Sorry! I just got around to reading the review. I... have some notable issues with it, largely surrounding Clute's reading of the vapidity of Walton's heroines (particularly the snarky comment in the middle about how if a man had written the series, he would have been lambasted for being sexist) and his general dismissal of the female voices.
That aside, I am not sure Clute and I are even in the same room for most matters; he's coming from a place in which he's referencing what I assume are a great deal of works on alternate histories and/or mysteries, whereas I have very little patience for mysteries period unless they involve characters I care a great deal about. I do agree with him about the temporal matters; I had a difficult time believing that so little would have changed between the second book and the third, and I also agree about not having enough of a set-up for the ending.
That said, I enjoy the books a great deal because of some things that Clute sees as flaws, such as the way so many people in that world let things slide by--we may have very differing views of the world. I fully believe something like this could happen and see hints of it every day (the lambasting of Muslims, the difference in treatment between men and women, etc.), whereas he seems to assume that the world is not like that and therefore it must be proved that it is.
Plus, I love the narrative voice in the books and the way Walton sets up her female characters as supposedly flighty and ditzy but ends up showing that they are not (which is why I personally do not think they are misogynist at all).
Re: *reposts*
That aside, I am not sure Clute and I are even in the same room for most matters; he's coming from a place in which he's referencing what I assume are a great deal of works on alternate histories and/or mysteries, whereas I have very little patience for mysteries period unless they involve characters I care a great deal about. I do agree with him about the temporal matters; I had a difficult time believing that so little would have changed between the second book and the third, and I also agree about not having enough of a set-up for the ending.
That said, I enjoy the books a great deal because of some things that Clute sees as flaws, such as the way so many people in that world let things slide by--we may have very differing views of the world. I fully believe something like this could happen and see hints of it every day (the lambasting of Muslims, the difference in treatment between men and women, etc.), whereas he seems to assume that the world is not like that and therefore it must be proved that it is.
Plus, I love the narrative voice in the books and the way Walton sets up her female characters as supposedly flighty and ditzy but ends up showing that they are not (which is why I personally do not think they are misogynist at all).