E-book, 352 pages
English language
Published Aug. 8, 2019 by Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom.
Would you give up everything to change the world?
Humanity clings to life on January--a colonized planet divided between permanently frozen darkness on one side, and blazing endless sunshine on the other.
Two cities, built long ago in the meager temperate zone, serve as the last bastions of civilization--but life inside them is just as dangerous as the uninhabitable wastelands outside.
Sophie, a young student from the wrong side of Xiosphant city, is exiled into the dark after being part of a failed revolution. But she survives--with the help of a mysterious savior from beneath the ice.
Burdened with a dangerous, painful secret, Sophie and her ragtag group of exiles face the ultimate challenge--and they are running out of time.
Welcome to the City in the Middle of the Night
Content warning Spoilers ahead!
Good beginning and plenty of interesting ideas throughout the book, but the pacing falls apart, and the characters lack of depth and real evolution.
(Also, by the middle of the book, it become apparent that one of the main POV character isn't very smart, and by the end, she's obviously dumb as rocks. And then, like that, the book ends.)
Interesting read this one. It took me a while to get through it, but in the end the world building was compelling enough to keep me interested, even if I didn't entirely get on with the writing style to begin with.
I have to commend the author for conjuring such a unique setting... the more I read the more I wanted to know about the histories of the two cities, the story of the mothership, and the mystery of the 'crocodiles'. It wasn't without annoyances though... the whole Bianca/Sophie dynamic was fascinating to begin with but became infuriating by the end. Mouth's arc felt more satisfying, but in the end the whole story kind of felt like it finished before it really got started. I read (after finishing it) that it's a standalone, which, frankly, shocked me, since I was sure it was going to be the start of a …
Interesting read this one. It took me a while to get through it, but in the end the world building was compelling enough to keep me interested, even if I didn't entirely get on with the writing style to begin with.
I have to commend the author for conjuring such a unique setting... the more I read the more I wanted to know about the histories of the two cities, the story of the mothership, and the mystery of the 'crocodiles'. It wasn't without annoyances though... the whole Bianca/Sophie dynamic was fascinating to begin with but became infuriating by the end. Mouth's arc felt more satisfying, but in the end the whole story kind of felt like it finished before it really got started. I read (after finishing it) that it's a standalone, which, frankly, shocked me, since I was sure it was going to be the start of a many-part series. The ending certainly felt that way.
I'd certainly consider checking out more from this author, if nothing else for their sheer imagination, but this particular one left me feeling kinda ambivalent.
Four.five, thank you
It does a perfect job of being informed by a weird scifi setting, but not being just an exploration of the world. It’s about love and family and the way we’re tied to people.
But Also about really cool aliens and a world that’s hard for humans to live on.
Science fiction rests on suspended disbelief, and Charlie Jane Anders toys with that concept with a level of creativity I have never seen before. The world in this book feels plausible, and the world-building is amazing. But more importantly Charlie Jane uses tropes and their subversion expertly. In particular, I appreciated how the book deals with themes like friendship, trauma and healing, and relations in general in a way that felt more mature than any science fiction I think I have read before.
This feels like a science fiction that finally plays with a full hand of sciences, not just imaginary pseudo-physics.
