Ugg reviewed this title
on this very blog a few weeks ago. Now my lengthier and more considered, though markedly less to-the-point, review of this same title
is up at the Arc Blog. Go, check it out.
Mind you, verisimilitude is more than just a matter of what flints people used to scrape animal hides with. It has a larger, we could say ideological component to it as well. And, slaver-Northmen aside, everybody in the book is nice. This is a point worth dilating upon, since it’s part of Robinson’s writerly modus operandi, and may have something to do with his Marmite reputation amongst readers. (To be clear: I love KSR with a genuine passion, but I know folk who do not.) Loon, through whom most of this story is filtered, is an immensely likeable individual: resourceful, charismatic, brave and enduring. But then, everybody in his tribe is nice. One of the men admits to forcing sex on his wife whether she’s in the mood or not, and all the other men are immediately and vocally horrified with him. Women are to be respected, not objectified! It’s a commendable sentiment, although I wonder how pre-historically accurate it is. KSR’s position seems to be: the default setting of humankind is basically nice. He believes that, statistical outliers aside, we all basically want to get along, to not hurt other people, to live in balance. His last novel, the marvellous 2312, is like this too: its human characters are various and multitudinous, and some have “attitude”, but all are pretty nice, deep down, and that niceness - the capacity for collective work towards a common goal, the tendency not to oppress or exploit - is common to almost all the characters Robinson has written. His creations almost always lack inner cruelty, or mere unmotivated spitefulness, which may be a good thing. I’m not saying he’s wrong about human nature, either; although it is more my wish than my belief.
Also: raw bear penis. Mentioned not once, but twice!
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