sarah

First of all, I love the other Wolfe novels l have read, and I consider myself a fan. With this novel, though, I was disappointed. I see what Wolfe was going for in this one – sort of a retro-future noir-sci-fi mash-up. And for the most part, I was there with it and interested. But in the end the novel didn't work for me, mostly because the dialogue wasn't quite right. I think Wolfe was trying to achieve a His Girl Friday retro feel, but to me it felt over-wordy, chatty, and distracting from the plot. I didn't like the main character Cassie at all, and she talks A LOT.

The plot, however, was fantastic. I wished we could have skipped all the Cassie stuff in the first three quarters of the book and just focused on the ending. It was so good that if I picked up this book with no expectations whatsoever, I probably would have been blown away by the ending. Is it just me or did Cassie finally shut up when stuff started happening? There is a very good novella buried inside this book!

Disappointingly, the book ends with Cassie starting a whole new adventure. Does that mean there will be a sequel? I hope not, because I will feel compelled to read it to find out what happens, and I didn't like this book enough to revisit it.I take it back, I would read a sequel. I love Gene Wolfe!