Review: All the Birds in the Sky

All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It’s an excellent book, with a story blending sci-fi and fantasy: a love story about a witch and a mad scientist. It's not a unique style, as some reviewers say - I think it reads like a Neil Gaiman or Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams book (minus the absurdism of the latter two). The beginning is whimsical like a Neil Gaiman or Terry Pratchett, and it’s peppered with the sci-fi that you are likely to encounter in Terry Pratchett’s or Douglas Adams’ books - nothing too technical nor hard science, but enough realism to make it interesting. The world in the book is similar to our own, a few years in the future, but where magic is real and sci-fi staples are common; for example, time machine schematics can be downloaded from the web, and built by anyone with enough engineering skills. This world is very Bay-area-centered, not only because the story is geographically centered in San Francisco, but also in its ideas, themes, and the feel of it. The author is a well-known techie, so this makes sense. Sometimes this is cool, as it drags the classic sci-fi and fantasy elements into our modern world; sometimes it’s a bit annoying, as it describe life as a series of social events, going to the latest precious restaurant/artsy party/coffee house, which might be what is life is like for some people, but in this book it’s like that for every single character; and sometimes it’s completely non-sensical, like having the latest physics theories and breakthroughs happening in tech start-ups, rather than in universities and research institutes where they actually happen in reality. I guess the author is enamored with the idea that Steve Jobs or Elon Musk are the new rock-stars/prophets/saviors of the world, but it’s still jarring to see such basic misunderstanding of the enterprise of science.

However, the world and world-building are secondary to the book; this is really a love story, and the book pays a lot of attention to the two main characters, their background, and their relationship. Although there are huge gaps in the continuity, I think it does an excellent job of following the main couple and their character growth (and sometimes lack thereof), taking it slow whenever possible, and throwing in some fast paced action. Although sometimes the book is annoying in its world-building, and sometimes annoying in how obtuse the main characters are (a lot of grief could have saved by a simple conversation early on), for the most part it’s a sweet story, and a lot of fun too!

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