purplecat | Jul. 25th, 2007

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Jul. 25th, 2007

In the end I liked Dancers at the End of Time more than I thought I would around half-way through. It is essentially a debate contrasting the values of the protestant moral world view and work ethic against an entirely free and "innocent" society. It suffered I felt from both a rather uneven structure across its three parts and a desire to add external threats and incidents which weren't really necessary. It wasn't as funny as the comedies of manners of Oscar Wilde, either, on which it was, I believe modelled. In the end I thought it succeeded as an exploration of its themes and was able to explore them in ways only possible in an SF novel of this kind but it failed as a homage to Wilde and Beardsley and as a more traditional style SF-based adventure which it seemed, in places, to wish to be.

( more, including spoilers, under the cut )

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