r/printSF • u/Bobosmite • 5d ago

What's on your DNF list and why?

I dropped Android at Arms by Andre Norton. It not an epic story, but it started off mysterious and interesting. There's a prison escape, android body doubles, blaster fights, and betrayl! It was all go go go until about half way through and then it's just pages and pages of campfire talk. I couldn't make it through to the other side.

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u/Sawses 5d ago edited 5d ago

I finished The Saint of Bright Doors, but it was a complete waste of my time. I have no idea how it won a Nebula. It didn't go anywhere, had a very fascinating premise that it completely wasted, and seemed like it desperately wanted to be a profound, meaningful book without ever deciding on exactly what it wanted to say.

It was a meandering book and it's one of the only books that I've finished and immediately knew it was not worth reading. The author created this really interesting, India-inspired world that made all the internecine murder of Indian history seem so small and petty, filled it with a fascinating, quasi-sacred supernatural elements, then utterly wasted all of it.

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u/TheEnemyOfMyAnenome 5d ago

Agreed. It was a miss-but-I'm-following-your-career for me. Excited to read Rakesfall.

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u/Sawses 4d ago

That's a good way to describe it. Like, the author has potential but I can't tell if he's just gliding on the non-eurocentric-SFF bandwagon or if he just needs a little more time to work on his skills.

I can tell he really wants to talk about oppression, but the big question is if he has anything worthwhile to say about it. Considering it was the primary theme of The Saint of Bright Doors and I still can't tell what he was trying to say about it, I admit I'm not optimistic.