Simon MacDonald
** I was given a review copy by NetGalley **
This book is set in and around the city of Koln in an alternate Medieval age where demons and magic abound. The premise of the story being that an evil wizard enchants a young man forcing him to embark on a campaign of rape to impregnate women (and men) with demon seed forcing them to give birth to demons. His antagonists are a magical dwarf and a young illegitimate boy raised in a whorehouse (the Bastard of the book's title).
There isn't much to recommend this book.
I suppose I can say it was well written with some gritty depictions of Medieval life. However, between the scenes of gratuitous violence, and the weird and perverted sex acts, there is not much of a story.
I consider myself to be pretty broadminded, and not at all prudish. A book, in which the central action is graphic description of rape, I find to be distasteful. I had to struggle to finish it. Possible the author has set out to shock and offend people. He hasn't succeeded; it's just puerile. .
Don't put it on your Christmas list.
** I was given a review copy by NetGalley **
I am a great fan of Alastair Reynolds' books, and I have read most of his work. This book is written in a different style and is set in a new universe.
The story is a fast paced science fiction adventure. The action is set in a decayed planetary system - possibly in the distant future- where the inhabitants live in the Congregation - a swarm of thousands of artificial habitats and planetoids . Civilisation has risen and collapsed many times, and technology is barely understood - a weird mix of alien and human. The dating system of the story is such that it appears to be set in the 18th century - and the writing style gives more than a hat-tip to the likes of Alexander Kent and the naval sea adventures of that time on Earth.
We follow the adventures of young Arafura (Fura) Ness as she absconds with her sister from the boring safety of life on Mazarile, to join the crew of Captain Rackamore, on his decrepit solar sailed spaceship, to hunt for technological treasure from lost civilisations. Along the way we encounter alien beings, nefarious pirates, treachery, and violence, but also friendship.
This is a coming-of-age story as Fura matures from a young girl into a strong and determined woman as she sets out to find her sister who has been kidnapped by pirates.
The pace, and the relative shortness of the book, means that the characters are only lightly sketched out. Similarly the universe of Revenger remains tantalisingly vague, with hints of something bigger happening outside of the scope of the story. Perhaps this is just an introduction to further adventures in this strange cosmological environment.
I feel another story coming soon!
Well, that was a roller coaster of a journey, with Jean le Flambeur, through the eccentric universe of the Zoku, Sobornost, and the Oort. As for the ending - I may need to read that bit again - it requires a bit more quantum processing. Of the whole trilogy I enjoyed this book less than the previous two.
However, overall, it is probably one of the best hard SF trilogies I have read. The author has a scientific background and it shows in the science that is described in the novels. It can be mind bogglingly difficult to follow.
Great stuff!
Perhaps the best book I have read this year. There is a strange and complex beauty to the writing of this book, where the reader is dropped into a maelstrom of events that are initially confusing. Just go with the flow and enjoy the strange culture, characters, and exotic technology that populate this universe.
A bleak, nihilistic, and dark satire on the space opera genre. The drug and violence fuelled excesses of William Burroughs, meet and corrupt, shades of Banks and Reynolds. The plot is weak, the characters shallow, and the (anti-)hero totally miserable and unlikeable. All of this buried in impenetrable, florid prose.
An SF classic? May have been when it was written in 1974, but now it's just wearisome.
Don't read this, unless you are particularly masochistic . Score 1.5
A lovely novella story of youthful discovery. Young Binti, a mathematical genius and master harmoniser, leaves her tribal home and family, without their permission, to journey across the universe to a University planet. Along the way she encounters new friends who are destroyed by bloody violence at the hands of an alien species. She survives but must use her growing confidence and abilities to prevent a possible interspecies war.
Probably 3.5.
An unusual book, which, despite the heavy emphasis (obviously) on Platonic philosophy, intrigued me. The combination of Greek Gods, time travel, philosophy, and robotic self awareness drew me in. The book has no real plot, and I honestly could not work out where it was going - and the story just stopped. Maybe that was the point, the story structure reflects the thought experiment of building the Just City. Let's build it and see where it goes.
To my great surprise I enjoyed it. I've started on the second novel to see if the story ends up anywhere interesting.
Incidentally, I have also downloaded some translations of Plato's work. We'll have to see how that goes!
