Zoo City

Fans of China Mieville and William Gibson take note: Lauren Buekes??? ???Zoo City??? is every bit gritty noir as it is urban fantasy, and it shoots along like bullets through a warm night sky.

Which means, this story is not a story for the faint of heart. It culminates in one of the roughest blood baths I???ve ever listened to. The worldbuilding is everything you???d want it to be --particularly the ghettoization of the Zoos -- and Beukes turns a phrase better than most and writes broken characters with heart. Her Zinzi is an antihero who despite all her flaws and failings, somehow manages to make us care about her. That said, the ending fell a bit short for me ??? not so much a payoff of counterfeit bills, but more like a stage magician who closes out her stunning show with a rabbit trick. It???s not bad, and there's resolution, but it left me wishing for something different.

I can???t comment too much on the authenticity of Justine Eyre???s accent, but she did an impressive job reading this one ??? from differentiating between the characters, the internal dialogue of Zinzi, and all-in-all carrying this story.

If you ever wondered what might have happened if James Ellroy was raised in Johannesburg by a witch who moonlighted writing 419 scam emails on the side, this is your ticket. All in all, well worth the listen, and I???m eager to see where Beukes takes us next.

With a cover blurb from William Gibson ("Very, *very*good!") and an Arthur C. Clarke Award, a World Fantasy Award nomination, and other glowing recommendations behind it (Jeff VanderMeer's review in the NY Times for example) I had very high expectations for Beukes's second novel. It's every bit as "phantasmagorical" and wonderful as billed, with a delicious noir-ish plot set atop a sea of bizarre characters in a transfigured modern world. In Zinzi December's Joburg lies the slum of "Zoo City", populated by the Animaled, people whose dark deeds have saddled them with faimilars -- in Zinzi's case, a sloth. Building up from a brief stage setting (Zinzi the drug-debted 419-scammer, Benoit her mongoosed boyfriend, some missing items, some not-so-missing but quite dead persons) and dropping Zinzi into a missing persons case of her own, tracking down the female half of a twin boy-girl Afro-pop duo for the duo's megalomaniacal producer. There's African tribal magic; there's gunplay; there's a brilliant imagination at work behind it all. It's beyond a doubt worth the (very low) price and (fairly short) time investment and I highly recommend it. There are a few narration quirks here and there -- Justine Eyre does a better job than many who have attempted mainline narration in their non-native accents, but from time to time some phrases slip ever so slightly out of accent. Still, all in all, a wonderful audiobook.

I am honestly not sure who would really be able to follow the reader in this book. This book honestly taught me the value of samples, they are there, so use them!

I searched out this book because it topped a few lists for some of the best fiction in 2011. I think the performance ruined it for me. The narrator actually made me angry! Badly rendered accent that simply detracts.

Sad thing is? I can't remember a thing about the writing...

I was a bit underwhelmed by Zoo City. I thought the general Sci-fi concept could have been explored in some other context than a loose detective story. There are moments of really fresh brilliance here but overall I thought it was rather plain. Could it be that as a South African living in Johannesburg the imagery Lauren evokes is too mundane for me?

Following on that point, the narration was offensive to the point of distraction. Could it really have been that difficult to find a legitemate South African narrator. Really, there's way too much slang and African language to

I liked the flow,the pace, the energy. You can't wait to know what happens next, but you are excited to learn about the past too.

The twins. I can't say why, it might give away spoilers.

The accents and the cultural differences that I would have missed had I read it instead. On some occasions I wasn't sure what she was talking about. But I'm from central white bread America, so that's probably a big part of it.

Oh yes. I have an hour long commute and even then I would sit and let the page or chapter wind down before getting out of the car.

The author finishes the story and there is a suggestion of a follow up, please let there be!!!!

Zoo City floats your boat or it doesn't. The essential idea of emotional baggage being carried around in the form of an animal as well as conveying a special sensitivity or power to the damaged person is interesting. The characterisation is light. The descriptions of South Africa are perhaps less remarkabe if you live in Johannesburg - as I do. Personally I found the end too neat and convenient and the final redemption unconvincingly complete.

I had a much bigger problem with the narration. It was shocking! The accents were inconsistent and poor. Like listening to an Austrailian actor doing half a dozen accents he has heard for an hour each, all you hear is ham Austrailian. Nobody speaks like that. As a consequence of having a non South African reader, words were seriously mispronounced - in three languages! Slang words especially lose their impact and emotion when said incorrectly. There were five or six moments when I almost stopped listening to this audiobook because listening to it being read so badly detracted from the writing.

If this is your genre and you are intersted in Zoo City, I recommend reading it.