Book #11 of 2016: The Pride of Parahumans
Feb. 18th, 2016 07:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thistlechaserThe Pride of Parahumans by Joel Kreissman
Rating: Hated (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)
(Not the actual cover, but the cover was just a dark smudge of blue, and this is the image the author used as himself.)
I suppose I've spoiled this review by including the above picture. Now, when I ask "How often do you read mention of the main character's anus on page two of a book?" you'll be less surprised.
I rotated mid-air and spread my legs apart so I could see the reflection of what lay between them. That is, a bunch of black fur with white guardhairs like the rest of my body, hence the nickname "Silver", but if you look close enough you might spot my anus and if you look really close you can see the opening of my urethra.
I had to stop reading at that point and laugh, especially as I had gone into this book blind; I got it for free sometime back, and it sat in my To Read pile long enough that I forgot what it was about.
The Pride of Parahumans is a "furries in space" book. How did I end up downloading it, even free? I suspect I must not have read the description closely enough and thought it was just animals. Supposedly it's "hard science fiction," but that was seriously laughable. To keep a lab from being contaminated, they had to wear breathing protection "in case someone breathed too hard." So... regular breathing was okay? A lot of the supposed scientific descriptions ended in "and stuff" which was especially amusing.
And man, the book's science/logic was just so messed up! Some of the furries had pouches. Which come in, um, useful in space:
A peek under her pressure suit would reveal ... a pouch big enough to accommodate an adult human or most parahumans [furries]. Yes, a nice soft pouch modified to seal airtight around a small hose that would supply a distressed miner with oxygen as he calmed down all safe and warm in a secure pocket of flesh.
Then add that to this later description from the main character about being in the pouch:
It was dark, I could feel myself enclosed on all sides in sticky wet mucus and veined flesh.
And:
He yanked me out of the pouch. I burst out in a cloud of mucus.
Yeah. Being in there sure would calm people down...
Add onto all this that the main character used wacky personalized pronouns. "ze" and "zir" instead of he/she and his/her. The character was neuter, so... I suppose there's an excuse that they could be used, but still it just did not work for me. Plus there was a new word for "you" as well. Why? If you're not male or female, it's one thing to not use him/her, but "you" is not gendered. (I know this is a transgender thing, but it just did not work for me in the book.)
Among other annoying things in the book:
While it was set in the distant future, there was so much current day stuff. The Internet existed exactly as it does today. "Open source." Our gun brands/models from today were used. Plus mention of things from the modern day Furry fandom (like Furtopia, some kind of furry site).
At first this book started out so bad it was funny, but then it quickly became just bad-bad. It was short enough that I reached the 50% point beforetossing it out a window giving up on it, so I can count it towards my total for the year.
Rating: Hated (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)
(Not the actual cover, but the cover was just a dark smudge of blue, and this is the image the author used as himself.)
I suppose I've spoiled this review by including the above picture. Now, when I ask "How often do you read mention of the main character's anus on page two of a book?" you'll be less surprised.
I rotated mid-air and spread my legs apart so I could see the reflection of what lay between them. That is, a bunch of black fur with white guardhairs like the rest of my body, hence the nickname "Silver", but if you look close enough you might spot my anus and if you look really close you can see the opening of my urethra.
I had to stop reading at that point and laugh, especially as I had gone into this book blind; I got it for free sometime back, and it sat in my To Read pile long enough that I forgot what it was about.
The Pride of Parahumans is a "furries in space" book. How did I end up downloading it, even free? I suspect I must not have read the description closely enough and thought it was just animals. Supposedly it's "hard science fiction," but that was seriously laughable. To keep a lab from being contaminated, they had to wear breathing protection "in case someone breathed too hard." So... regular breathing was okay? A lot of the supposed scientific descriptions ended in "and stuff" which was especially amusing.
And man, the book's science/logic was just so messed up! Some of the furries had pouches. Which come in, um, useful in space:
A peek under her pressure suit would reveal ... a pouch big enough to accommodate an adult human or most parahumans [furries]. Yes, a nice soft pouch modified to seal airtight around a small hose that would supply a distressed miner with oxygen as he calmed down all safe and warm in a secure pocket of flesh.
Then add that to this later description from the main character about being in the pouch:
It was dark, I could feel myself enclosed on all sides in sticky wet mucus and veined flesh.
And:
He yanked me out of the pouch. I burst out in a cloud of mucus.
Yeah. Being in there sure would calm people down...
Add onto all this that the main character used wacky personalized pronouns. "ze" and "zir" instead of he/she and his/her. The character was neuter, so... I suppose there's an excuse that they could be used, but still it just did not work for me. Plus there was a new word for "you" as well. Why? If you're not male or female, it's one thing to not use him/her, but "you" is not gendered. (I know this is a transgender thing, but it just did not work for me in the book.)
Among other annoying things in the book:
While it was set in the distant future, there was so much current day stuff. The Internet existed exactly as it does today. "Open source." Our gun brands/models from today were used. Plus mention of things from the modern day Furry fandom (like Furtopia, some kind of furry site).
At first this book started out so bad it was funny, but then it quickly became just bad-bad. It was short enough that I reached the 50% point before
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no subject
Date: 2016-02-18 04:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-02-18 05:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-02-18 04:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-02-18 05:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-02-18 05:12 pm (UTC)To keep a lab from being contaminated, they had to wear breathing protection "in case someone breathed too hard." So... regular breathing was okay?
It's OK as long as it's laminar breathing (Sorry, cleanroom joke. Couldn't resist. Just ignore me.)
Anyway, even that only makes sense if they're trying to keep out contamination from particles (i.e. general crap like dust motes) and not like microbes or whatever.
A lot of the supposed scientific descriptions ended in "and stuff" which was especially amusing.
LOL. I'm guessing that's code for "I got to the second paragraph of the Wikipedia article on the topic and got bored" :P
no subject
Date: 2016-02-18 05:32 pm (UTC)LOL. I'm guessing that's code for "I got to the second paragraph of the Wikipedia article on the topic and got bored" :P
That's exactly how it came off! "I researched this much, then didn't feel like learning more..."
no subject
Date: 2016-02-18 05:29 pm (UTC)Ze/zir are one set of proposed gender neutral pronouns, but most folks I know who identify as both or neither just stick to they/their; I mostly only see ze (and xe) used in furry communities when referring to a character with "all the trimmings".
no subject
Date: 2016-02-18 05:33 pm (UTC)when referring to a character with "all the trimmings".
Ha! I love that phrasing for it.