Is it just me, or did everyone else miss the part of Lilith’s Brood where they explain just what the hell is going on? I’m more than 20 pages in and I only have a loose understanding of what all is happening. I know that a lot of people are dead and there’s some group of aliens called the ooloi…or maybe they’re Oankali that are really trying to get humanity to learn, understand and accept their language and ways. All in all, though, the book seems like I’ve been dropped into something that doesn’t even bother to explain itself.
Imagine signing up for a class and showing up on the first day of class only to find out that the class, and even the teacher are all made up of a close-knit group of friends and they’re all using in-group jargon and inside jokes and nobody bothers to explain any of it to you. That’s kind of how I feel about Lilith’s Brood. And now for the academic part of this,
Compare this to Neuromancer. That book also had its own language and jargon that they didn’t bother to explain (apparently a trope of sci-fi is to treat the world as if you’re already a part of it. Some people are into that), but the context clues were such that it was really easy to pick up on the meaning. I heard that Lilith’s Brood is an easier read and is less dense than Neuromancer. Strangely, I found this to be true despite the fact that half the words make zero amount of sense whereas Neuromancer cleverly filled me in…
Is anyone else having trouble understanding Lilith’s Brood? Or is it just me?