Zoo City by
Lauren Beukes
My rating:
3 of 5 stars
Distinctive sci-fi with a brilliant flair for language but a slightly wobbly plot. There were some nice touches with the use of false documentary style sections which flesh out the idea of "zoos". And the zoos certainly were an excellent idea: guilty individuals gain a spirit assigned animal, which provides a magical power but must be kept alive to avoid the guilty individual being carried away to a netherworld. Set in Johannesburg in South Africa it has a different spin to the more traditional world of sci-fi (US, Europe, Japan maybe). And if you think the zoos sound a bit like Philip Pullman, don't worry, he gets a nod in the book in a clever way and Beukes's idea expands on his in new directions.
I thought that while the plot wasn't always heading in the right direction, Beukes's writing style is full of inventive touches and carefully observed imagery and metaphor. The world, while pretty unfamiliar, is strongly realised and has the over-your-head-immersion feel of cyberpunk that I really enjoy, where too many words and ideas are new and unexplained. And the character of Zinzi steered a neat course around all the cliches that could too easily befall a strong heroine with a dark and gritty past. I could have done with more insight into Zinzi as the novel progressed, as her character wasn't as well explored as I'd have liked and I think was well enough formed that she could have stood some close examination.
The down on their luck detective plot was good (especially as I was reading The Big Sleep at the same time) and Beukes makes good use of it to explore her imaginary world. However, there were some gaping holes left open as to why Zinzi was doing this job - not so much a lack of explanation on the part of the author, as that the explanation wasn't very satisfactory.
Crime plot could have been better and would have made such a difference.
Don't get me started on the ending though. The whole book rolls along quite nicely, a tad slow at points but hardly enough to be an issue, and we work up to the big finale: bang. That's it. Whole novel wrapped up before you can even think about it. It was as if the end couple of chapters got lost and Beukes wrote a synopsis instead. Which is a crying shame, because the dramatic finale had me on the edge of my seat with its convincing adreneline fueled show down. It was such a let down to have everything wrapped up with barely a comment immediately after that. I felt cheated as a reader that I'd followed this character through, only to see them disappear into the sunset without me. Beukes just doesn't deal with the fallout that the plot climax creates.
What everyone else thought:
Opinion is generally in favour of
Zoo City - particularly for breaking the mould of urban fantasy. The main character, Zinzi, is well liked and compared very favourably against urban fantasy heroines generally. The cyberpunk styling of the book put a few people off and several compared it unfavourably to Gibson (not a fair comparison in my mind). Overall, sf and fantasy fans love this book for its fresh vision of the genre, others are finding it a bit too niche.
Read this book if you want a quick, fresh version of urban fantasy that will keep you entertained.
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It has very narrow ruled lines, which I like as it tends to make my handwriting look nicer on the page; having plenty of space for it encourages scruffy loops and lets you notice the irregularity of it all the more. And there are little dashes at the top and bottom of each page marking out regular intervals, in case you want to rule in any vertical lines and want them to be just so. The paper is smooth, creamy and has very little show through of ink.
