RADIANCE

Great book but bad printing/binding issues which ruined my reading experience. Pages are printed slanted. Sad.

The content of the book is excellent, and I enjoyed it greatly.But, the paperback is of a pretty low quality. My copy arrived already smudged and greasy as if it were used, and many pages were printed on a slant with portions of words cut off on either side. In other instances, letters would appear out of line with a sentence, or even missing altogether. Disappointing!

I loved the premise of this book -- a space-opera-type mystery set in an alternate reality where silent movies have never given way to talkies, and movie stars hop between our solar system's planets -- but had a tough time getting my bearings in the first couple of chapters. Fortunately I kept going and as the story progressed and all the threads converged I fell completely under its spell. This turned out to be one of those books that I immediately wanted to pick up and re-read, to catch what I missed the first time.

I wanted to like Radiance. I understand the nostalgia for a solar system of princesses on Mars, and lush tropical wonderlands on Venus. The rocky, barren wastes revealed by space probes can represent something of a loss.While Radiance has great qualities, I did find it hard work. The story flits about in style, format and point of view. I could see that the story was about our everyday viewpoint colliding with the vastness that lies beyond. Other-worldly animals and plants had familiar names to cover up their weirdness. I got the point there, which did not make the story any easier to follow.As part of the idea that people take their own viewpoint out into strange places, Radiance has many references to travellers carrying familiar stories with them into space. But although the story of Radiance uses all kinds of easily recognised genres, it somehow lacks a familiar pattern. In an adventure story there is usually some mundane home that people leave behind. Dorothy leaves Kansas for Oz, for example. I mention the Wizard of Oz because there are a number of allusions to Kansas in Radiance. But the people mentioning Kansas don’t seem to know where it is. They certainly don’t know how to get there. Dorothy’s home remains an arty metaphor. Maybe that’s why I felt lost. There was no Kansas. Everywhere seemed to be Oz.At one stage in the book someone says: “Something has to be real. Something real has to anchor the magic.” I would say this is very true, and sums up what Radiance was lacking.Radiance is a brave effort and beautifully written, but I was rather glad to get to the end.

So, imagine that at around the time George Melies filmed A Trip to the Moon, we actually discovered space travel. And all the planets--the moon, Venus, Neptune, Mars, etc--were habitable. And unlike A Trip to the Moon, no one lived on these planets but giant callowhales, and these whales produced milk that facilitated our ability to live on these planets, though no one knows what these callowhales are.Okay, then imagine that silent films are considered so artistic that films are produced primarily without sound, and also in black and white.Now put yourself in the Hollywood, film-noir mentality. An Orson Welles movie, perhaps.Meet Severin. She’s the daughter of a famous gothic film director, and has always grown up under the spotlight as a beloved film icon. She becomes a documentarian, traveling the stars and making her own films. Her fifth film—The Radiant Car Thy Sparrows Drew—explores a city that’s disappeared on Venus, and a child that circles the city. She and her crew travel to Venus, begin filming.And then she disappears.Told through scripts, gossip columns, interviews, and a fictional first-person detective, Radiance explores the impact of Severin’s disappearance on those who loved her, as well as the history of a person who’s always been in the limelight. As always, Valente’s writing is mesmerizing and unique, and I’m awed by her ability to capture so many different tones. Radiance is her first science fiction novel (she has several sci-fi short stories, one of which was the jumping off point for this novel), and it combines the pulp aesthetic of 1950s sci-fi with postmodern storytelling strategies.This is a book that’s meant to be read fast. If you let too much time go by between reading, you’ll miss connections. It wasn’t until about halfway through that I realized what was going on with some of the parts, and I went back to reread so I could make sure I was following! But it’s utterly unique and beautiful. For sci-fi, fantasy, and film fans, you should absolutely read this.

I did not like this book, or did I? To be honest I am not sure. I read this as an eBook and Kindle and I must advise you not to do the same. I had to keep checking the timeline at the front of the book to position the chapter I was reading in context. This would have been much easier with a paper book. The layout of the book itself is somewhat novel (excuse the pun), as we read of scraps of film, interviews, meetings, memoirs and travelogues, with which to try to piece together the disappearance of our lead character Severin.I wanted to love this book. The idea of storytelling in the Golden Age of Science Fiction, where Venus was jungle and Mars a desert plant and Pluto a cold and lonely place enthralled me. There is no question of doubt that Ms Valente can write. Her prose is well written, descriptive and rich language. Yet the first third of the book is not engrossing. Several times I was tempted to call it a day (most unlike me), but I persevered and came to enjoy individual chapters, but did not feel caught up in the book. I loved the environments Valente created with a scientific background which had moved at different speeds with different technologies than our own has. Overall I believe that she has striven to deliver something different and for that must be applauded. As an enjoyable read, however, it has not succeeded for me. Many think differently and for that reason this may be the book for you.