4thace reviewed Making of Incarnation by Tom McCarthy
Review of 'Making of Incarnation' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
You can see how the author spent considerable effort doing the research behind this book, with wave talks and video motion capture and academic papers along with conferences and passages about digital telemetry. All these things combine to push out the other things a reader usually looks for in a novel: characters, a story with a purpose, personal stakes. The individual vignettes are told with some care, with rising actions and generally some kind of climax, but then we switch to another set piece without any linking transition and just repeat the process. There is a plot point regarding the enigma of "Box 808" that is intended to keep you going in hopes that it will turn up towards the end. I don't think this really worked, however. There is jargon and explanation of abstract concepts mixed in with arch dialogue, a couple love stories sketched out, and dark hints …
You can see how the author spent considerable effort doing the research behind this book, with wave talks and video motion capture and academic papers along with conferences and passages about digital telemetry. All these things combine to push out the other things a reader usually looks for in a novel: characters, a story with a purpose, personal stakes. The individual vignettes are told with some care, with rising actions and generally some kind of climax, but then we switch to another set piece without any linking transition and just repeat the process. There is a plot point regarding the enigma of "Box 808" that is intended to keep you going in hopes that it will turn up towards the end. I don't think this really worked, however. There is jargon and explanation of abstract concepts mixed in with arch dialogue, a couple love stories sketched out, and dark hints of dirty dealing, but these seem as though they could have been dropped in as ornamentation, not carrying any real lasting significance each.
I listened to the audiobook version, which probably is what got me through this long production. I know I ought to give the UK narrator some slack for his 15th hours of hard work producing this, but every time he said the name "Purdue" (as in the Midwest university) with stress on the first syllable I simply had to cringe a little. Oh well.