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  • It took me awhile to come around to this offering from Michael Chabon. I think part of the problem for me was its position as a Hugo and Nebula award winner. I was expecting something with a slightly more science fiction bent to it. Instead I got a very well realized alternate history and pulp de ... Continue

    It took me awhile to come around to this offering from Michael Chabon. I think part of the problem for me was its position as a Hugo and Nebula award winner. I was expecting something with a slightly more science fiction bent to it. Instead I got a very well realized alternate history and pulp detective story.

    While the story starts right in with the primary murder case, it took me awhile to get hooked in to the story. There are places where the narrator tends to ramble a bit in a stream of consciousness sort of way, which had a tendency to bog the story down in spots.

    The building of the alternate history and the Jewish settlement in Alaska is superb. The imagery and feel for the Sitka setting were extremely well done and in the end is what kept me reading, even when things slowed down developmentally.

    

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• ― Braydin said on Mar 18, 2009 about the Hardcover edition| Add your feedback

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  • This is Chabon's best and most entertaining book since Kavalier and Clay. The sarcasm and snark cuts through the bleak Alaskan setting to craft a ripping detective tale.

    

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• ― TFox said on Aug 4, 2007 about the Hardcover edition| Add your feedback

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