Hypnotic and Repetitive

It's hypnotic and repetitive, and hypnotic and repetitive. Repetitive and hypnotic. And the aura of art, but we were wrong. This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but with the world's longest streaming paragraph. Hypnotically, but also repetitively.

It's easy to make fun of this book's structure, and it's almost impossible to resist the impulse. But there are arresting lines and rewarding bits hidden away behind the writerly artifice. I guess it's worth saluting this book as a piece of performance art, or an academic exercise, or a show item. I would have appreciated it just as much as a short story, maybe moreso. As it stands it struck me as too sterile and isolated, which in a sense may have been the point. (I may be one of the few people who like narrative in the third person singular and first person plural, but that's just another example of how this book tries so hard to be distant and unapproachable.) The author has certainly nailed haunting and bleak, with a side of dismissive and vaguely condescending. It probably didn't help that I wasn't particularly impressed by the author's insights into colonialism, class distinction, cultural appropriation, cultural hubris, and the like.

So, certainly an interesting experimental, modern piece. It is just as likely that a reader will find this book tedious as it is the reader will find this book revelatory. Only one way to find out for sure.

(Please note that I received a free ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)

Sorry, but I won't finish this book. I'm drowning into boredom.

The multipage-paragraphed chapters and the sentences beginning all by he, she, we, they or, eventually and for a short period, I don't work for me.

Sentences like the one below doesn't mean sh*t or if it does, I'm not bright enough to understand.
"He is the man who does not exist and a man who not does exist, he is the man who does exist and does exist, he is the man who neither exists nor not exists, he is the man who both exists and does not exist."

I suppose the author tried to disorient us as an alien form of intelligence would. I'm very disoriented, so much that I can't convince myself to read more of this book that I can't enjoy.

I read last year Foe by Iain Reid Foe by Iain Reid, which had a certain dose of strangeness and was a slow-starter, and I loved it. And I read a great deal of science fiction in the past. I'm even reading The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick The Man in the High Castle by the great Philip K. Dick at the moment, and I love it too. But The Advent... Sorry.

Thanks to the author, the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with an ecopy of this book

Impenetrable writing style and obtuse turn of phrase made this unreadable for me. Very putdownable sadly.

I assume you've read the blurb and know what the story is about or else you wouldn't be here reading this review. It's a new author, of course, and his writing style (I struggled coming up with a descriptor) is Seussian. Let me paraphrase:

When the aliens came, it wasn't day or night, It wasn't hot, it wasn't cold, it wasn't what we expected but it wasn't a surprise. We didn't feel loved, we didn't feel hated. It was / wasn't etc etc. Pages and pages of this - this whole first chapter. Then Chapter 2 and we get introduced to a character, Oh no - she's described the same way! The whole chapter is like this, and the whole rest of the book. Read it if you can.

Advent is a different type of alien invasion story. The narrative is not a typical structured story but more of a stream of consciousness thought. It's like an ongoing thing that the reader has stepped into. I liked it because it's unusual and requires you to think. Intellectual readers will enjoy this more than casual readers. Thanks to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

This is certainly unusual. Pretty intellectual with sentence structure and style that may be tough for some to enjoy. I may read it again for full effect. I liked the fresh take on alien invasion, and appreciated its sophistication..

Thoughtful and pensive, this short novel is fascinating and alluring, detailing the arrival of an alien species on Earth. I think this book deserves 2 or 3 readings to be truly appreciated.

"Advent" is an alien invasion story with a twist; Kamakana's themes vary form colonialism and race to socioeconomic statuses whilst the single-paragraph episodic chapters discuss the invasion and the characters' experience. Haunting and poignant, "Advent" is more than your typical science fiction tale.