From the Bookshelf of The Sword and Laser…

Elysium

Jennifer Marie Brissett

Start date: August 1, 2020

Finish date: August 31, 2020

Discussion: Elysium

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Elysium

* Ely: August 2020 Pick Elysium by Jennifer Marie Brissett
By Rob , Roberator · 28 posts · 258 views

last updated Aug 02, 2020 04:35PM

ELY: This was a pretty dark book to read during troubled times
By Matthew · 6 posts · 70 views

last updated Oct 10, 2020 03:38PM

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What Members Thought

Aug 09, 2020 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it really liked it

Shelves: sword-and-laser, audiobook, sci-fi-fantasy, post-apocalypse-and-dystopia, read2020, hoopla, 2020-laser

This is the August pick for Sword and Laser and I polished it off while I cleaned the house. The problem is I can't really discuss this book without spoiling it so I will say it is unique, has apocalypse and broken code, and that's as vague as I can go. I found it in hoopla from the public library and can't wait to go post spoilery discussion in the Goodreads threads!

...more

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Aug 25, 2020 Leesa rated it really liked it

Shelves: bookclub-pick, audiobook, 20xx_s-l_team_tom, 2020

I thought the narration was very good. This book has me thinking about love, identity, colonialism, and appropriation.

2 likes · Like · see review

Aug 08, 2020 Matthew rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audio-book

Sometimes you lose. Sometimes you lose everything.

This was a pretty heavy book. I am going to put that right out front with this review. If you are in the midst of mid-2020 and everything around you is depressing and stressful, then this may not be the most ideal book for you to pickup right now.

I am going to have a tough time trying to review this, as it is extremely difficult to try and explain this book without giving it away. Think of it this way. A story has a beginning, a middle and an e Sometimes you lose. Sometimes you lose everything.

This was a pretty heavy book. I am going to put that right out front with this review. If you are in the midst of mid-2020 and everything around you is depressing and stressful, then this may not be the most ideal book for you to pickup right now.

I am going to have a tough time trying to review this, as it is extremely difficult to try and explain this book without giving it away. Think of it this way. A story has a beginning, a middle and an end. That narrative timeline is progressing through this book, front to back. All the while the characters, their relationship and even the time/place that the story is occurring in change with each section of the narrative. The crux of the narrative is about the relationship between Adrian and Anton. Who those two are though is never the same. Sometimes they are siblings, other times lovers? Sometimes their gender changes, other times the time and place that they are living in changes.

Through it all though it is about their relationship as the world around them is metaphorically and physically destroyed.

This book embodies what I really enjoy most about SciFi novels. It challenges the reader. It challenges the reader on multiple levels about their beliefs, about how they view the world, perhaps even in this case what they think a narrative format should be.

I have a few minor gripes about some of the writing. Often times the vignettes were not always clear. There is one for example midway through the book were our main characters are part of a religious order, wearing white and tending to a flame. I had no idea the context or time of this society. Was it modern? In the near future? Somewhere in the past? That issue came up several times for me.

The book in the end will most likely not leave you satisfied. You do not get a good explanation of everything that occurred or an understanding of what from the story was "real" and what was manifested from the story being told. I think that was the point, but it does leave me as the reading wanting a few final sentences to tie it all up. ...more

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