ideas that were so revolutionary and innovative at the time have often become mainstays by now. I often find that I can only enjoy some of these novels by trying to place myself in the shoes of a contemporary reader who isn't familiar with modern SF, sort of a meta-suspension of disbelief. I'm just not that good at it. In the end, I feel like I've read a novel that would be considered so-so by today's standards, filled with ideas that used to be spectacular but are now commonplace. Now, to be fair, Cordwainer Smith was a good writer. He had this odd and very interesting tendency to switch from high-flying, almost poetic prose to very dry, matter-of-fact descriptions - the odd thing being that the dry descriptions were often used for the most outlandish SF concepts. It must have been very odd, reading this in the sixties. This collection is structured according to internal chronology. Unfortunately, this means that the first story "The Dead Lady of Clown Town", which depicts what is almost a messianic event in the over-all story arc, doesn't really have much of an impact on the first-time reader --- you need to be familiar with the story to understand how meaningful the story of d'Joan is. Likewise, the climax of the story "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard" doesn't really make much sense if you're not familiar with the surrounding events. As a result, I was vaguely annoyed reading the short stories at first, although now, looking back after having read the entire collection, I can see the impact they would have had on someone more familiar with the author. It's almost like reading a prequel first --- yes, this happened first in the internal chronology, but that doesn't mean you should read it first. So. I'm giving this collection three stars. If I were to judge the overall body of work of the author and its position in the history of SF, I'd rate it higher, but I'm not --- I'm judging this oddly structured collection of stories Baen released. I hate to say it, but I don't think they did the legacy of Cordwainer Smith much good.

Người đọc 施 曉恬 từ Fenils TO, Italy

Người dùng coi những cuốn sách này là thú vị nhất trong năm 2017-2018, ban biên tập của cổng thông tin "Thư viện Sách hướng dẫn" khuyến cáo rằng tất cả các độc giả sẽ làm quen với văn học này.