ospalh reviewed Dionysus in Wisconsin by E. H. Lupton
Review of 'Dionysus in Wisconsin' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Eh. Mostly not bad. But not good, either, IMO.
The story didn’t grip me. Also, it doesn’t make much sense. Why would it be bad to hav Dionysus around? The »but maenads« from the book seems odd. Also, What was the idea behind trying to get Dionysus reincarnate in the first place? Why him, why not, IDK, Plutus? The guy behind it was a capitalist, after all.Yu know, a wannabe plutocrat.
Also, it is purportedly set in 1969. That seems odd to me. Yeah, no. I don’t expect characters in a novel to quote from a newspaper all the time, but i thought two things where on most Usonians’ minds at the time: The Vietnam war and the Apollo program. Both get hardly any mention in the book. The Apollo program gets one, »the moon landing«, singular, without any real thought about it. That, where one scene is set on …
Eh. Mostly not bad. But not good, either, IMO.
The story didn’t grip me. Also, it doesn’t make much sense. Why would it be bad to hav Dionysus around? The »but maenads« from the book seems odd. Also, What was the idea behind trying to get Dionysus reincarnate in the first place? Why him, why not, IDK, Plutus? The guy behind it was a capitalist, after all.Yu know, a wannabe plutocrat.
Also, it is purportedly set in 1969. That seems odd to me. Yeah, no. I don’t expect characters in a novel to quote from a newspaper all the time, but i thought two things where on most Usonians’ minds at the time: The Vietnam war and the Apollo program. Both get hardly any mention in the book. The Apollo program gets one, »the moon landing«, singular, without any real thought about it. That, where one scene is set on 24 November 1969, the day Conrad, Gordon and Bean successfully fell back down from the sky.
The reason given why magic users don’t get drafted doesn’t make much sense. »In general, magic wasn’t great for the battlefield.« Yu know what isn’t great for the battlefield? Almost every other job! Being a backer isn’t great for the battlefield! Throwing bread at someone isn’t usually killing them. So, why wouldn’t the US Army just give magic users an M16 and tell them to shoot at the enemy, like everybody else?
In general, what about other religions? If Dionysus is real, what about, say יהוה? And was Oily Josh his son or not?
The joke »“You’d better be careful, […] You’re taking your own name in vain now.”« is believable, but completely misses the point of the commandment. The name yu should not take in vain is given in the text, it’s »יהוה«, it is not about the word »god«. If Dionysus wants a commandment not to use the name »Dionysus« in vain, then he has to command that himself.
Talking of that god: I’m not sure, how much the finale was meant to remind the reader of the Binding of Isaac. In any case, that whole scene made no sense to me at all.
It could hav been edited more strongly. There were some garden path sentences and some idioms that should hav been cleaned up. Some plain errors »[T]hey hauled Sam him onto the grass.«
I didn’t like that you would need a Kindle or Nook account to get an e-book version. There is a print-on-demand version.
The tipografy is general not too bad – most people won’t notice a problem, i think – but i found it grating. Especially the fake slanted text instead of italics. The letter spacing there is atrocious.
No hifenation, which – together with the somewhat large print – means there ar frequently large gaps between the words.