thegooddoctor
9/23/2016
Incomprehensible overall, but some portions very good (B+++). Overall rating (D+). Unfortunately, there is no option of giving a score of zero stars, or negative stars - so I am forced to bump it up to 1/2 full stars.
To my mind, the best, most memorable thing about this novel is a wonderful quotation Delany inserts (by Ortega y Gasset): “It is not that love sometimes makes mistakes, but that it is, essentially, a mistake. We fall in love when our imagination projects nonexistent perfections on to another person. One day the phantasmagoria vanishes, and with it love dies."
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My rating system for this website (I have done reviews for over 80 “books” (including short stories, novelettes and novellas, as well as novels).
Their system is out of 5 stars, and allows you to use half-stars, so highest rating is 5 full stars, next-highest 4 ½ stars, etc. – and lowest is ½ star. I did NOT want to space these ratings equally, giving just as much precedence to low-quality mush as to really good works. For that reason, I laid out my system as follows:
I begin with one star being equivalent to a rating of “C -”. Progressing upwards, I add ½ star for each step, up to the maximum 5 stars, which is equivalent to a rating of “A”+. I reserve ½ star for BOMBS, there being no option of zero or negative stars. As a result, I maximize my rating space for good books, and don’t squander half or more of that rating space on books that are of marginal quality.