Reading By Candlelight

I recognized the authors name and it was a New York Times bestseller, I was expecting a decent scifi read. I will mention straight away this wasn’t the case.

Set far in the future with locations such as habitats in space, on the moon and earth, the lead characters an ex-military chap called Dr. Richard Ames and his mysterious wife Gwen Novak…… what happens? Well there is murder…maybe not, a setup…possibly….getting married…going on the run….looking after somone, sex, fights, artificial intelligence, travel through space and time travel. Plus plenty more besides!

So why didn’t I find this book thrilling?

I found most the dialogue boring, stretched out and took away from what could have been an interesting plot. I couldn’t help but feel the pace was wrong and often at times issues of sexuality and responsibility in the (perhaps even trying to educate the reader) future blurring the storyline further. Often I felt the future needs a cold shower, the sexual tension was so extreme.

The lead characters should have been exciting, the dialogue interesting at first, soon became tiring. The secondary characters I often found annoying, not believable and on occasion another layer contributing to the failure of this book.

The title of the book ‘The Cat Who Walks through walls’ was misleading, there was a cat in the book who could walk through walls….towards the end, playing a minor role. So minor, so pointless, unworthy to be the title. Perhaps I’m missing some reference?

I wanted this book to excel, I should of given up after the first 50 pages, but I struggled to the end. I hate writing this negative review, I hate the book also.

Such a famous name in the scifi literature world, though I’ve not yet read his other works. I presume I shouldn’t let this one book stop me, but I might.

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