Helpful Score: 4
Crime, Punishment, and Still More Punishment, July 2, 2002
Reviewer: Miles (Phoenix, AZ United States)
This is the best Greg Bear book I've read. It's not as accessible as BLOOD MUSIC (his other really good one), but in many ways it's more impressive. A reviewer's blurb on the cover of my paperback edition calls it "...possibly the most ambitious novel ever written..." which sounds like the most ridiculous hyperbole, but I wouldn't call it completely off the mark.
For some reason, the author wrote several sections in a deliberately obtuse fashion, which forced me to reread the first couple pages of many chapters. I haven't quite figured out the intent behind this literary "technique", but plowing through the difficult parts of this one actually pays off.
The novel's obsessive focus on the themes of crime and punishment (mostly punishment), looked at from the perspectives of different characters in different situations, impressed me much the same way Frederik Pohl's novel GATEWAY did (which dealt with the themes of survival and guilt). It really sticks with you after reading it.
Reviewer: Miles (Phoenix, AZ United States)
This is the best Greg Bear book I've read. It's not as accessible as BLOOD MUSIC (his other really good one), but in many ways it's more impressive. A reviewer's blurb on the cover of my paperback edition calls it "...possibly the most ambitious novel ever written..." which sounds like the most ridiculous hyperbole, but I wouldn't call it completely off the mark.
For some reason, the author wrote several sections in a deliberately obtuse fashion, which forced me to reread the first couple pages of many chapters. I haven't quite figured out the intent behind this literary "technique", but plowing through the difficult parts of this one actually pays off.
The novel's obsessive focus on the themes of crime and punishment (mostly punishment), looked at from the perspectives of different characters in different situations, impressed me much the same way Frederik Pohl's novel GATEWAY did (which dealt with the themes of survival and guilt). It really sticks with you after reading it.
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