Where the Trains Turn

I struggled through this one. I liked where it ended up -- but the "getting there" part seemed incredibly muddled to me. I felt as though the original Finnish story had been plugged into Google Translate and then fixed up a little bit, but not enough to make it a good story in English ("the impregnation substance"??? what???).

Not being able to read the original in Finnish as my native language, I don't know if my difficulty is just with the translation or with the original story to begin with. I suspect it's a combination of both.

I wanted to like it. I still want to like it. I'm not sorry I read it, but I wouldn't have put it on my Hugo nomination ballot, and if it hadn't been part of the Longlist, I suspect I would never have finished it.

I still think there's a good story in there -- but that story is not the same as what was printed on the page. It seems a bit of a shame.