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2012 Book Review #96: Zoo City
Title: Zoo City
Author: Lauren Beukes
Genre: Urban fantasy/modern noir
Thingummies: 4.5
Synopsis: In an urban fantasy version of South Africa in which criminals' guilt soul-bonds them to animal familiars, Zinzi December takes a job trying to track down a wayward pop star that quickly drags her deeper into both the music business and the underworld than even she wanted to go.
Thoughts: I loved the premise of this book, as well as the setting, if only because it's so different than anything I've seen before. Oh, we have the damaged-goods narrator with a tragic past and a heart of gold despite herself, who tries to solve what looks like a simple mystery and ends up with the authorities as well as the criminals on her tail. There's a shadowy conspiracy, a problematic romatic entanglement, and an old flame with questionable motives. But setting the noirish story in Beukes' home city of Johannesburg breathes new life into a tired genre. And inventing a new, well-thought-out, and fascinating mythology instead of playing around with the same tired vampire-and-werewolf cliches--sign me up.
The characters are never quite sure of what their animal companions mean, or how they work. We learn what knowledge they do have gradually, through a variety of sources. And you know what? It works. We understand quickly the basics; only slowly the implications. Animals appear after someone commits a monumental crime--most of what we see is murder, but it's left open as to where the exact boundaries fall. They grant their humans magical talents, but cannot be separated from them, and if the animal dies, the human is quickly dissolved in painful and horrific black cloud. No one knows why this started happening, no one's actually sure what it means, but everyone has a theory. We never actually get an answer, but it doesn't actually matter. Like so much of life, there isn't necessarily a reason why this happens; we just have to find a way to deal with it.
The story is very dark, but with flashes of black humor, and the ending is ultimately satisfying even if not a complete victory. For Zinzi to win completely, in her situation, would be implausible.
There are a couple loose threads I never managed to figure out--I'm not sure if some of the early encounters were as random as they seemed, or if I just never understood how the author connected them. Either way, it seems a bit of a flaw. Most of the bits do come together in the end, however, leading to a brilliant, creative, and fast-paced read.
Author: Lauren Beukes
Genre: Urban fantasy/modern noir
Thingummies: 4.5
Synopsis: In an urban fantasy version of South Africa in which criminals' guilt soul-bonds them to animal familiars, Zinzi December takes a job trying to track down a wayward pop star that quickly drags her deeper into both the music business and the underworld than even she wanted to go.
Thoughts: I loved the premise of this book, as well as the setting, if only because it's so different than anything I've seen before. Oh, we have the damaged-goods narrator with a tragic past and a heart of gold despite herself, who tries to solve what looks like a simple mystery and ends up with the authorities as well as the criminals on her tail. There's a shadowy conspiracy, a problematic romatic entanglement, and an old flame with questionable motives. But setting the noirish story in Beukes' home city of Johannesburg breathes new life into a tired genre. And inventing a new, well-thought-out, and fascinating mythology instead of playing around with the same tired vampire-and-werewolf cliches--sign me up.
The characters are never quite sure of what their animal companions mean, or how they work. We learn what knowledge they do have gradually, through a variety of sources. And you know what? It works. We understand quickly the basics; only slowly the implications. Animals appear after someone commits a monumental crime--most of what we see is murder, but it's left open as to where the exact boundaries fall. They grant their humans magical talents, but cannot be separated from them, and if the animal dies, the human is quickly dissolved in painful and horrific black cloud. No one knows why this started happening, no one's actually sure what it means, but everyone has a theory. We never actually get an answer, but it doesn't actually matter. Like so much of life, there isn't necessarily a reason why this happens; we just have to find a way to deal with it.
The story is very dark, but with flashes of black humor, and the ending is ultimately satisfying even if not a complete victory. For Zinzi to win completely, in her situation, would be implausible.
There are a couple loose threads I never managed to figure out--I'm not sure if some of the early encounters were as random as they seemed, or if I just never understood how the author connected them. Either way, it seems a bit of a flaw. Most of the bits do come together in the end, however, leading to a brilliant, creative, and fast-paced read.