Reviews
This is science fiction with a satirical twist, part Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and part Virginia Woolf's Orlando ., "[I]ntricately structured, emotionally lucid...With Virginia Woolf's Orlando as her template, literary prowess to burn, and an incandescent passion for life, Winterson critiques human folly in myriad forms and laments the pillaging and poisoning of the earth in this mordantly funny,fast-paced, and elegiac speculative novel, in which books literally save a life." (Starred Review), This is science fiction with a satirical twist, part Daniel Defoe''s Robinson Crusoe and part Virginia Woolf''s Orlando., Aplayful but impassioned novel. Winterson cloaks her disillusionment with out political excesses in a sustained imaginative jeu de(tm)esprit. Her writing is funny and beautiful., A playful but impassioned novel. Winterson cloaks her disillusionment with out political excesses in a sustained imaginative jeu d'esprit. Her writing is funny and beautiful., PRAISE FOR JEANETTE WINTERSON "One of our most brilliant, visionary storytellers." —San Francisco Chronicle "If words were diamonds and sentences necklaces, Jeanette Winterson would be the De Beers of literature." —Entertainment Weekly, The Stone Gods is a vivid, cautionary tale - or, more precisely, a keen lament for our irremediably incautious species., "[I]ntricately structured, emotionally lucideWith Virginia Woolf's Orlando as her template, literary prowess to burn, and an incandescent passion for life, Winterson critiques human folly in myriad forms and laments the pillaging and poisoning of the earth in this mordantly funny,fast-paced, and elegiac speculative novel, in which books literally save a life." (Starred Review), "[I]ntricately structured, emotionally lucid…With Virginia Woolf's Orlando as her template, literary prowess to burn, and an incandescent passion for life, Winterson critiques human folly in myriad forms and laments the pillaging and poisoning of the earth in this mordantly funny,fast-paced, and elegiac speculative novel, in which books literally save a life." (Starred Review), Prize-winning Brit Winterson applies her fantastical touch to a sci-fi, postapocalyptic setting...stunning, lyrical and evocative..., The latest from the eclectically adventurous Winterson (Lighthousekeeping, 2005 etc.) is equal parts meta fiction and science fiction...Winterson employs the plot as a backdrop for an environmental manifesto, making grand pronouncements--'History is not a suicide note-- it is a record of our survival'; 'Perhaps the universe is a memory of our mistakes' -- amid allusions to Beckett, Sartre and Camus, as well as the inevitable Dafoe., A rangy pirate, a world-swashbuckler, a plunderer of stories, literatures and hearts, with one foot in the sea and the other planted so firmly in England that her placeless, faceless fiction glints with facets of pure Englishness, the grandeur of Shakespeare, the absolutism of Lawrence, the stillness of Woolf, the traditional cocky farce of Chaucer and Carry On films. She can shift shape, self and time, she uses repetition as if it were spell-making. Everything she does suspends readers between the mind and the body, between e~atom and dreame(tm). She is a kind of magician. She can do anything., PRAISE FOR JEANETTE WINTERSON "One of our most brilliant, visionary storytellers." —San Francisco Chronicle "If words were diamonds and sentences necklaces, Jeanette Winterson would be the De Beers of literature." —Entertainment Weekly, PRAISE FOR JEANETTE WINTERSON "One of our most brilliant, visionary storytellers." --San Francisco Chronicle "If words were diamonds and sentences necklaces, Jeanette Winterson would be the De Beers of literature." --Entertainment Weekly, Characters named Billie Crusoe, Friday and Captain Handsome make it hard to take this novel as seriously as the author does.The latest from the eclectically adventurous Winterson (Lighthousekeeping, 2005 etc.) is equal parts meta fiction and science fiction. She conjures a world - presumably Earth, but here called Orbus - on the verge of environmental ruin, but most of its inhabitants are more concerned with their perennially youthful appearances. As a rebel who rejects her society's values, Billie (initially a woman, though apparently a man in a later chapter) finds herself exiled as an outer-space explorer to colonize Planet Blue, where conditions appear to allow mankind to survive (and ultimately ruin another planet). Her frequent companion and potential lover is Spike, a robot in the form of an irresistible female. Actually Spike is a "Robo sapiens," who has the potential to evolve to a higher level than humans. Within a novel where "time has become its own tsunami," Billie skips back and forth across the centuries, sailing the 18th-century seas with Captain Cook and stumbling through the radioactive cinders of Post-3 War, with Spike as a disembodied head (who develops an appetite for oral sex). As silly as all this sounds, Winterson employs the plot as a backdrop for an environmental manifesto, making grand pronouncements - "History is not a suicide note - it is a record of our survival"; "Perhaps the universe is a memory of our mistakes" - amid allusions to Beckett, Sartre and Camus, as well as the inevitable Dafoe. Just in case the reader starts wondering what exactly this novel is about, the novel tells us. Exactly. After Billie finds a copy of a book titled The Stone Gods, Spike asks her what it's about. "A repeating world," replies Billie, a world in which every end is a fresh beginning and every beginning anticipates an apocalypse.Vonnegut did it better., PRAISE FOR JEANETTE WINTERSON"One of our most brilliant, visionary storytellers." --San Francisco Chronicle "If words were diamonds and sentences necklaces, Jeanette Winterson would be the De Beers of literature." --Entertainment Weekly, PRAISE FOR THE STONE GODS: "[The Stone Gods] makes an excellent choice for desert-planet reading --scary, beautiful, witty and wistful by turns, dipping into the known past as it explores potential futures..." - The New York Times Book Review "Some novels are intriguing enough to shorten a plane trip; some even offer a trip into other people's skins and minds. And then there is this kind of book, one that you don't so much read as drink in, refuse to put down, cast inside of like a hunting dog, seeking against all odds the insight that will illuminate everything, a true answer to the fix we're in." -- LA Times "The Stone Gods is a vivid, cautionary tale - or, more precisely, a keen lament for our irremediably incautious species." -- Ursula LeGuin, Aplayful but impassioned novel. Winterson cloaks her disillusionment with out political excesses in a sustained imaginative jeu d'esprit. Her writing is funny and beautiful., PRAISE FOR JEANETTE WINTERSON "One of our most brilliant, visionary storytellers."--San Francisco Chronicle "If words were diamonds and sentences necklaces, Jeanette Winterson would be the De Beers of literature."--Entertainment Weekly, PRAISE FOR JEANETTE WINTERSON "One of our most brilliant, visionary storytellers." --San Francisco Chronicle "If words were diamonds and sentences necklaces, Jeanette Winterson would be the De Beers of literature." --Entertainment Weekly, The apocalypse is coming. You''ll need something to read. THE STONE GODS, Jeanette Winterson''s new novel, makes an excellent choice for desert-planet reading --scary, beautiful, witty and wistful by turns, dipping into the known past as it explores potential futures...read THE STONE GODS for new discoveries in language, love and what it means to be human., This is science fiction with a satirical twist, part Daniel Defoe''s Robinson Crusoe and part Virginia Woolf''s Orlando ., "A rangy pirate, a world-swashbuckler, a plunderer of stories, literatures and hearts, with one foot in the sea and the other planted so firmly in England that her placeless, faceless fiction glints with facets of pure Englishness, the grandeur of Shakespeare, the absolutism of Lawrence, the stillness of Woolf, the traditional cocky farce of Chaucer and "Carry On" films. She can shift shape, self and time, she uses repetition as if it were spell-making. Everything she does suspends readers between the mind and the body, between 'atom and dream'. She is a kind of magician. She can do anything.", The apocalypse is coming. You'll need something to read. THE STONE GODS, Jeanette Winterson's new novel, makes an excellent choice for desert-planet reading --scary, beautiful, witty and wistful by turns, dipping into the known past as it explores potential futures...read THE STONE GODS for new discoveries in language, love and what it means to be human., PRAISE FOR THE STONE GODS: "[The Stone Gods] makes an excellent choice for desert-planet reading --scary, beautiful, witty and wistful by turns, dipping into the known past as it explores potential futures..." - The New York Times Book Review "Some novels are intriguing enough to shorten a plane trip; some even offer a trip into other people's skins and minds. And then there is this kind of book, one that you don't so much read as drink in, refuse to put down, cast inside of like a hunting dog, seeking against all odds the insight that will illuminate everything, a true answer to the fix we're in." -- LA Times "The Stone Gods is a vivid, cautionary tale - or, more precisely, a keen lament for our irremediably incautious species." -- Ursula LeGuin, The latest from the eclectically adventurous Winterson (Lighthousekeeping, 2005 etc.) is equal parts meta fiction and science fiction...Winterson employs the plot as a backdrop for an environmental manifesto, making grand pronouncements--''History is not a suicide note-- it is a record of our survival''; ''Perhaps the universe is a memory of our mistakes'' -- amid allusions to Beckett, Sartre and Camus, as well as the inevitable Dafoe., A playful but impassioned novel. Winterson cloaks her disillusionment with out political excesses in a sustained imaginative jeu d'esprit. Her writing is funny and beautiful., "[I]ntricately structured, emotionally lucid…With Virginia Woolf''s Orlando as her template, literary prowess to burn, and an incandescent passion for life, Winterson critiques human folly in myriad forms and laments the pillaging and poisoning of the earth in this mordantly funny,fast-paced, and elegiac speculative novel, in which books literally save a life." (Starred Review), "The Stone Gods is a vivid, cautionary tale - or, more precisely, a keen lament for our irremediably incautious species." -- Ursula LeGuin "The Guardian (UK)" (01/15/2008), A rangy pirate, a world-swashbuckler, a plunderer of stories, literatures and hearts, with one foot in the sea and the other planted so firmly in England that her placeless, faceless fiction glints with facets of pure Englishness, the grandeur of Shakespeare, the absolutism of Lawrence, the stillness of Woolf, the traditional cocky farce of Chaucer and Carry On films. She can shift shape, self and time, she uses repetition as if it were spell-making. Everything she does suspends readers between the mind and the body, between 'atom and dream'. She is a kind of magician. She can do anything.