A Once Crowded Sky
A Once Crowded Sky is a phenomenal book by former CIA counter intelligence operative, Tom King. This debut novel was a book that I read for school very recently, and I have some thoughts.
The book itself is very very well written, when I first picked it up I thought it was going to be a ripoff of The Incredibles,but there are several differences based upon the tones of the two stories as well as their plots.
In AOCS, the superheros no longer have their powers instead of not being able to use them. I like what The Incredibles did a little bit better just because the conflict resonates a little bit more with me. In The Incredibles, Mr. Incredible wants to return to hero work and is willing to do whatever he can to do so. AOCS, since it has a broader spectrum of characters to show the perspective of, also takes this route in the character Strength, but also shows the extreme opposite in The Soldier of Freedom who is willing to kill people (including himself) to ensure that the powers stay gone. It also shows the in between point in Penultimate who hasn't had to think about it until the events of the book and accordingly doesn't really have an opinion on anything.
For a book about superheros, there is a surprisingly lacking amount of symbolism anywhere, which is a good thing because I HATE SYMBOLISM. I remember in Freshman English when we were over thinking Of Mice and Men (which is a pretty good book by the way) and we were relating why Candy is like his dog. WE DON'T CARE! It gives someone writing a book report something to talk about, but no one will notice how clever you were unless they're looking for it (which they usually aren't). This is an attack on academic analysis, and I'm picking my battle with this, because I'd like to think that themes, character, and subtext are more important than this kind of well hidden crap.
I thought there was some symbolism with Ultimate and his sidekick Penultimate, since penultimate means next to last and ultimate means last. However, since Pen is last, and not next to last, I say this was a failed attempt at symbolism. And since I look for character traits and plot elements that I think worked, rather than symbolism, I really don't give a fluff. But now the problem is, there are way too many characters and plot twists for me to talk about in detail with my normal brief format, but I would like to congratulate King on writing a superhero story with close to no action in it.
Books are a different form of art than films, plays or TV shows are, and because of that each of the different types of media are better at expressing different ideas than others. Melodramatic or comedic narratives work best as plays because the characters can react to the audience and change the technicals of the performance accordingly. Action works best in mediums like film because in film you can alter and add to the overall final product to make it more visually spectacular or dramatic. And then we have books which aren't fueled by visuals, they're fueled by words.
Books that aim to have the spectacular action pieces of films or the visual slapstick comedy of cartoons and plays are not particularly successful in conveying the story. Books are best when the main conflict of the story is an internal one. The Hunger Games is a fantastically well written book because, even though its premise seems very action packed and violent, there is close to no action. Most of that book was 1st person internal monologue which is really interesting to read. AOCS has 3rd person internal monologue and, despite its premise, has close to no action and used its format effectively. Tom, another battle won, well done! Well done!
Someone reading this might think I'm being a bit harsh in this analysis because I'm not an author. Well, I am actually writing something, so your argument is invalid.
The final thing I want to touch on before I close this and give a rating is the naming of characters in this book. The superhero names were really unoriginal. Some of them I like, like Mesallah and the Soldier of Freedom, but a lot of them were really bland. There was a character named "Strength." That was the best you could come up with? I don't know, I would have done some things differently, but I didn't write it, so I'll just stop.
Overall, I really liked this book. It'd be a terrible movie and an even worse video game, but I liked it. If you're a superhero fan, it's definitely worth your time, but don't put it down for to long because it really demands your attention.
8/10
The book itself is very very well written, when I first picked it up I thought it was going to be a ripoff of The Incredibles,but there are several differences based upon the tones of the two stories as well as their plots.
In AOCS, the superheros no longer have their powers instead of not being able to use them. I like what The Incredibles did a little bit better just because the conflict resonates a little bit more with me. In The Incredibles, Mr. Incredible wants to return to hero work and is willing to do whatever he can to do so. AOCS, since it has a broader spectrum of characters to show the perspective of, also takes this route in the character Strength, but also shows the extreme opposite in The Soldier of Freedom who is willing to kill people (including himself) to ensure that the powers stay gone. It also shows the in between point in Penultimate who hasn't had to think about it until the events of the book and accordingly doesn't really have an opinion on anything.
For a book about superheros, there is a surprisingly lacking amount of symbolism anywhere, which is a good thing because I HATE SYMBOLISM. I remember in Freshman English when we were over thinking Of Mice and Men (which is a pretty good book by the way) and we were relating why Candy is like his dog. WE DON'T CARE! It gives someone writing a book report something to talk about, but no one will notice how clever you were unless they're looking for it (which they usually aren't). This is an attack on academic analysis, and I'm picking my battle with this, because I'd like to think that themes, character, and subtext are more important than this kind of well hidden crap.
I thought there was some symbolism with Ultimate and his sidekick Penultimate, since penultimate means next to last and ultimate means last. However, since Pen is last, and not next to last, I say this was a failed attempt at symbolism. And since I look for character traits and plot elements that I think worked, rather than symbolism, I really don't give a fluff. But now the problem is, there are way too many characters and plot twists for me to talk about in detail with my normal brief format, but I would like to congratulate King on writing a superhero story with close to no action in it.
Books are a different form of art than films, plays or TV shows are, and because of that each of the different types of media are better at expressing different ideas than others. Melodramatic or comedic narratives work best as plays because the characters can react to the audience and change the technicals of the performance accordingly. Action works best in mediums like film because in film you can alter and add to the overall final product to make it more visually spectacular or dramatic. And then we have books which aren't fueled by visuals, they're fueled by words.
Books that aim to have the spectacular action pieces of films or the visual slapstick comedy of cartoons and plays are not particularly successful in conveying the story. Books are best when the main conflict of the story is an internal one. The Hunger Games is a fantastically well written book because, even though its premise seems very action packed and violent, there is close to no action. Most of that book was 1st person internal monologue which is really interesting to read. AOCS has 3rd person internal monologue and, despite its premise, has close to no action and used its format effectively. Tom, another battle won, well done! Well done!
Someone reading this might think I'm being a bit harsh in this analysis because I'm not an author. Well, I am actually writing something, so your argument is invalid.
The final thing I want to touch on before I close this and give a rating is the naming of characters in this book. The superhero names were really unoriginal. Some of them I like, like Mesallah and the Soldier of Freedom, but a lot of them were really bland. There was a character named "Strength." That was the best you could come up with? I don't know, I would have done some things differently, but I didn't write it, so I'll just stop.
Overall, I really liked this book. It'd be a terrible movie and an even worse video game, but I liked it. If you're a superhero fan, it's definitely worth your time, but don't put it down for to long because it really demands your attention.
8/10