[Phat Mack]

I liked the first two thirds of FOS. The Brooklyn childhood stuff was was very evocative, and the middle part about the estrangement of friends after growing up was interesting, but to me, FOS was a book in search of an ending that just never delivered. For the last 100 pages or so the plot seemed to be circling, looking for a place to land. And as far as I could tell, it never found it. The final scenes in the prison, which I suppose were meant to provide some sort of denouement, or at least closure of some kind, seemed so contrived and were such a lame ending to such a good beginning that I threw the book across the room. I think Lethem may have lost his way in this one, or maybe he just wanted to get the writing over with.

There was an article in the NYT Book Review a year ago in which the article's writer offered the opinion that Lethem could be our greatest SciFi author if he'd concentrate on SciFi, and drop all the literary crap. I wonder if this book disproves his theory. I think this book would have been a lot better if he'd have dropped the flying businss and just told it as a straight story with a beginning, a middle and an ending. (And I really like Lethem's other "SciFi" stuff.)

jmo