All the Birds in the Sky

After five novels by Octavia Butler, this was, initially, a joy to read. I giggled a lot at the clever turns of phrase and whimsy, but I did wonder throughout the entire book if it were intended for Young Adults. The writing seems young and a bit ungrounded, which makes sense because it’s Ms. Anders' first book.

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The sparrow, whose name was Dirrpidirrpiwheepalong, or Dirrp for short, tried to give Patricia directions to the Parliament of Birds as best he could…

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On the plus side: Care was taken when creating a diversity of characters from an older black man to a gender-binary person, from a hispanic dude to a crazy old lady; the characters are well-built.

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I also enjoyed that most of it is set in San Francisco. It brought back to mind names of streets I hadn’t thought about in decades.

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Too, the story itself is a romp, one that winds back on itself again and again, as characters go away and then reappear later.

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The down side: It ended an a way that made little sense. It begs for a sequel. But I think the biggest thing that is missing is better grounding of the story. I didn’t care what was happening in the world (which was falling to pieces for war and pollution) because the ground wasn’t laid for me to care about it. It was just background noise. But since the whole plot was centered around those greater circumstances, more care should have been given to its gravity.

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It’s not easy to pin-point what the book is about. Is it a witty commentary on the state of the world today? Is it the story of two misfits who fall in love? Is it a look at how technology and nature might combine? Is it the story of the end of magic and the beginning of magical tech? I don’t know. I’d say it was a good attempt at a first novel.

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