Why Do Birds

Rating:
Summary: Missing the punchline, a disappointment
Review: A little disappointing. I like the premise, but thought the humor angle wasn't played up enough.

Rating:
Summary: Not terrific, not terrible
Review: A little disappointing. I like the premise, but thought the humor angle wasn't played up enough.

Rating:
Summary: great novel
Review: Damon Knight has created a rather haunting and slightly whimsical piece (in the same vein as George Alec Effinger's: Two Sadnesses). The book isn't a long worded comedy and people reading it shouldn't be expecting Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett ... this novel is above all that. It's humor isn't based on physical humor or pure absurdity, I found it more sad than anything else. I highly recommend this novel to anyone who's not just looking for a hollow laugh ... to someone who enjoys a book that transcends the popular boundaries of the genre and transcends it well.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining but puzzling
Review: Damon Knight tells an entertaining and wry story, but seems to leave a lot of loose ends. The book turns on the question of whether or not Ed Stone's warning that the Earth will be destroyed is true, or is it a hoax on either his part or the part of the aliens he says sent him. When I found the answer, I was left trying to figure out why Knight put in some strange incidents or clues that turned out to be red herrings. And the title! Will somebody please explain the title to me?

Rating:
Summary: Time
Review: The first time i read this book in my early teens, i didn't really like it. i thought it seemed like a cool idea that didn't really go anywhere. i'd never heard of Damon Knight before, and i probably picked the book up because of the title, Why Do Birds. Yet i have read many, many books since. The mass majority of them i've forgotten, yet this book has always stayed with me for the same reason the title once captured my attention. this story is so incomplete, yet so unforgetable. it's like an experience that was unsatisfactory at the time yet for some reason becomes a cherished memory. there is something fantastic about this book, something which i find myself thinking about more and more as the years go on, yet something that, even now, i cannot put my finger on. Thank you, Damon Knight, if you ever read these reviews. i truly appreciate how you've stimulated my mind, and i truly appreciate you writing this incredible book.

Rating:
Summary: Time
Review: The first time i read this book in my early teens, i didn't really like it. i thought it seemed like a cool idea that didn't really go anywhere. i'd never heard of Damon Knight before, and i probably picked the book up because of the title, Why Do Birds. Yet i have read many, many books since. The mass majority of them i've forgotten, yet this book has always stayed with me for the same reason the title once captured my attention. this story is so incomplete, yet so unforgetable. it's like an experience that was unsatisfactory at the time yet for some reason becomes a cherished memory. there is something fantastic about this book, something which i find myself thinking about more and more as the years go on, yet something that, even now, i cannot put my finger on. Thank you, Damon Knight, if you ever read these reviews. i truly appreciate how you've stimulated my mind, and i truly appreciate you writing this incredible book.

Rating:
Summary: Missing the punchline, a disappointment
Review: The story is well written, but like the title, something vital is missing, without which it doesn't make sense. Things happen, but there's little progress after the situation is set-up.

The characters are unusally low-key; in most other SF stories of this type, upon realizing that they are brainwashed by aliens, a character will try to resist; here they just shrug and go on with the alien plans.

When I read the last page, there was no sense of finishing a complete story: we never do find out what it was all about, anymore than we find out what the missing verb was in "why do birds".

Rating:
Summary: When intellectuals write apocalyptic novels...
Review: This is a self-consciously clever book that must appeal mostly to academics and intellectuals painfully aware of their own ironic insights. In places it is downright annoying.. such as the idiotic characterizations of world leaders... and the rest of the time it is just childish. Some people may breathe "Wow..." after the final chapter. I just breathed, "Yeah, so what?" It's all been done better elsewhere, with more intellligence.