The Great Glass Sea sped up a bit after I wrote my last post about it. I’m not sure that my enjoyment of it increased at all, but I did manage to get through it. I finished it over the weekend, and I’ve been mulling over the ending ever since. I won’t spoil it for anyone, I promise, but I must say I was disappointed. I really thought that things were going to turn out differently for Dima and Yarik, though the way Weil chose to end things is the more realistic way, but I thought in a novel of speculative fiction about a giant greenhouse and satellites redirecting sunlight onto northern Russia might choose the less real-world ending.

And you know what? I don’t think I want to spend any more time with this book. It disappointed me on many levels. There were parts I enjoyed, but I spent a lot of time being annoyed with Dima and Yarik. They both continually make bad decisions regarding their careers (or in Dima’s case, the lack of a career) and their relationship with each other, and I kept hoping they’d figure it all out by the end, but they just didn’t. And that, too, is more like real life, but sometimes it’s nice when fiction does the right thing, not the realistic one.

The Great Glass Sea is definitely quality fiction, and I would look into other stuff written by Josh Weil, but I don’t know that I can enthusiastically recommend this book. I think it has an audience. But I’m just not that audience.