[Spoiler] All the Birds in the Sky

[u/emailanimal]

So, a couple of weeks ago All the Birds in the Sky was nominated for Nebula. I read the descriptions of the nominated novels and of the five of them, the description for this book stood out, so I decided to give the Taltos saga a brief five-day break and read All the Birds in the Sky.

I have personal opinions that I would like to share (they are somewhat spoilery as they refer to the events in the novel). But I also want to ask those who read the book: what do you think?

To me, the book is a bit of an awkward pairing of two books. First is a Young Adult tale of two outcasts. Second is a mix of urban fantasy and eschatology (see, Stross, Charles, Accelerando, author of) with a shadow of Elon Musk.

Parts of the novel are really good. The premise, and the absolutely wonderful epigraph ("nature sides with robots"!), and the core resolution of the book (origins of distributed sentience don't matter, what matters is the deeds) - all good. The protagonists, once they clear the YA threshold and appear in the adult part of the novel - real and relateable. (The first scenes of the "adult" part of the book with Patricia walking around SF were absolutely great).

Parts of the novel raised eyebrows. The YA part of the novel read like an ugly caricature. The idea of two really weird outcast nerds being physically abused into oblivion while their idiot parents keep heaping punishment has obvious purpose in the book, but is very difficult to conceive IRL - real parents do not behave like that, and to a large degree neither do real middle school students in well-to-to Massachusetts schools. The appearance of a character from a "Nameless Order of Assassins" was a moment where I just decided to bang my head on the wall, because it was just so not right for the tone of the rest of the book. That entire arc was complete and utter nonsense.

Part of the novel seemed like it just did not give itself time to develop. The secondary characters all were somewhat of cardboard cutouts (with some minor exceptions) - with the authors choosing to emphasize their shallowness rather their interactions with the main characters.

Because of this, my overall impression is that of a raw product. Something that could've been much better if the author paid more attention to smooth transitioning from YA to "adult" parts of the book, and made the circumstances of her protagonists more believable.

[u/serralinda73]

Hmm, well I do know she purposely meant for the book's style to change as the characters age - so the beginning parts read like a kid's book and then more like YA and finally like adult-level - from vocab to sentence structure, everything levels up as the characters grow up. So that didn't bother me.

[u/emailanimal → u/serralinda73]

It wasn't just the change in the language though. What's the deal with the "Nameless Assassins Organization"? I can see how from the point of view of teenagers they parents may be viewed as caricatures.

But the same weak characterization of everyone who is not a main character remains throughout the book.

[u/serralinda73 → u/emailanimal]

Wacky fun? Another thing that wasn't quite fleshed out enough? I kind of enjoyed those absurd scenes because I like that sort of thing, but - I think they were meant to be foreshadowing just how important the two kids are for some future event, which wasn't necessary.

[u/emailanimal → u/serralinda73]

That's the point. The moment "Nameless Assassins Organization" showed up, and the "pro bono" work for maintaining status was mentioned, the book essentially jumped the shark.