Category: Aa

Galactic North — Alastair Reynolds

By 5t4n5

Galactic North -- Alastair ReynoldsThis is bizarre.   After three trilogy length novels — two spanning decades and one a few centuries — going into glorious detail and getting the reader really involved with the characters and their situations, we now have a story spanning tens of millennia that’s only a short: WTF?

It all feels extremely rushed, utterly lacking in depth and just seems like Alastair threw it together before breakfast to meet some publisher’s needs before he went on holiday.

Ho hum, we can’t really expect all of Alastair’s books to be excellent.   This one’s very disappointing.

Anyways, this is the last story in the whole series for now.   Just a bit of a wait until Inhibitor Phase is released on 26th August 2021.

It’s certainly been a blast reading the whole series in one go, it was just under 3 months ago when i began Great Wall of Mars.   And no inbetweenies due to boredom: this is one of those series that you just want to keep on reading without any other books getting involved.

Available in the collection, Galactic North.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

Absolution Gap — Alastair Reynolds

By 5t4n5

Absolution Gap -- Alastair ReynoldsIf you’re not into reading a whole trilogy crammed into one book then i’d suggest staying away: this book is huge.   But if you’ve got this far you’ve just read two books of similar length so you’re used to it by now — dive right in.

My thoughts are that this book just doesn’t come up to the same level as the previous two.   I think it’s because everything in this universe that we’ve come to know is all getting torn apart into molecules by the Inhibitors and there’s not much left of life as we once knew it.   It’s all quite depressing really, as are some of the characters.   And while i like a writer who isn’t afraid to kill off a main character or several, i was a bit put out by one of them as i really wanted to hear more from them: i won’t say which one because it would spoil the whole book.

But, this is war, this is the threatened annihilation of the human race, so we can’t expect it to be all upbeat and fun — can we?

So yeah, straight into Galactic North now and then it’s a bit of a wait for Inhibitor Phase to be published on 26th August 2021.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

Redemption Ark — Alastair Reynolds

By 5t4n5

Redemption Ark -- Alastair ReynoldsOooh wow, now that was a really good read, extremely lengthy but really good.

This time we’re back in the Yellowstone system but our old friends (or enemies, depending on how you view them), the Conjoiners are back, along with a few blasts from the distant past: don’t worry, you’ll soon catch up with who’s who again.

When Ilia activated the cache weapons in the last book the Conjoiners, whose weapons they actually happen to be, received an alert that they’ve been activated and it’s not too long before they decide that they’re going to get them back.   But there’s rifts amongst the Conjoiners, who aren’t as conjoined as they might seem, and some want the weapons for a different reason.

And so it’s off to Resurgam, via Chasm City, in souped up lighthuggers that bend the laws of physics, in a crazy game of star-ship-chase-me as the different factions want to get there first and get the cache weapons — both gleefully trying to throw a spanner in the other’s works along the way.

And what a great time is going to be had when we get to Resurgam, what with the Inhibitors now unleashed by Sylveste’s previous shenanigans, running amok and making to destroy the whole solar system, and also Ilia having absolutely no desire to give up her weapons to anyone.

There’s also lots of other great story telling things and characters going on besides — like a whole planet to evacuate before the inhibitors burn it to death.   You won’t be bored.

Super good and now it’s straight into Absolution Gap.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

Trident’s Forge — Patrick S Tomlinson

By 5t4n5

Trident's Forge -- Patrick S TomlinsonHumanity has finally begun to settle into their new home.   The new colony is coming along well with the ship locked in orbit at the end of an orbital lift providing all their needs, but Mei and the rest of the unbound have decided they don’t want to be any part of this new society and go off on their own across the ocean to meet the natives.

Then all hell breaks loose and Bryan, our illustrious detective from the first book (who is now the chief re-creation officer for the colony), ends up in the thick of it all on the other side of the planet.

All in all, a super good first-contact story, without none of that Star Trek first directive getting in anyone’s way: oh dear!

And now i’m really looking forward to Children of the Divide, the third book of this thoroughly enjoyable trilogy.

Patrick’s Page

#scifi #patrickstomlinson

Children of the Divide — Patrick S Tomlinson

By 5t4n5

Children of the Divide -- Patrick S TomlinsonI really couldn’t take any more of this story.   I gave up when Jian was about to crash into the orbital lift.

Yes folks, once again the last remaining humans manage to screw everything up.   Once again there’s a human faction trying to destroy everything.

Rinse, repeat, yawn, Zzzzzz.

Some people might like it, i suppose.

Patrick’s Page

#scifi #patrickstomlinson

Voice of the Whirlwind — Walter Jon Williams

By 5t4n5

Voice of the Whirlwind -- Walter Jon WilliamsThe third instalment in the Hardwired Series.

A super good story and certainly no complaints on that aspect of the book, but the telling of it leaves a bit to be desired.   As in Hardwired, we are told a tale without any explanation as to the background, only for that to be revealed later on.

At 6% i found myself suddenly realising what’s happening in this vagueness that i’d been reading which left me with no choice but to go back to the very beginning and begin again.   Why Walter can’t just tell you what you need to know before you read it instead of sometime afterwards i have no idea. There’s a few other places in the book that i was left feeling like i’m going back and forward in time and feeling like i’m not quite sure where i am any more.

It is rather annoying because he is certainly a great crafter of story, with great characters and world building, but then goes and lets it all down by writing things out of sequence and all over the place.

But, it is worth putting up with this downside to enjoy a really good story.

And this officially ends the trilogy, although i believe that Aristoi is kind of set in the same universe with a fair few references to Nero, one of our favourite characters from Solip:System: so i may just have to dive into that in the not too distant future.

Walter’s Page

#scifi #cyberpunk #walterjonwilliams

Solip:System — Walter Jon Williams

By 5t4n5

Solip:System -- Walter Jon WilliamsI believe this novella was written as an afterthought to attempt to bridge a gap between Hardwired and Voice of the Whirlwind, thus creating a trilogy once a few things got ironed out in Voice of the Whirlwind.

Which i think is a bit bad because this book is a very much needed sequel to Hardwired whether or not there was another book to follow.

I’m definitely pleased it was written as it does finish off Hardwired and Nero’s escapades as Roon rather nicely.

Brilliant novella, and now i dive straight into Voice of the Whirlwind.

Walter’s Page

#scifi #cyberpunk #walterjonwilliams

Hardwired — Walter Jon Williams

By 5t4n5

Hardwired -- Walter Jon WilliamsThis is one of those books with lots of jargon that isn’t explained in advance, and so you wander through a world with nomenclature and terminoloy that means nothing to you until, in the case of the term “thatch” for example, you get over 60% of the way into the story before someone explains what the word means. I would suggest that it’s definitely well worth reading the bit at the back named “Panzerboy” before you begin as that helps a little settling in.

Other than the nomenclature/terminology issue, which i suggest you just deal with it and accept it for what it is, it’s a super good story that became a very much couldn’t-put-downer towards the end — which is kinda once i’ve figured out all the nomenclature/terminology — and i found myself diving straight into Solip:System without a pause.

It’s certainly got me wanting to re-read the series again in a few years time now i know what things mean before i begin.

So yes, indeedy, it’s certainly rather good cyberpunk and worthy of it’s praises as a classic of the genre.

Walter’s Page

#scifi #cyberpunk #walterjonwilliams

Nightingale — Alastair Reynolds

By 5t4n5

Nightingale -- Alastair ReynoldsWhat begins as a war-criminal hunt slowly turns more and more strange and out of control for our intrepid party of hunters.

I really enjoyed this super good novella.   It was nice of Alastair to throw a delicious little shorty between Revelation Space and Redemption Ark: both the size of trilogies in their own right.

And the ending is brilliant.

Available in the collection, Galactic North.

Next up in the series is Redemption Ark

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #alastairreynolds

Revelation Space — Alastair Reynolds

By 5t4n5

Revelation Space -- Alastair ReynoldsThis is one rather large book but, thankfully, it’s one rather good book as well that keeps those pages turn, turn, turning.

I think my only complaint is that when Volyova uses the Nostalgia for Infinity as a murder weapon by accelerating it and braking it in order to smash one of her crew to death, there’s no explanation as to what happened to everything else in this massive ship that wasn’t nailed down properly.   Like, what happened to all the ship-slime, rats, shuttle craft, the weapons cache and many other things besides: were all of the these things nailed down to protect them against such repeated high G acceleration and forward braking phases?   There were many ways of carrying out this killing that didn’t require any further explanation, but to use the method that Volyova did and then for Alastair to just fail to explain what happened to everything else in the ship does annoy me somewhat.

Because the ship isn’t designed to brake in the forward motion.   It’s designed to accelerate to one G continuously up to the half way point of the journey, then it will flip 180 degrees and use the same one G thrust to slow itself down.   Why would the engines suddenly be capable of huge 10 G burns in both directions just to kill one person?   I really think it’s needs a proper explaining.

But yeah, i know, that’s how picky i have to be to find any real criticism of this immense book.   It is the only fault i could find, and to be fair, most people would probably read this and not even think about it.

I do hope that doesn’t put anyone off (not that i think for one moment that it would ), because other than that one bizarre murder it’s super good, great writing, great characters, everything as we’ve come to expect so far in this series.

And i look forward to some more: next up is Nightingale.

Alastair’s Page

#scifi #sfmasterworks #alastairreynolds