The Stone Gods

Taking a hard look at ourselves adrift a deep blue pool of imagination. And a page turner too. Take a few deep breaths as you go in.

If you're thinking about buying this book, you're going to get no help at all in your decision-making from its jacket. This book sports not a single review quotation. Not on the front cover nor on the back cover. Not in support of the blurb on the front flap nor after the biography on the back flap. And not on any of the eight blank pages at the end of the book that make you think there'll be another twist to the story when in fact it's finished (don't you just hate that?). Jeanette Winterson's The Stone Gods needs, it seems, no introduction, no recommendation, no testimonial. Jeanette Winterson is Literature, so the newspaper reviewers tell me. They also tell me that this story belongs to that category known as sci-fi. Does it? That's news to me. I don't do sci-fi. If it is sci-fi, it's in the tradition of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale rather than Frank Herbert's Dune. The novel comes in three parts. Three apocalyptic scenarios. The same story; the story of how the human race can bring about its environment's complete destruction, without thinking about it until it's too late. Scary stuff. Depressing stuff too. There are also three love stories - all rather too sentimental for my taste. Too many long sentences weaving poetically around at 11 at night (the only time this tired mother-of-two gets to read) do me no good at all. But then there are two 'hidden' love stories - the love a tiny baby has for its mother and the love we all have for Earth, our home - which really began to hit some vein of truth. Although this will not rate as my favourite book of all time, it did make me think. About climate change, about rampant consumerism and where it might lead us. About what it would take to shake the West out of its blind adoration of the great god Economic Growth, and about what might happen if it's already too late. It also got me thinking about extinction. Not just the extinction of the dinosaurs, nor of hundreds of species of plants and animals each day, but my own extinction, and by extension the extinction of the planet. It made me feel what it might be like to know for certain there is no hope. No life after death. No new blue planet to migrate to in silver spaceships when we're done destroying this one. And the book made me cry.

The first novel I’d read by JW. Thought the section about Easter Island was superb, but in other places the book resembled a polemic. I’m not saying I’d never revisit this author, but I won’t be rushing to her other work.

A powerful read, amusing, depressing, ultimately thought-provoking. A book with purpose, but rich and enjoyable. I would make all humans read it if I could. My favourite Winterson read so far.

A good read, great components but by no means an easy read, be ready to have to work to read your book

I liked this book and enjoyed reading it. I felt it was reminiscent of David Mitchell's "The Cloud Atlas" (or The Cloud Atlas is reminscent of this - I don't know which came first) and I liked the interweaving of the stories. I really enjoyed the 18th century section focussing on the adventures of a sailor on one of Cook's voyages. However, there is just one thing wrong with this - why does everything have to be about sex?? I get that it's an important theme to the author (homosexual love is in all of her books) but sometimes it's just too much. I found it so here, definitely. And it's not because it was love of a homosexual nature - it was just that it was too much sex full stop. Unbelievably, I really do think that it's possible to write a good book without including all the bonking. I liked it - but it's not the best speculative fiction I've ever read; all the rumpy pumpy and obsessing about sex ruined it for me.

I have to admit that I quite enjoyed the first half of this book, athough the writing style took a little getting used to, but then after the first section the story just peters out and is not very easy to follow, and to be honest it just becomes very dull and tedious. I feel that if the book had been a novella, and had ended at the end of the first section of the story (about half the book) then I would have enjoyed it a lot more. As it is, it just becomes dull, tedious and confusing and was not a pleasure to read. I wish I had stopped after the first section. I cannot recommend this book, although I am told that some of her other work is of a higher standard.

a set of books that need to be read in sequence it is amazing what you learn about your self

One of the best books I have read this year. Also a welcome inspirational defrag of a few stagnant values hanging around in me with no place to be .. thank you Jeanette Winterstone

Profetico e intrigante

I think if the book had ended after "The Planet Blue" segment (noting that it would then have a been just a novella) it would have been better served. The whole repetition them is shopworn at best, tedious at worst. On the plus side, Billy and Spike are a fun duo, even if she ran out of a plot line.

The Stone Gods is an exceptional book. It is lyrical but dense, a deep love story that also discusses some fundamental ideas of humanity (freedom, maturity and humanity, sexuality and love) against the backdrop of a frighteningly possible future (a third world war resulting in corporate takeover and an untenable environment). It mixes these elements together impressively and in only 200 pages has considerable impact. I can understand why Atwood (who wrote "Oryx and Crake," another excellent novel about the 'end' of the world) likes this book so much. Many of the low reviews for this book appear to have wanted a potboiler. This is not a book read solely for the series of events that happen in it. Its lyricism is not limited to the writing, but extends to the portrayal of this world and its characters. The names of the characters (Billie Crusoe is later assisted by Friday, Cpt. Handsome, etc.) reflects this, as do some of their decisions, and complaints of "unbelievability" are misplaced. One low reviewer appears to be offended by the discussion of pedophilia and sex in the book. I think Winterson does a masterful job demonstrating a consumer culture's sexual appetites, and presents a believable progression of current society. Maybe a "degradation" to pedophilia would be more appropriate, since the protagonist is strongly opposed to the practice, and I think in part it is presented as a reflection of society's failure to mature past childhood. Second, this speculative fiction (as Atwood would say) appears to treat people as people in the purest sense, and has little interest in trapping them by being male or female. It is implied being straight is uncommon, although not necessarily a negative. This treatment is similar to Heinlein's "The Golden Globe" (public nudity also appears to not be a taboo anymore, etc.) Finally, this book has very little focus on physical sex, and sex acts that are described are brief and usually comic. If you are offended by same sex relationships then I hope you enjoy this book and after reading it appreciate they are like any other.

Winterson's writing is what draws me in. This book is almost like a long poem, some parts are so lyrical. No particularly new ideas, but the familiar becomes new through the burnished satire and melancholy of her prose. The conclusion of the book is that regardless of our ability to learn over the span of a lifetime, over the span of generations we commit the same errors. But she is able to throw out neat social judgements, insights into the human condition, and nifty little one liners, such as the following: "Love is just Nature's way of getting one person to pay another person's bills."