Science fiction that weaves together future, past, and present in three separate but interlinked stories that comment on humanity’s penchant for destroying the world, contrasted with an individual’s ability to love. In the first section, we see a futuristic setting where materialism and vanity have been taken to extremes. The planet Orbus has been decimated by the inhabitants, so they are searching for a new planet on which to start over. In the second part, we are abruptly shifted to the 18th c...

When I bought my copy of The Stone Gods, the bookseller told me two things: it had received strong reviews, and “It’s science fiction, you know.” I parried this last one with some fuzzy comment that much of Winterson’s fiction violates expectations, and we left it at that, both sounding smart and not having said much.And then I started reading: sure enough, page after page, the thing read true to the sci-fi genre. And not just in the details: it sounded like sci-fi, it thought like sci-fi, it ev...

“Everything is imprinted for ever with what it once was.”The Stone Gods is a sci-fi novel with the main theme that the world is repeating itself. The novel consists of four parts that are set in different time periods. All parts have something in common, but the first, third and fourth are set on the same planet. The second one is the story of Easter Island. The novel itself is self-referential.Orbus is dying but luckily new planet is found with everything that is necessary for survival - Planet...

This book strikes me as a very good example of a mainstream "literary" fiction writer experimenting with genre, and failing horribly. Winterson is a highly respected, award-winning English author, and many friends of mine love her writing. However, this foray into speculative fiction ventures into thematic territory (namely the essentially destructive nature of humanity, both with regards to each other and the natural world) that's been deeply explored, and displays all the traits of the worst k...

I may perhaps return to write a proper review of this book at some point; for now I am in tears.

The bad news: If you haven’t read Jeanette Winterson yet then your life has been, hitherto, a waste.The good news: Not to worry; it’s not too late. There’s plenty of her work around and you can get started putting your life in order right away.More good news: Her work is short. Generally, her books run 150-200 standard sized pages. In these days of children’s books with five or six times as much verbiage, that’s quite brief. However, her work isn’t a quick read. Oh, I’m sure you could blow throu...

Phenomenal. I need to think about the words for this but wow. Just- wow.

Here's the thing: science fiction is always...ALWAYS heavy handed social commentary. It was designed that way by the early pioneers: Zamyatin, Orwell, etc. This is why so much science fiction is dystopian: because the author's only see negative outcomes from the actions of people today. When I started reading The Stone Gods, I was ready for it, and Winterson includes the usual suspects: abuse of the planet and natural resources, suspicious wars against technologically weaker races, the hubris of...

When one has to give a Jeanette Winterson novel a two star rating, it's blindingly obvious that today is not a good day. I adored Written on the Body, The Passion and Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. This book was a mess, and was a concoction of genres that at the end of the day, just didn't work. Winterson is an incredibly unique writer, and she has a wonderful way with words, and that is one of the main reasons why I enjoy her works. I feel like The Stone Gods wasn't thought through enough, and...

As she did in "The Passion", Winterson displays her gift for punching the reader in the face, then kicking you in the heart, and you still come out of the experience saying, "Can someone read this to me, out loud?"It's a critique of the modern world, a critique of the future (extrapolated from the modern world), a re-vamped look at the past, and then another critique of the future. Seriously.Oh... also...? It's fantastic. Bleak, beautiful, poignant, hopeless, hopeful... and definitely not for th...

Maybe I just didn't get this book, but I definitely didn't enjoy it.The start was somewhat promising, it had potential to be a good story with a powerful message but I feel like after the halfway point the author sort of dropped the ball. The book then became confusing and disjointed for me.I also felt like there was a little too much time spent on the message the author was trying to put in and too little on the story. I didn't feel connected to the characters and neither did I feel like I ever...

So, I’ve finished reading The Stone Gods by Jeanette Winterson, and my reactions are mixed, to say the least. My primary reaction was one of intense sadness: she really does believe that she’s braving new territory. She is completely unaware that she’s hacking through a jungle right next to a long, well-trodden road and the crew that’s building it is far, far ahead of her, and her course takes her away from the best conclusions. She’s off in a strange, dualistic universe in which robots come to

What a weird and fascinating book.

DNF @ page 58I had to read this book for a class at University. All I will say is that the storyline was extremely confusing and I struggled to connect with any of the characters. The writing style was most definitely not for me!

I was looking to fill out a theme in my SF/F book club entitled "Even the Lands Have Changed," a mix of post-apocalyptic and climate change fiction. I needed one more book. I'd read the other four, knew they were good. I came up with a list of four more that sounded good, and let my group decide. The Stone Gods was on there, because I have loved Jeanette Winterson's books quite a lot, and seeing what she could do with dinosaurs and planned/unplanned extinction level events and science fiction so...

Okay, okay. This is tricky.We all give ratings to books (and everything) within their genres. I do anyway. Five stars for this thing is not the same as five stars for that thing. But the problem with that is that the genres have to mean something. And be identifiable. I have real thing for Jeanette Winterson. It dates back to Gut Symmetries, which I read at an impressionable time (maybe 17, though all my times are fairly impressionable). It was just beautiful and expansive and different and sent...

I must have a special talent in finding really weird books. Really, really weird. This particular one is not only weird; it’s also kinky, almost pornographic. But the story behind all these peculiar things it will shatter your heart; it will depress and break you to pieces.It’s also the most acid attack on today society I ever encountered in a story. It has so much virulence in those words that you’ll feel them like a slap in your face.Up until about 30% I found it somewhat amusing and I thought...

The Stone Gods' is science fiction. The first part of the story, which spans nearly half the book, is set in a futuristic world. Science and technology is highly developed, people eat and drink synthetically made food, people can genetically freeze their age and always look young, space travel is highly evolved, humans have robots to do many tasks. But some of the old human flaws and vanities remain - the difference between the haves and have-nots, how celebrities still try to differentiate them...

Auuugh this book is a mess. The pitch must have been something like, "I'm thinking Robinson Crusoe but scifi and with androids, and also post-WWIII dystopia, but also space exploration and Easter Island and dinosaurs. Okay, and I also wanna get Nietzsche's eternal return in there, and what it means to be human, and nature vs nurture, and adoption. Ohhh and none of it will connect except through really obvious hung lanterns like calling the protagonist of each section Billie/y, and how awful huma...

I am a car in neutral with my wheels in a metal track, covered in the mud and salt and grime of the roads that scar Orbus, Planet Blue, Earth. I am dragged into position; the chemicals hit my shell. Acidic, corrosive, an unsubtle back and forth to knock loose the corruption I've picked up in my travels. The wash cares not at all about delicacy. It shoots it fine mist of torture and hustles me into the frame. Once in that frame, that frame of hanging, dangling mitters, multi-coloured tassels, twi...