3.60/5 ( )

Russian billionaire Boris Bazarov places space mirrors in orbit to catch the light of the sun at all hours, creating perpetual daytime under a sea of glass in Petroplavilsk and the surrounding rural communities, near the giant inland Lake Onega. Twins Yarik and Dima find themselves working side-by-side, trying to get ahead. Their paths diverge as Yarik is married with children and is promoted by Bazarov while Dima wishes for a simpler life as a Russian peasant. The grand scheme here is a portrayal of new Russia, and the inherent struggle between: new and old, agrarian and industrial, communism and capitalism, society and individual, but I thought it fell flat. Good writing, but just too much. 2.5 stars. ( )

This is if nothing else a beautiful story, it almost seems as if the fantastic past/future-esque setting detracts from the real issues and feelings brought up. Twin brothers in an indeterminate Russian past both end up working on a futuristic greenhouse project requiring projecting sunlight reflected from space via giant mirrors. One brother embraces this future and the other utterly rejects it. I had to resort to Google to look up The Caspian Sea Monster - ekranoplan - and was surprised to find that was historical. ( )

read the full review at: http://digitalmanticore.com/?p=244

The Great Glass Sea follows the lives of twin brothers Yaroslav (Yarik) and Dmitry (Dima) Zhuvov—not their entire lives, of course. That would be dull. Rather, Weil zooms in on what separates Yarik and Dima, what pushes their lives onto opposing trajectories.

There are hints of Yarik and Dima’s separation from the beginning of the story, from their childhood, but it was not until I neared the end that I realized that the seeds of their separation were sown so early on.

Most of the story focuses on Yarik and Dima as adults. The boys’ town, located in the north eastern reaches of Russia, the parts that get so little winter sun, is home to a mad engineering project: the Oranzheria (“greenhouse” in Russian). The Consortium is building a gigantic series of mirrors to reflect light into the city. The project invigorates the people of Petroplavilsk. Men work 12-hour days erecting the mirrors, working their way across the Petroplavilsk and the outlying area. Yarik and Dima used to work on the same crew, but that changed after they were found doing nothing all day while on the clock by the Consortium’s CEO. Afterward, the brothers are put on separate shifts. They only see each other on holidays and at the bus stop during the shift change each day.

This separation sets off a series of events that propel the brothers Zhuvov into separate orbits. Yarik becomes a “friend” of the CEO and the front man for the Consortium’s advertisements in Petroplavilsk. Because Yarik has a wife and two young children, he sees the importance of moving up and embracing the culture of work. Dima, in contrast, quits work not long after their separation. Dima decides he feels no need to work. He roams the city, falls in with various anti-Oranzheria groups and, for the most part, loses the will do to anything other than save up for a day when he can be together with Yarik. ( )

Josh Weil's lovely new book, spinning a relatively realistic story from a fantasy premise, asks: What might happen if you take wintery, gloomy Russia and invent mirrored sun-reflecting satellites to make 24-hour daylight? Well, the result here is that no one gets weekends anymore... any day off of work is extremely rare. They use that time to build a gigantic greenhouse, miles across, the "Great Glass Sea" of the title. That requires buying up properties and destroying everything more than two stories high... for buildings, the new glass ceiling is their new roof.

The narrative switches perspectives between two twin brothers: Dima and Yarik. They are now in their thirties but they remember a time before the Great Glass Sea. Before this invention, the brothers couldn't have been closer. Yarik is married with two children but Dima has neither and doesn't even want friends in his life, as it would make him less close with his brother. Up to a point, their lives were always the same and they were always together, but like swerving train tracks, Dima quits his job to just amble around and do what he wants to do: reciting poetry on statues in the park attracts the attention of anarchists and the old Communists. Dima becomes an unintentional, accidental poster-boy for both of those groups. Yarik also becomes an actual poster-boy for upward mobility when the man who is responsible for the Great Glass Sea likes his story (or really wants to re-write his story) and give the people something to strive towards in their own lives. But the people see Dima doing what he wants to do with his time and start working at a less urgent pace. Both brothers want to save up money to reclaim their uncle's farm before the Great Glass Sea covers all of Russia.

I'd like to see more books that take a fantasy premise and apply it to a realistic narrative. I guess you'd call it speculative fiction. Weil writes extremely well (I'm sure his background as a Russian exchange student didn't hurt) but sometimes little details seem to get repeated a few times. If the repetitiveness was cut down, I think it would have made for a shorter and better book. I especially adored the little drawings that Weil included around the chapter names. They are so amazing and detailed! One drawing has around twenty geese and at first glance it looks like the same goose twenty times, but if you look closer, each is slightly different. I especially liked the little sewing sampler with roosters and tanks. If this writing thing doesn't work out... oh wait, it completely has and will. ( )