Twist Endings
Well, I finally finished “Coyote.” Being a fused set of connected, though separate, short stories, the book was pretty incoherent as a novel in the traditional sense. And although I still found a lot of it to be tedious, the opening and closing sections were pretty good. The twist ending especially was a great payoff — I don’t want to spoil the book for anyone, but it definitely ended well. It wasn’t a twist in the “Twilight Zone” sense, but it was definitely a nice surprise, and served as a nice counterpoint to the first chapter — clearly Alan Steele intends “Coyote” as a libertarian parable, and so that readers wouldn’t confuse “libertarian” with “liberal,” he shows that his philosphy isn’t simply the antithesis of hard right conservatism, but hard left communism as well. “Coyote” doesn’t exactly do for libertarianism what “His Dark Materials” does for atheism, but the potential was there. Perhaps its sequels do a better job.
Besides the politics, there were also some nice high science fiction concepts introduced as well. Again, they were a surprise, so I won’t spoil them.
But the book has its failings — the characters were largely flat, and some of the interpersonal conflicts, particularly among the teenagers, lacked credibility. Ultimately, a good science fiction novel rests on three pillars — the plot, the high concept, and the characters. “Coyote” had the high concept, but the plot and characters were largely missing. That made it pretty much a bore, but the good parts were really good.
Next up: Jack McDevitt’s “Polaris,” or Russell Banks’ “The Darling.” Decisions, decisions.
Book Reviews | jeff | 11 April 2006 |
