Lark Benobi's Reviews > Son of a Trickster

This novel rings brilliant changes on topics such as vomit--"The stew-like puddle stank beside the mattress"--and it does a wonderful job of representing characters whose main way of spending their lives is to grow stupefied together on booze or drugs or occasionally sex. All the characters speak in a witty-gritty way that I admire, but it almost felt as if Robinson is so good at all of the above--especially good at drunken dialog, for instance, or of writing characters who make stupid choices, or writing scenes that ignite with a sudden flash of violence--that it got to be too much for me, where it was a story that moved in circles rather than forward. I'm still a big fan but I felt Robinson's writing strengths eventually overwhelmed the actual story.