Two Brief Reviews
Aug. 20th, 2003 12:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldThe Gangs of New York is a gruesomely fascinating book that demonstrates--just like the movie, a substantially fictionalized version of the orignial 1920s title--demonstrates just how gruesomely violent and poor 19th century New York City was. People complain about crime in Rio de Janerio, or Moscow, but those cities are First World compared to the grimy narrow sunless alleyways of Manhattan's slums.
The White Abacus is an entertaining recasting of Shakespeare in a far-future setting where a brilliant asteroid civilization has been humbled by the development of a superluminal interstellar teleportation technology that doesn't work on low-mass worldlets. The recasting comes uncomfortably close to copying at times, and homage a lack of originality, Still, it's quite fun.
The White Abacus is an entertaining recasting of Shakespeare in a far-future setting where a brilliant asteroid civilization has been humbled by the development of a superluminal interstellar teleportation technology that doesn't work on low-mass worldlets. The recasting comes uncomfortably close to copying at times, and homage a lack of originality, Still, it's quite fun.
