Why Don't You Love Me
Jun. 21st, 2023 03:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
psocopteraWhy Don't You Love Me?, Paul B. Rainey, 2023 graphic. A lot of the reviews are like "read it without spoilers!" but I found it utterly unreadable without spoilers, so, you know, your call. Everything else behind the spoiler cut.
So this is a book about whether trauma and bizarre sfnal circumstances excuse abysmal behavior, which dumps you in on the abysmal behavior and only unveils the trauma and bizarre circumstances very slowly and quite far into the book. So, you know, how many pages are you willing to read about unlikeable people being awful before you're like "is something redeemable going to happen in this book at any point, or did Neil Gaiman rec this just to fuck with us", and for me that was about eight pages and then I flipped to the end and jumped around a bit. I did eventually read the whole thing through in order to see how the pacing worked, but it felt like a chore for the first 40% or so even knowing the whole story.
Which... is not necessarily a dis-recommendation. I am perpetually interested in mirror universes and alternate timelines and I have to give Rainey credit for doing a grim, bleak, "realistic" take on two people having completely dysfunctional reactions to their universe swap, like, "there simply would be no way to cope with that" is a thesis, and it's definitely not a story people tell in universe-swap fanfic. (And maybe by the end Rainey suggests a possibility of growth and doing better the next time around.) But, I don't know, it's also pretty depressing, to think of it being that hard and that slow for these characters to find any bit of compassion or responsibility or human decency in themselves. Greg Egan explored a similar premise in his story "Solidity" this year (link) and he doesn't find it hard to imagine people reacting with solidarity and kindness in the face of devastating loss. And of course Lathe of Heaven is the ancestor of this book, and that's a beautifully hopeful story. So... I don't know. I don't really feel like recommending it, but it's more conceptually interesting than whatever latest DC work is going to show up on next year's Graphic ballot.
So this is a book about whether trauma and bizarre sfnal circumstances excuse abysmal behavior, which dumps you in on the abysmal behavior and only unveils the trauma and bizarre circumstances very slowly and quite far into the book. So, you know, how many pages are you willing to read about unlikeable people being awful before you're like "is something redeemable going to happen in this book at any point, or did Neil Gaiman rec this just to fuck with us", and for me that was about eight pages and then I flipped to the end and jumped around a bit. I did eventually read the whole thing through in order to see how the pacing worked, but it felt like a chore for the first 40% or so even knowing the whole story.
Which... is not necessarily a dis-recommendation. I am perpetually interested in mirror universes and alternate timelines and I have to give Rainey credit for doing a grim, bleak, "realistic" take on two people having completely dysfunctional reactions to their universe swap, like, "there simply would be no way to cope with that" is a thesis, and it's definitely not a story people tell in universe-swap fanfic. (And maybe by the end Rainey suggests a possibility of growth and doing better the next time around.) But, I don't know, it's also pretty depressing, to think of it being that hard and that slow for these characters to find any bit of compassion or responsibility or human decency in themselves. Greg Egan explored a similar premise in his story "Solidity" this year (link) and he doesn't find it hard to imagine people reacting with solidarity and kindness in the face of devastating loss. And of course Lathe of Heaven is the ancestor of this book, and that's a beautifully hopeful story. So... I don't know. I don't really feel like recommending it, but it's more conceptually interesting than whatever latest DC work is going to show up on next year's Graphic ballot.
