It's hard to read a book that you really, really want to live up to its potential.Bone Dance is a 1992 look at a post-apocalyptic America. The Horsemen, a group of mind-jumping telepaths, flipped the switch and launched nukes, irradiating a large portion of the country. Most people who want to rely on religion have turned to following voodoo. Sparrow, the main character, is a gender-neutral person who makes their living recovering the few remaining CDs and VHS tapes that survived the war. When Sparrow wakes on a bridge with an indeterminate amount of time missing from their memory, it is up to... uh, something, to... do, you know, the thing, and then it'll all be there. Oh, did I mention voodoo? Also, Sparrow is genderless! That's neat, right?The biggest problem with Bone Dance is that Emma Bull seemed to spend all her time on the concept for this novel, and none at all on the actual story. Sparrow wanders in a daze, from scene to dialogue-heavy scene, as things happen. Most scenes, and chapters, have no establishing shots; we're merely thrust into a new conversation between different people, or told who Sparrow is near now. The pacing of the novel never really fluctuates either, so while a lot of scenes happen, we're too inundated with events and it all just seems to meld into a blur of boring. Even in a gun-heavy standoff between Sparrow and two of the Horsemen, it just felt like another description of the bar/warehouse/totally not cyberpunk hangout digs where Sparrow's friends stay.Totally not cyberpunk is the other of my big complaints. Imagine every trope you can connect to a cyberpunk novel - city-states of totalitarian control, private police owned by corporations, the main character's friends being part of a fringe community, the prevalence of weird brain drugs, anti-establishment black market raves, weird street lingo... hell, even the descriptions of all the characters feel straight off the pages of a second rate William Gibson novel. Only, in the world of Bone Dance, there's no net. There's almost no computers. Instead, we have voodoo enclaves that serve to provide the deus-ex-machina powers that would normally be given to the hacker; enclaves that serve to dictate vague social structures of the world. Bull didn't even feel like going all the way dystopic, or cyberpunk, or whatever her intent with this world was. Sure, the City is essentially an evil megacorp, but nobody really seems to go without. We're told that staying on the street is like committing suicide, yet, nobody is really ever in any danger. Running your own power generator is illegal as all get-out, and nobody is busted for it. There is effective, people-friendly border patrols on the edge of the US and Canada, there's a functioning government, and nobody really seems to be heavily inconvenienced. It makes the characters seem less like the counter-culture revolutionaries you want to read, and more like a bunch of 90s club kids who weren't willing to let go of their drugs to get jobs when college ended.For a book that was specifically recommended to me by a friend, and a book that seemed so interesting on the blurb, I gotta say that I'm disappointed in myself for reading this all the way through. I should have dropped it at the start of the third chapter, when I first began to have doubts. At least it's helped me identify problems with my own creative process a little better.
An unusual loner passes quietly through life in a post apocalyptic world finding and selling items from the past, now nearly extinct such as video tapes.I found this book unusual and a challenge at first, both in layout and content. The chapters are grouped together under the headings of tarot cards, I always felt I was missing a clue with these. The writing itself sometimes seemed to expect you to know who a group of people were without introducing them. It wasn't until I was over a third of the way into the book, by which time I was seriously considering cutting my losses, that I connected and began to enjoy it more. At times it felt like a Neil Gaiman book in the respect that you enjoy it but aren't certain what is going on though.I thought the gender issues were interestingly handled, but I also think they made it harder to connect to the main character, at first I wasn’t sure if it was switching between points of view. I felt the connection was often stronger to other characters, as if the author was undecided if this was going to be a first or third person novel.Most of the settings felt rich and vibrant, especially the ones worst affected by the apocalypse. They left the reader uncertain of what could happen or was likely to next. I felt this authenticated the protagonist's seeming neuroticism about security.I didn't feel the ending did justice to the rest of the novel, it tied up too smoothly and too fast.
What do You think about Bone Dance (1991)?
It was clear almost from the beginning that there was something unusual about this book's protagonist/narrator, and getting to an explanation (more or less) of Sparrow's nature was the most interesting and well-constructed part of this book - after that, however, I was less interested in the story. Much of the second half seemed a bit disjointed to me, with brief episodes of horrific violence interspersed with lazy periods of waiting and recovery. The involvement of the loa never quite fit for me with the rest of the story, and as a result I found the ending a bit vague and unsatisfying. I'm still very impressed with Bull, and this book, like War for the Oaks, shows flashes of her brilliance. The one book of hers that I recommend without hesitation is Territory, which I think is easily her best.
—Chris Branch
Yet another reread - I've been kind of binge-reading old favorites recently, and this is absolutely, far and away, a favorite.Emma Bull is an amazing and underappreciated author, and this is one of her best works (well, outside the Borderlands, but I have an unreasonable fondness for that entire series).It's just your standard post-Apocalyptic, cyber-dystopia, voodoo mystery novel. From before post-Apocalyptic dystopias were cool. Seriously, if that doesn't sell you on the book I don't know what will. Read it. You'll like it.
—Rebecca
I really liked this book at first, and had a hard time putting it down. My interest didn't exactly wane, but I was a little disappointed in the direction the story took, and when the characters finally got around to having a goal, all I could think was "really? That's it?"I didn't like that the book had no real sense of place, other than "North America somewhere". Sometimes I thought it was in Minnesota (all the covered sidewalks), and other times I thought it was New Orleans (all the voodoo). One major element of the story kept reminding me of Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews; those of you who've read both stories will know what I mean. I think Andrews' version was a little more fun, though.
—Jennie
