The Actual Star

Whew. This is the sort of saga that demands a deep exhalation upon completion.I'm still not sure how I feel about it. So much of it was annoying: the reincarnation gimmick; the need to Suffuse Everything With Meaning, to believe that the Universe cares about individual humans (or is even aware of us), that there are Deep Connections that we could see if only we had a broad enough view. The presence (in the 3012 sections) of astonishing technology with no acknowledgment of the infrastructure needed to create it. The expectation—counter to all human history—that, a thousand years from now, the remaining humans can share common language and beliefs. Recurring mentions of psilocybin but only in its vision-inducing aspects, never in its sublime ones. And, in a book so concerned with the Actual, so much more talking-about cunnilingus than actual cunnilingus.And yet, I couldn't stop reading. Byrne is a helluva storyteller, gifted with language (although not Spanish: I wish the editors had sprung for a Spanish-language proofreader) and imagination and a pretty serious understanding of human foibles. She explores how religions are invented, how they grow or stagnate; how cultures progress and transform; the impossible yet impossible-to-deny quest for utopia; attachment, non-attachment; the difficulty of communication; and she does an exquisite job of envisioning future gender roles (including using the everyone-is-She device, which I so loved in [b:Ancillary Justice 17333324 Ancillary Justice (Imperial Radch, #1) Ann Leckie https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1597476110l/17333324.SY75.jpg 24064628] and hope more writers will adopt.So, yes, I exhaled deeply at the end. And sat and thunk a while. And am writing so much more here than I usually do, yet not even close to what I think the book deserves. It's a story I'm going to be thinking about for a while, imperfect as it may be. Recommended. (I can't believe I'm giving it five stars. I was aiming for four... but no, it's four-plus, and rounding up seems fair).