Friday, December 2, 2016

2016 read #89: Ghost Talkers by Mary Robinette Kowal.

Ghost Talkers by Mary Robinette Kowal
304 pages
Published 2016
Read from November 21 to December 2
Rating: out of 5

Meh. I wanted to like this book. The concept -- a corps of spiritualist mediums channeling the ghosts of British soldiers killed in the First World War, to gain instant intelligence of German action on the front -- is entirely my sort of thing. I mostly enjoyed Kowal's Shades of Milk and Honey, which showed authorial potential up until the blatant set-up-the-series coda. And Ghost Talkers' opening chapters, while establishing the characters and setting with such efficiency that they could have been generated from a step-by-step "How to write a fantasy novel" guide, presented a decent hook and a moderately appealing cast. But after that... I dunno. It's hard these days to discern whether my lack of enthusiasm for a book results from a mediocre story or from my ongoing post-election anhedonia. I just could not stay engaged with the narrative for any length of time. The initially promising plot -- ghosts! traitors in the ranks! emotionally moving scenes! -- devolved into the main character trotting around pell-mell, first to the front tranches to have a gratuitous encounter with one Lt. Tolkien, then to a book store, then to a train that she thought was going one place then turned out to be going to another place, then a detour to unmask an obvious plot twist, and so on and so forth, like a farce getting played for drama. After a while, I got to the point where I could only read a few pages before losing interest and gravitating toward my D&D manuals.

I don't want to blame my lack of engagement on the book, necessarily -- I haven't felt especially interested in any of the other three books I'm currently working through. Nor do I have anything more substantial to say about this one. I mean, I do like bits and pieces (two words: poltergeist battalion), but the overall effect is just... meh.

So much for being able to finish a hundred books this year.

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