The God Engines by John Scalzi

[lightreads]

The God Engines by John Scalzi

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


A science-fantasy novella about spaceships powered by gods, who are in turn powered by the crew’s faith. I feel utterly neutral about this – it was an interesting idea executed competently, and complete with follow through, but the circuit never really closed. I understand this is the Scalzi curse: writing which is creative and active, but still somehow inert. Fundamentally shallow. And the trouble with shallow is it has to be my shallow, my vaguely embarrassing id fixations and narrative kinks. And this was not my shallow.



View all my reviews

Comments

[readerjane]

I had a similar reaction to Scalzi's Old Man's War. Fascinating idea, competent execution; meh. I never followed up on the rest of the series. May try the movie when it comes out -- maybe the change in medium, as well as the added perspective a director will bring to it, will make the story click for me.

Interestingly, I enjoy reading Scalzi's blog very much. I particularly like his essay on the ethics of downloading unauthorized electronic copies of stuff you've already paid for in print.