2008-02-25 Uneven but interesting

I think I'm always prepared to be a little easy-going on a first book (or at least, a first one in print, we don't know how many Mr Ballantyne wrote before Recursion...) I'm not literary trained enough to explain precisely but some passage, especially near the beginning, seemed to lumber about, the writing was not elegant. The ideas behind the book seemed very interesting, though so it was sufficiently engrossing for me to continue. Near the end there is a long passage of explanation which really doesn't seem to fit - as if the author couldn't figure out how (or didn't have the time) to write narrative to cover these events, so we're left with a synopsis before a return to narrative for the final few pages. For me, this is the book's weakest point, almost like a documentary occurring 4/5 of the way through an adventure film. I might consider some of the later books... eventually.