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The Mirage (2012)

by Matt Ruff(Favorite Author)

3.57 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0061976229 (ISBN13: 9780061976223)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

HarperTorch

review 1: I've never been a fan of alternate-universe fiction. Too often it comes off as an extended riff of interesting ideas meant to show how terribly clever the author is, but not much in the way of plot. "The Mirage" is no exception. It provides a mildly interesting, if somewhat tasteless, alternate history where the United States never fully recovered from the Civil War, and after WWII broke apart into a number of religious states. Meanwhile, the Arab world united and became a superpower. On 11/9 2011, Christian fundamentalists attack the Twin Towers in Baghdad, kicking off an Arab invasion of the various US states. In this topsy-turvy world, Washington DC is the Green Zone, and the communities of Northern Virginia an area of sectarian violence. Yet, numerous people in this al... moretered world have come to believe their world is a mirage--a mirror image of another world, and the occasional presence of anomalous artifacts from this other world--our reality--continue to appear in theirs. Although the origin of the mirage is eventually given a somewhat satisfying explanation, the ending of the book is a bit unsatisfying, despite the fact that it answers the question absolutely nobody has been asking, "who would win in a fight betweeN Osama and Saddam?" The entire exercise, though occasionally amusing, comes off as rather tasteless and ultimately pointless. The author never uses the books premise as a vehicle for fleshing out interesting ideas; it comes off as a nothing more than a long list of "wouldn't it be cool if..." moments.
review 2: This is a difficult one to rate. I was drawn in by word of mouth but wary of the subject, an alternate world version of 9/11. I was instantly drawn in by the characters and the reimagining of the world as if the 9/11 atrocities had been committed against Iraq. The second half of the novel and the explanation of how the mirage came to be just didn't match up to the intrigue of the first half for me. But a complicated, difficult, well-written novel. less

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