It wasn't particularly suspenseful, mysterious, or surprising. It was, in fact, quite predictable. Yet it was also f I received this as part of my Brilliant Books subscription, and I must confess to a moment of dread and doubt when I opened the box.
Yet it was also fun and adventurous. I liked the complexity of the characters, their nuanced morality. I enjoyed rooting for them. In particular, I enjoyed rooting for two people on opposite sides of one another. All in all, it was a fun, light read. Nothing taxing, but rather a rollicking adventure. I normally don't write reviews here for items that I am supposed to review for LJ, but I do want to add that the synopsis that GoodReads has listed is incorrect.
This is not about "the bastard daughter of Harry Houdini" or a "map of the Other Side". That does sound very intriguing, but those items are not anywhere in this particular book. Review to follow in the Library Journal. View all 4 comments. Jun 11, Alex Sarll added it. Rajaniemi's Jean le Flambeur trilogy was a marvel; tricksy, baroque post-singularity space opera, and as such exactly the sort of thing I was always likely to love. His first novel outside that It's set in an alternate where, four decades earlier, scientists made irrefutable contact with the afterlife.
So the Great War was won with ectotanks and flyers, people channelling the energy of the dead - and now, the battle between the Republicans and Franco looks set to draw the great pow Rajaniemi's Jean le Flambeur trilogy was a marvel; tricksy, baroque post-singularity space opera, and as such exactly the sort of thing I was always likely to love. So the Great War was won with ectotanks and flyers, people channelling the energy of the dead - and now, the battle between the Republicans and Franco looks set to draw the great powers into conflict once more.
Except that here, with Germany more thoroughly crushed, it's Britain backing Franco - something which makes a horrible kind of sense when you consider that the erosion of the boundary between living and dead mean the older generation need never relinquish control, so Victoria and her contemporaries are still pulling the strings from behind an increasingly tattered veil.
Which, yes, on one level is a good way to prod at the increasing feeling of our own younger generations that their predecessors aren't getting out of the way, that we're all suffering through an unending baby boomer purgatory.
And yet. A little 'Oh, those guys. Surely it would make more sense either to do that for everyone, or none of them? The other problem, and this is probably going to affect fewer readers, is that the whole set-up reminds me a bit too much of Wraith: The Oblivion - the none-more-goth nineties roleplaying game for people who didn't find Vampire quite morbid enough.
The way that there exist cities in the afterlife, but ones replicating and in some ways amplifying the inequities of the living world. The abyss beyond and beneath that world, the living realm above it. The gradual fading of spirits without anchors, the way that old souls become the stuff of the realm so that prosperity is literally built from the souls of the dispossessed Worse, once you've hit on that, the big reveals become very easy to predict.
But as against the way that Wraith made everything sound suitably portentous, here it all feels a bit tickety-boo, the mid-century British jauntiness robbing the whole idea of much mystery. Yes, the term 'Spooks' for posthumous spies was probably inevitable, but the fact that the favoured are assured of their post-mortem integrity by possession of a 'Ticket' I'm sure this is at least in part deliberate - an intentional move to show how capitalism can rob the world, and here even the next world, of its magic and mystery.
And yet, to return to the RPG comparison, it makes me think less of the Spectacle's sins, and more of the sort of system where the players game the magic system for effect, without ever feeling the faintest touch of mystery.
Fundamentally, though, I think my problem is that I was just too in love with how free-floating and wide-ranging the Flambeur books were. An Earthbound story about mid-twentieth-century people was always going to be more constricted, both by research and by the manners of the time.
There's more research to hold everything back though not without very occasional glitches - I find the idea of a s Brit saying "My husband - he has some issues" implausibly anachronistic, though of course this might be one of those times when we think a phrase arrived later than it did. And yes, on one level, I respect Rajaniemi for not just plugging away at that same thing we know he can do, forever. But on the other I think I expected something more like that. Whereas this feels a little too much like the substitute of his non-M books.
Still, if you're more into mid-twentieth-century spy thrillers than I am, I imagine this would be considerably more satisfactory. The way in which the body image of the deceased can falter at times of stress, so suddenly they show the injury that killed them, or themselves as a child And the logic games at the story's thematic heart, the notion that "if you started with a contradiction, you could prove anything" This is by no means a disaster.
But for my own tastes, and compared to that magisterial debut trilogy, it is a disappointment. Quick coat of paint, some fake ears, and "No, this is definitely a Labrador, that famously trusting breed. Jul 13, Bee rated it really liked it Shelves: audiobook , speculative-fiction. I have been deeply impressed with everything he's written. This is dark and mature story of loss and duty. A very strange world between the living and the dead, and a rather good spy vs spy story that unfolds.
I can't really say why I loved it so much, but it was a superb story that i finished in very few sittings. The joy of Covid Lock Down I guess 4. The joy of Covid Lock Down I guess Jun 26, Oleksandr Zholud rated it liked it Shelves: hnovel-longlist. This is an alt-history novel, where afterlife is not only real, but is able to communicate with our reality. I was impressed with the latter, but with this one — not so much. It is interesting to note that the book was published in , when a book with the similar time period and similar importance of souls albeit in as different way , namely Witchmark.
It is and British Empire not only covers the globe but has a foothold This is an alt-history novel, where afterlife is not only real, but is able to communicate with our reality. It is and British Empire not only covers the globe but has a foothold in underworld, called Summerland. The Afterlife is real, but to get there in full mental capacity one needs a Ticket, which gives access to a kind of virtual energy to keep consciousness together. Enter Mrs.
She wants to prove her rightness by any means necessary. And now we have little Tombs everywhere, his eyes, watching everything. He is a sterner father than the Tsar ever was. And when we die, we become Him.
I have served our radiant Father too well. I was chosen by the Immortalization Commission to return home and to undergo the Termin Procedure, to merge my meagre soul with that of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.
An honour beyond measure. While the novel is well written, characters are interesting, it is more or less a quick read without striking new ideas. The world is described only as much as needed for the story, so simplifications rule the day but worsen my personal experience.
Fantasy, spies, Victorian spiritualism and the afterlife, set in a very alternate Great writing, a strong female character, and world building that may be a bit too deep. Also, way too many blurbs on the cover! One of those blurbs mentions spies that don't die, which is partially true. The worlds here are our world, Summerland or the Summer Court a spirit world which is largely British?
A ticket is required for entry into Fantasy, spies, Victorian spiritualism and the afterlife, set in a very alternate A ticket is required for entry into Summerland how British!
So spies who die with a ticket can end up in Summerland, and can continue to spy, kind-of. If this paragraph seemed confusing, that matches some of the book. This is Rajaniemi's first standalone novel after a very successful series starting with the Quantum Thief. I loved the writing, though I had some trouble following the world.
I got the idea that some of the names involved were people I should know. Maybe there is a guide out there connecting the dots. I picked this up in Helsinki last year, and the first two chapters were both excellent introductions to the two main characters. For me, the quality fell off in later chapters - or maybe that was confusion. Sep 09, Charlotte rated it liked it Shelves: release. I'm extremely confused by what's going on with this book.
There's some interesting if incomplete worldbuilding, but the plot manages to be mostly unsurprising and kind of dull. The political reality also makes no sense - either in the sense of domestic or global politics.
It reads like there were some great ideas here that just didn't cohere into a book. For a book with such a big scope, Summerland just feels too small. It's like there are only fifteen real people in the world. This is the kind I'm extremely confused by what's going on with this book. This is the kind of book where a character can walk into a famous members' club and immediately stumble across the one person they desperately needed to see. Everything seems to take place in an extremely narrow slice of England - mostly London, with a few places in the home counties thrown in.
Even the portions of Summerland that we see are functionally the same as Whitehall. We see about five seconds of action on the front in the Iberian Peninsula, and that's it. Oh, and Rachel, the main character, grew up in India. She's called Rachel White and she's very pale she refers to her pale complexion as her "best feature" at one point and this thought is not like, examined in any way India is mentioned a handful of times, mostly as somewhere with better weather than England, or through Rachel's childhood nanny, who talked to her of spiritual things.
That's about it, for India, though. In this book, it's a faraway warm place and it smells of spices. I'm not saying this book is uncritical about the British Empire. But its criticisms look inwards. They focus on the crumbling nature of the white male patriarchy that runs the intelligence agencies, and not that much else. It's a book trying to be about big, expansive, almost global matters. But all it cares about is England. Even Russia is just a faraway place where Lenin once lived, and which occasionally snares British agents and turns them with the promise of all-knowing typewriters and the promise of your spirit one day becoming part of God.
All of this means that I never felt that the war in Spain was real and not just some theoretical bargaining chip that would bend to the exact will of whichever faction won control of it.
In this world, too, Germany conveniently has nothing going on. For the story to make sense, the UK and the Soviet Union are the only world powers that matter. I am unconvinced. I can believe in a fictional world where Victorian spiritualism is real. I found H. West very interesting but don't know enough about H.
Wells to get as much out of his inclusion as some readers will. I think it's plain that Rajaniemi enjoyed writing him because he's written with a lot of kindness and empathy that shine through small details that are used to build a picture of him and his life - and we don't necessarily always see those for all of the other characters, although for the most part I thought that Rachel and Peter were both handled well. Or they involved Rachel and her pet birds. Rajaniemi's prose is mostly pretty good, and at times I really enjoyed reading this.
It's just a shame I also spent a lot of the time frustrated. Rajaniemi can write! He can write thrilling action scenes and affecting small moments and he can create characters I care about. Jun 04, Kiera rated it really liked it Shelves: sci-fi , historical-fiction , advance-reader-copies.
Set in an alternate , the Spanish Civil War is heating up and Britain has discovered a way to communicate with and preserve consciousness in the afterlife, called Summerland. Britain maintains spy agencies in both the worlds of the living and the dead — the Winter and Summer Courts — enabling them to gather intelligence and influence events on the Spanish front from both sides.
Rachel White is a Winter Court living agent who has been constantly overlooked due to her gender but gets a lead on a Soviet mole in Summerland, only to be demoted when she reveals it. However, Rachel is not done with chasing down the mole, even if she has to revert to less than above board measures to achieve it. The action scenes are well done, but the key scenes are much more likely to be a group of characters in a room lying to each other which is just as great.
The highlight here, really, is Summerland itself. Rajaniemi has put a lot of love into thinking about and developing this world and it shows. From the ticket system, to the fourth compass directionality, to the weird alien structures that lose shape when not maintained, to the Fading phenomenon, and the elaborate ecto- and spiritualist mechanisms used to allow communication between Summerland and the land of the living.
And this is without even going near the military elements! This book requires you to pay attention: the world is detailed, the politics are tricky enough to almost be real, and the double-agent spy-on-spy narrative is layered on top of the lot of it. The main characters are both flawed, but relatable — their present contest with one another is supported by extensive reflective passages showing their lives up to this point and giving the reader a better sense of who they are and why their cause matters to them.
The argument is pretty compelling both ways. Summerland is on the literary end of the sci-fi bell curve, but well worth the time. View 2 comments. May 17, Mike rated it really liked it Shelves: netgalley.
Some points in this review could be considered plot spoilers, though they emerge early enough in the book that I don't think of them as such, but more part of the premise. I sampled this author's Quantum Thief , but bounced off it because it was both very high-concept and in a setting with a lot of new things in it that aren't immediately explained.
This one is high-concept, but the setting is more understandable: the world of British espionage in an alternate s, in which Lodge and Marconi h Some points in this review could be considered plot spoilers, though they emerge early enough in the book that I don't think of them as such, but more part of the premise.
This one is high-concept, but the setting is more understandable: the world of British espionage in an alternate s, in which Lodge and Marconi have discovered a way to talk to the dead and to help people who die to remain conscious on the Other Side. There's a rivalry in Britain between the dead spies of the Summer Court and the live ones of the Winter Court. Lenin has formed the core of a powerful collective dead consciousness in the Soviet Union known as the Presence, and Stalin, exiled, is trying to undermine the Communists throughout Europe without exactly selling out to the West.
There are lots of double agents, including the illegitimate son of the Prime Minister - the PM in question being fairly obviously based on H. It's skillfully done, and threads the difficult needle of having disillusioned, unhappy characters who still strive to be better, or to do something worthwhile. That helped me to relate to them as protagonists. They inhabited a grey world, but not a completely hopeless or pointless one.
One of the main characters was the PM's illegitimate son, already mentioned; the other was a female agent who had been consistently passed over and not taken seriously because of her gender. When she discovers from a Russian defector that the PM's son has been turned, nobody believes her, and she has to decide who she can trust to help her bring him down.
Cue lots of complicated maneuvering and spycraft, along with some original worldbuilding around the concept of the conscious dead. The plot managed to be complex and yet comprehensible, another thing that's hard to do. Overall, both impressive and enjoyable. I received a copy from Netgalley for review. I am a big fan of twisty, turny narratives—of complicated science fiction and fantasy that demands much from the reader to keep up. Unfortunately, I found Summerland rather disappointing in that even by the end of the novel, I was struggling to figure out precisely what was going on and who was doing it.
The characters were interesting—I at least liked the idea of a woman struggling in a boys' club of spies—but some details bothered me—for instance, Rachel being from India but described as fair seemed like a forced and failed attempt at diversity in a British population.
I think, in the end, that the flaws come down to pacing and the mechanics of world-building on page. There are parts of the world conceptualization that are fascinating: the ways that spirits can enter the human world through mediums, or the mechanics of meetings between the Summer Court and Winter Court spies.
Most interesting were the philosophical questions Peter Bloom poses through his history: if people can run their businesses from beyond the grave, and continue to talk to their children, does death mean anything?
And if dying is no longer final, then will people still live their lives well? Will governments continue to invest in health research, or will they just make sure that the proper people have a ticket when they get ill so that they can die and cross over?
Jun 29, Zandt McCue rated it it was amazing. Hannu Rajaniemi is a writer whose works are fun to read because of his technical brilliance. I will admit upfront that this is only the second novel of his that I have read. Many years ago, multiple people suggested the Jean le Flambeur novels to me. I was astounded by the Quantum Thief and excited to read the rest of the series. I fooled myself into believing I could trust myself to jump around to other books and eventually the rest of the series ended up on my never-ending stack of things to g Hannu Rajaniemi is a writer whose works are fun to read because of his technical brilliance.
I fooled myself into believing I could trust myself to jump around to other books and eventually the rest of the series ended up on my never-ending stack of things to get to.
Not every story you read in life will stay with you, but The Quantum Thief is still as vivid to me as it was hundreds of books ago. That's how memorable Hannu Rajaniemi's writing is. Summerland is often compared to Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy which is a movie I haven't seen and a book that bored me enough to not finish. I would love to give it another go someday but haven't been encouraged every time my eyes scan the titles of my to-be-read.
Summerland has sat in that pile for quite some time. After reading three terrible digital review copies in a row I found myself picking a book by random to pull me out of the funk and Summerland was the winner.
It is classic Rajaniemi. Maybe I'm not qualified to say that just yet but he is a writer whose readers tend to agree about his strengths.
That being said, Sometimes his writing can be a bit dense. If you are looking for something breezy and lighthearted I wouldn't suggest this as too casual. Remember, Rajaniemi is a sci-fi writer. If you want an example, how many of us know what the word Quantum actually means? He has a Ph. Summerland is absolutely a Rajaniemi novel to the fullest extent.
The story is set in A meeting with a Russian defector takes a wrong turn and right before murdering himself he decides to reveal to Rachel the identity of a mole in the agency. This seems to be the controversial aspect of the novel reviewers complain about.
Most of them from what I've read discuss how a spy novel should develop into you learning the identity of the mole. By naming him in the first chapter you lose your chance to tell a thrilling story of discovery and back and forth action. Atop that table sits a rotary phone, completely unplugged. The walls and carpet are uncomfortably plain, the camera in the corner not helping with that discomfort. After a few moments, the unbearable silence is finally broken by the ringing of the rotary phone.
There's nothing left for you to do but answer the call. Summerland is a first-person narrative game developed by high school student Conner Rush. You take the role of an ill detective named Matthew as you relive the events of his recent past, all the while being questioned on your moral stances. With themes heavily revolving around ethical philosophy and the afterlife, Summerland is sure to be a unique gameplay experience.
Summerland includes: - An engrossing and intriguing 1. This is Conner. I just wanted to say that this game was very much made as a way to deal with some really intense existential fears of death. This was just sort of my way of coping with those big ideas. Even if those fears or how personal this game is to me isn't very apparent in your playthrough, just know that it's a project that really meant a lot to me and made me feel a bit of comfort.
I hope that if you struggle with these same fears, you'll find comfort in it as well. These are not claimed to be original work. See all. Customer reviews. Overall Reviews:. Review Type. All 1, Positive 1, Negative All 1, Steam Purchasers 0 Other 1, All Languages 1, Your Languages 1, Customize. Date Range. To view reviews within a date range, please click and drag a selection on a graph above or click on a specific bar. Show graph. Brought to you by Steam Labs. Rideout, the pitcher for the Roosters, tells him that's "Not going to happen.
Feld is kidnapped by Coyote the Trickster, and Ethan, Jennifer and Thor Wignutt, another Clam Island Rooster who sometimes goes by the android name TW03, are taken scampering by the werefox Cutbelly among the branches of the world-spanning Tree Yggdrasil , in all but name , on a desperate quest to rescue Mr. Feld, and almost incidentally to avert Ragged Rock, the prophesied end of everything. The details of their quest are Ethan learns how to play baseball from its inventors, the ferishers don't call them faerie and the whole book comes crashing to a very satisfying and cathartic crescendo.
Happily ever after is, while not really a possibility, certainly hinted at. As a father, Chabon knows what will hit home. I was unable to read this antepenultimate paragraph to my daughter without breaking The truth of some promises is not as important as whether or not you can believe in them, with all your heart. A game of baseball can't really make a summer day last forever. A home run can't really heal all the broken places in our world, or in a single human heart.
And there was no way that Mr. Feld could keep his promise never to leave Ethan again. All parents leave their children one day. View all 4 comments. Sep 07, jeremy rated it really liked it Shelves: fiction. View all 6 comments. Feb 04, Jonathan rated it really liked it. This is a story about three kids on a journey through four different worlds trying to save the universe. Along the way, they meet a lot of fantastical creatures, and play a lot of baseball.
And yet, I read the whole book and enjoyed it. May 29, Donna rated it it was ok Shelves: challenge , wagonsho , may This book was ok. I had a really hard time keeping interested in it. There were some parts that were interesting but they were few and so far apart. I doubt that I will read more by this author.
I guess if I were eleven years old, this book would've been alright But, coming from a Pulitzer-winning author, I was kinda expecting a page kids' fantasy novel to be at least moderately entertaining for adults as well.
Chabon's prose is excellent, but he tries too hard to be quirky; and, therefore, the story never really sucks you in the way it's supposed to because nearly everything that happens in the plot feels random and silly. I like the idea of mixing baseball and fantasy together, but Chabon's take on it just feels way too highly contrived.
May 15, Von rated it it was amazing Recommends it for: everyone. Shelves: sheer-brilliance , classicsworthreading , brilliance , biscuits-and-gravy , unabashedunapologetictruth. That's how all the demon virtues-patience, deception, quick hands, craftiness, an eye for the mistakes of others-they all got dragged deep into the game.
You know the feeling you get when you start reading something and internally you're going, "yeah, what he said, uhhuh, yup, oh yeah" and you "They traded in their hell-hammers for bats, and their iron slippers for lace-up leather spikes. You know the feeling you get when you start reading something and internally you're going, "yeah, what he said, uhhuh, yup, oh yeah" and you realize that there's at least one other being on the planet who gets it whatever "it" may be and it's kinda like relief, giddy grinning happiness and contentment all at the same time?
From page 1 until the cover closed my friends. Even if you don't like baseball, or giants or fairies or fantasy or folk tales It was so good I took my time, laughed out loud in parts, fair near cried at others.
Apr 15, Woodge rated it did not like it Shelves: fantasy , adventure , reading-aloud. The description sounds good, eh?
I read this aloud to the kids. About a hundred pages in I started having misgivings. I did not enjoy this book. But the kids would've been out of sorts had I not finished it they'll listen to almost anything. I don't really have anything good to say about this book. For the record, my wife really enjoyed it. Here's what I didn't like about it: a the writing style: too The description sounds good, eh?
Here's what I didn't like about it: a the writing style: too flowery; hard to read aloud; choppy sentences that went all over the place b the story: take a bunch of folklore, myth, and baseball and mix it all up into a miasmic stew.
And I couldn't follow it very well. New things seemed to be added willy-nilly. Tangents would shoot off in mid-sentence so that I'd lose track of what the subject was supposed to be. Didn't get any sense of suspense either. The climax was anti. I hated this. Read the 1-star reviews on Amazon, they're spot on. Nov 27, Sarah rated it it was amazing Shelves: speculative-fiction , fairy-tale-myth-fable , favorites.
I loved this book. It had a kind of Neil Gaiman-y take on myth. I love books that explore myth or archtypes in a modern context, but this was a really good example. I have to admit the characters were far more likeable and accessible to me than many of Gaiman's characters. I enjoy baseball but I can't say I'm a big baseball fan' this really conveyed a sense of what the true fans see in it.
I haven't read Chabon's works other I loved this book. Mar 29, Tiffany rated it really liked it. Listened to this with the kids on the road to New York--I'd listened to it on my own years ago, and have waited for the time when they were old enough, into baseball enough, etc.
I bought it for other kids. Best of all possibles. Chabon does well reading, too, even with such a long book 12 discs. Don't know how old you have to be to read it in paper; I keep buying it in paper and then giving it away before I t Listened to this with the kids on the road to New York--I'd listened to it on my own years ago, and have waited for the time when they were old enough, into baseball enough, etc.
Don't know how old you have to be to read it in paper; I keep buying it in paper and then giving it away before I try. I keep telling the kids and parents--"They might not be ready for it yet They WILL like it. The compendium of mythologies here is outstanding, and the really big questions about pain and life's meaning and change and culture are wonderful.
I'm also interested in the way this work, like, say, Karen Russell's work, or maybe even John Darnielle's, has a spiritual longing to it, along with enough shibbolethy awareness of messianic-type religious traditions to be among the more sensitive treatments.
Highly recommend. Jul 21, Joanna Vaught rated it it was ok. Aug 23, James F rated it liked it. I chose the novel by Michael Chabon because I enjoyed his adult novel Moonglow a few years back; it was a complex book with interesting subject matter.
This children's book is of course much simpler with a traditional narrative structure; it is essentially a typical middle grade fantasy in which a group of eleven-year-olds a Little League baseball team save the universe from supernatural evil. The villain is called "Coyote" and is the trickster figure of Native American legend, but also identified with the Norse Loki.
In fact, the book seemed to me to a combination of Norse mythology and Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials , with a good deal of baseball. Not really what interests me, but the story was fast-paced and consistent and would probably be a good read for someone of the appropriate age.
Nov 11, Terry Brooks rated it it was amazing. Summerland came out a couple of years ago, a young adult novel by prize winning writer Michael Chabon. I bought it because I like the author's other work, and I was intrigued by the baseball aspect of the structure. Basically, it is an end of the world story in which baseball plays a role in not only daily life but in the possibility of salvation. It sounds weird, and it is - which made it all the more interesting to me. A boy who can't hit or field becomes our best hope in a struggle with dark Summerland came out a couple of years ago, a young adult novel by prize winning writer Michael Chabon.
A boy who can't hit or field becomes our best hope in a struggle with dark elements working to poison the tree of life at the end of the world. A ragtag bunch of kids, strange fairy folk and a flying car set out on a journey in which baseball is constantly being played against all sorts of odd teams on the way. If you don't like baseball or magic, this book isn't for you. I thought it was pretty clever and entertaining. You decide.
Sep 13, Christopher rated it did not like it Shelves: fantasy , children-s-lit. This book does not read like a children's book. It reads like a book for adults trying to recreate the feeling of a children's book. That is why it seems patronizing and artificial and riddled with cliches.
At this point any novel that features the "magical elderly black man" trope should be condemned. Earlier writers could be excused but welcome to the 21st century. Oct 16, Mir rated it really liked it Shelves: fantasy , parallel-dimensions. The pace is a bit slow, but that seems to fit because the story is about baseball. Also multidimensionality and the eternal fight of good against evil.
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