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A selection of my post-apocalyptic book club. The Silent History was apparently initially published as an online, 'interactive' serial. Perhaps the transition to novel format did not serve it well; but I had a few issues with the book. The idea itself is interesting: children start being born who, while not mentally deficient in other respects, lack the capacity for language. The storytelling device is borrowed from World War Z: a documentarian is supposedly interviewing a number of different ch...
Review also available on my blog.I was provided an ARC by the publisher via netgalley.com.It took me three weeks to get through the first half of this book. The story is told in such a slow manner that it hardly could keep my attention. To be fair, the story of the epidemic silence taking over humanity was actually designed for a different medium altogether. It has previously been released as an iPhone app and the "testimonials and field reports" were alternately "given out" over a certain cours...
This book is billed as ‘Children of Men meets World War Z’, but this description (while it hooked me in) doesn’t provide an accurate picture. The Silent History isn’t as violent or austere as that summary would suggest. The action is played out largely on the emotional spectrum, and it does this very well.I loved how so many of the characters had a clear and recognizable voice; some of them were all too real for me (Patti and Prashant in particular), which was both hilarious and uncomfortable. T...
Wow. A mind-blowing, thought provoking and frightening look at our attitudes towards otherness and language.I absolutely loved this book.At over 500 pages this is not a quick read, but it is the kind of book that unfurls and flowers the deeper you go into it. It was a very rewarding read, I really felt I was getting back what I put into it. At times it was incredibly bizarre (Wallaby the Wallaby springs to mind) but mostly it was just beautiful. I was even driven to highlight passages as I went,...
Working with children who have special needs makes me really connect with this book. This shows a diverse cast of characters who try to make the best out of the situation that they are presented with, and tries to find harmony that can solve every problem. But, what is good for one person is not good for another. The story line shows this and the true emotions that parents, public officials, and others face with dealing with kids with a range of disabilities. I like the POV approach that this no...
The Silent History is by one of the former heads of McSweeney's, co-written with some other brilliant folks, and when I heard about it back in 2012 it was a novel-by-way-of-app, or a traveling interactive book-experience, or some kind of very ambitious techy hybrid storyform that I only vaguely understood and did not have the device-proficiency to access. (Although, being a person who knows people, I did get to read a few-page advance teaser, which made me nearly weep because I knew I would neve...
I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this one. I read it as a book, not as it was originally published in app form (because screw you if you didn't have an iPhone two years ago), so I'm not sure how that impacts my reading (in long chunks) vs. the intended ten to fifteen minute blocks. There's just a huge variance in tone--there's little background details of advances in culture and society that are extremely well-thought out, nutrients loafs and music services and discounted car rentals for b...
this book is genius. i read it via the app, doled out in loving little portions and making me wait an ungodly amount of time between volumes. it was excruciating and genius and, yes, actually worked. I imagine in a book it works too, but the format I originally read it in is forever linked to this story for me, and I cannot wait for more. read the book - but next time do it the purer way.oh I guess I didn't say anything about the story itself. here:it is exactly what you would expect from its pe...
What happened?? This book started out as genius and then fell on its literary face. The collapse started a little before a kangaroo became a focal character and continued all the way to just before the last 3 pages, which were acceptable, not horrible. I give it three stars with the hope that one day, someone picks up the first third of this book and rewrites it to carry on the genius.
The Silent History uses technology in an innovative way to enrich the reading experience. It is not the traditional book or Ebook, but an app.After installation, you receive an introductory video and background information on the "project". Then, almost daily, installments arrive which are easily read in 10-15 minutes. While there are times I have wanted to read more and had to wait, it reminds me of the way serial literature came out in the 17th Century when it was too expensive to print an ent...
I really enjoyed this. In one way, it reminded me of classic science fiction, the kind that started with a single premise: what if? In this case, what if a section of the population was suddenly born without the capacity to formulate or comprehend language? How would people react? How would we communicate? How would they function in society? Would they be feared? Revered? Marginalized? The answer is yes to all. On other levels, this was a genuinely modern novel, set over a 30-year span from 2011...
The premise seemed really good, I enjoyed about the first 200 pages, and after that I was reading more and more slowly, and finding other things to do instead of reading it, and I realized I no longer cared how it ended, so I didn't finish it.
