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Radix #1
Radix
This is the story of a young man's odyssey of self-discovery, from dangerous adolescent to warrior, from outcast to near-godhood, in a far-future Earth dramatically changed from the one we know.
493 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 1, 1981
About the author
A.A. Attanasio
52 books341 followersI’m a novelist and student of the imagination living in Honolulu. Fantasies, visions, hallucinations or whatever we call those irrational powers that illuminate our inner life fascinate me. I’m particularly intrigued by the creative intelligence that scripts our dreams. And I love carrying this soulful energy outside my mind, into the one form that most precisely defines who we are: story.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 127 reviews
March 6, 2021
Attanasio's first novel is really a tour de force, but I am mixed regarding it-- brilliant or train wreck, it could go either way, and after finishing it, I am still unsure. The main protagonist is Sumner, who starts off as a teenager with issues. Radix is set roughly 1300 years in the future, a bleak future at that. The black hole at the center of our galaxy 'opened up' to let out a massive beam of cosmic radiation that destroyed Earth's magnetic field and basically wiped out civilization except for a few remnants. Most humans are 'distorts', with gene problems/mutations. Sumner, however, holds a 'white card', meaning his genes are true. Nonetheless, he is a fat, ugly lad and his life is wrapped around taking out those who he fears in very creative ways. He lives in a town, a protectorate, of basically the last human civilization left. They have recovered some tech, like cars and guns, but the distorts are multiplying rapidly and many are used basically as slaves. It is an ugly world to be sure, about as grim dark as it can get. We will soon discover that it can get even grimmer!
Each section of the book builds the world in vast, broad brush strokes, even while the characters shine through. We follow Sumner along as he pursues his destiny, but what is destiny after all? Radix is a deeply existentialist read, challenging everything it means to be human in detail. The characters range from 'pure' humans like Sumner to a wide range of distorts to artificial intelligences in corporeal forms to 'godminds' of ancient aliens, who travel cosmic energy through time and space.
Attanasio's prose takes a little to get used to, and he seems to really love 5 dollars words; these, coupled with the 'argot' terms utilized in the current language can make your head spin after a while. This is one reason I am still vacillating between train wreck and brilliant; his word smithing is something you will either love or hate. What is most staggering about the book, however, concerns Attanasio's vivid imagination as the plot slowly unfolds, careening along in almost a dream-like manner. While this starts off as almost a YA adventure novel with Sumner's young escapades, it morphs along the way to concern the future of humanity on Earth.
The cover blurb deems it to be: "The awe-inspiring tale of a young man's journey of self-discovery from a life on the streets to near-godhood, it is an epic of the highest order, at once an exciting novel of conflict and adventure, and a deeply transcendent spiritual pilgrimage." I can run with this description! 3 stars.
Each section of the book builds the world in vast, broad brush strokes, even while the characters shine through. We follow Sumner along as he pursues his destiny, but what is destiny after all? Radix is a deeply existentialist read, challenging everything it means to be human in detail. The characters range from 'pure' humans like Sumner to a wide range of distorts to artificial intelligences in corporeal forms to 'godminds' of ancient aliens, who travel cosmic energy through time and space.
Attanasio's prose takes a little to get used to, and he seems to really love 5 dollars words; these, coupled with the 'argot' terms utilized in the current language can make your head spin after a while. This is one reason I am still vacillating between train wreck and brilliant; his word smithing is something you will either love or hate. What is most staggering about the book, however, concerns Attanasio's vivid imagination as the plot slowly unfolds, careening along in almost a dream-like manner. While this starts off as almost a YA adventure novel with Sumner's young escapades, it morphs along the way to concern the future of humanity on Earth.
The cover blurb deems it to be: "The awe-inspiring tale of a young man's journey of self-discovery from a life on the streets to near-godhood, it is an epic of the highest order, at once an exciting novel of conflict and adventure, and a deeply transcendent spiritual pilgrimage." I can run with this description! 3 stars.
October 5, 2007
Okay - this guy lives in Hawaii. He is sort of an underground sci-fi writer with a cult following. All I want to know is - what the hell is this guy on? Whatever it is I want some. This guy's imagination is out in the stratosphere. Ape messiahs, intelligent computerized tornadoes, a serial killer turned heroic - I have read a lot of books, and this is by far the strangest thing I have ever read. I give it the highest praise. It is not an easy read however - this might be some of the reason its fallen under the radar.
April 11, 2022
I'm tempted to just rate this one based on how I'm impressed I am with the author's intentions, but my mind isn't entirely wired that way. The ATTEMPT is pretty amazing, however, and let me rave about that for a moment before I break down my breakdown.
First of all, it's a great progression novel, like a spiritualist hard-SF that feels like a Buddha journey with tons of new-age goodies following a kind of level-up sequence that has skills building on skills, consciousness-expanding bits leading to godlike AIs and naked singularities.
Written like this, it sounds like something I'm totally down for, and I am, IN THEORY. It's epic, with lots and lots of progressions, reveals, and leveling up without it being like a role-playing game at all. It's a spiritual journey that gets tied in tight with massive astral progressions and AI nuttiness and life force stuff.
As a SF, I wish we had more of this in general, so it kinda makes me want to tear my hair out that I just didn't LIKE the main character much at all. Maybe it was his beginning. (Probably most likely yes.) Ugly through and through, and not just physically. Seeing him wise up and work through his issues is kinda the thing, yes, but it was a tricky balance and it just didn't work for me.
But what about all the goodies, you ask? Well, they're all pretty damn good. It's kinda like watching a brilliantly produced movie with the best special effects and progression but the casting was simply ATROCIOUS.
I came away from this wondering if I just wasted my time with the most expensive, gorgeous train wreck ever written. And then I started thinking to myself: Ooooh this could totally be ripped off and re-used because it was highly original and interesting even so. And then I thought to myself: maybe it already was. Zindell's Neverness was a glorious piece of fiction that did THIS one so much better and I actually LIKED the character. So. There's that.
I'll continue these particular books because while I had some issues, it was still fascinating as hell.
First of all, it's a great progression novel, like a spiritualist hard-SF that feels like a Buddha journey with tons of new-age goodies following a kind of level-up sequence that has skills building on skills, consciousness-expanding bits leading to godlike AIs and naked singularities.
Written like this, it sounds like something I'm totally down for, and I am, IN THEORY. It's epic, with lots and lots of progressions, reveals, and leveling up without it being like a role-playing game at all. It's a spiritual journey that gets tied in tight with massive astral progressions and AI nuttiness and life force stuff.
As a SF, I wish we had more of this in general, so it kinda makes me want to tear my hair out that I just didn't LIKE the main character much at all. Maybe it was his beginning. (Probably most likely yes.) Ugly through and through, and not just physically. Seeing him wise up and work through his issues is kinda the thing, yes, but it was a tricky balance and it just didn't work for me.
But what about all the goodies, you ask? Well, they're all pretty damn good. It's kinda like watching a brilliantly produced movie with the best special effects and progression but the casting was simply ATROCIOUS.
I came away from this wondering if I just wasted my time with the most expensive, gorgeous train wreck ever written. And then I started thinking to myself: Ooooh this could totally be ripped off and re-used because it was highly original and interesting even so. And then I thought to myself: maybe it already was. Zindell's Neverness was a glorious piece of fiction that did THIS one so much better and I actually LIKED the character. So. There's that.
I'll continue these particular books because while I had some issues, it was still fascinating as hell.
February 2, 2010
4.5 to 5.0 stars. Beautifully written book with a lot going on. You need to be patient when you approach this book as you will miss much if you "skim" through it. The reward for a careful reading is well worth it and this book deserves a wider audience.
Nominee: Nebula Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (1982)
Nominee: Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (1982)
Nominee: Nebula Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (1982)
Nominee: Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel (1982)
October 20, 2021
Completely incomprehensible - either a work of genius, madness, or an overly-fertile imagination
I've had this in paperback since WAAAAY back in the mid 1980s when I was a teen, and for some reason I was always on the cusp of reading it and never got it. It was also because the audiobook was available cheaply that I gave it a go. Would love to say it was an incredible work of genius, and that I deeply regret not reading it much earlier - but that would be a lie.
It starts out as a post-apocalyptic far-future Earth survival tale, but from 1/3rd in it dives off the deep end, plunges into talk of wild and wooly cosmological god-minds, alien extra-dimensional beings, ancestral human consciousness, enhanced mental state mutations caused by out of control radiation, and THEN it gets more weird. The words started to flow across my ears in an unintelligible flow that I never recovered from.
I remember thinking that Philip K. Dick's Exegesis was some pretty out-there crazy-ass shit, but this book takes that and dumps it in the kiddie pool. You want the deep end, this is it.
I've had this in paperback since WAAAAY back in the mid 1980s when I was a teen, and for some reason I was always on the cusp of reading it and never got it. It was also because the audiobook was available cheaply that I gave it a go. Would love to say it was an incredible work of genius, and that I deeply regret not reading it much earlier - but that would be a lie.
It starts out as a post-apocalyptic far-future Earth survival tale, but from 1/3rd in it dives off the deep end, plunges into talk of wild and wooly cosmological god-minds, alien extra-dimensional beings, ancestral human consciousness, enhanced mental state mutations caused by out of control radiation, and THEN it gets more weird. The words started to flow across my ears in an unintelligible flow that I never recovered from.
I remember thinking that Philip K. Dick's Exegesis was some pretty out-there crazy-ass shit, but this book takes that and dumps it in the kiddie pool. You want the deep end, this is it.
November 22, 2012
I've read this old sci fi book a dozen times. Simply the most compelling hero's journey I know. It feels like my personal Dune. I have no idea why I haven't read any of Aatanasio's other books, possibly because I don't want to be let down, but I'm told he's uniformly great. I think it's out of print, but if you can find a copy, grab it.
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March 30, 2015I tend to favor science fiction that presents life as being infinitely more strange than can be comprehended, and A.A. Attanasio's 'Radix' accomplishes this task with weirdness to spare. I had the same feeling from this book that 'Dune' gave me, of a future so completely altered by some kind of superscience that its characters and events were nearly unrelatable. It feels more like living in a dream, with the throughline plot exhibiting all the qualities of sleeping through a fever, and with the same oddly-compelling desire to remain engaged with it.
This is the story of Sumner Kagan, a disaffected, overweight layabout who moonlights as a criminal miscreant. His eventual capture by the police sets him on a tortuous journey to godhood, experiencing inexplicable events along the way. It's difficult to recommend this novel to anyone without knowing their literary history; it's mind-expanding on several levels, and it's not for everyone.
Attanasio's language is muscular, his lexicon composed of words that feel at once archaic, futuristic, pre-existent and custom-minted for this book; they suggest meaning more than they define them. His characters don't feel like people so much as functions, existing merely to propel Kagan's story forward and proselytize for whatever bizarre philosophy Attanasio is determined to get across from chapter to chapter.
By the end of the story you will be exhausted, your mind full of ideas competing for dominance. Maybe that's what 'Radix' is about: The dropping of a textual LSD to force your brain open and accept mutagens that will force evolution. It's not always comfortable, but it is always transformative.
This is the story of Sumner Kagan, a disaffected, overweight layabout who moonlights as a criminal miscreant. His eventual capture by the police sets him on a tortuous journey to godhood, experiencing inexplicable events along the way. It's difficult to recommend this novel to anyone without knowing their literary history; it's mind-expanding on several levels, and it's not for everyone.
Attanasio's language is muscular, his lexicon composed of words that feel at once archaic, futuristic, pre-existent and custom-minted for this book; they suggest meaning more than they define them. His characters don't feel like people so much as functions, existing merely to propel Kagan's story forward and proselytize for whatever bizarre philosophy Attanasio is determined to get across from chapter to chapter.
By the end of the story you will be exhausted, your mind full of ideas competing for dominance. Maybe that's what 'Radix' is about: The dropping of a textual LSD to force your brain open and accept mutagens that will force evolution. It's not always comfortable, but it is always transformative.
August 10, 2016
Radix was recommended to me by a friend three years ago, and it took about four attempts to actually get past the first ten pages, but once I was past that hump, I was good to go. After much thinking, I have to say that Radix is definitely the most difficult book in my collection to recommend, as I cannot for the life of me think of what category it falls in. It’s not normal Sci-Fi, nor is it a traditional adventure. It has elements of space in it, and spiritual journeys. But there are just no words to describe the uniqueness of this book.
But why did I give it five stars? Well, because unlike most books I’ve read in the past few years, it actually had a profound impact on my life, and set off chain reactions of becoming more self-confident, interested in the world and some of the strangest dreams I’ve ever had. One of the hurdles one has to get past with this book is that Attanasio makes up a lot of words. And I mean A LOT. They are typically just two words strung together; skyfire, selfscan, and deepmind are some of them, but there are many others, he’s sort of like if Shakespeare frequently visited alternate dimensions. But they are all fairly self-explanatory. The only way I can do his style justice is to say that I have considered flying to Hawaii and marrying him, just because I’m curious what his vows would sound like. In fact, his made up words are used so effectively that some of them have literally entered my normal vocabulary, so I sometimes refer to meditations as “going into selfscan”, or if I need to think about something for a while, it “goes into the deepmind.” Obviously I have to be mindful of who I talk to, as to a normal person I would sound like I’m temporarily leaving reality, which is something you can expect to do a lot of when reading this book.
The pace of Radix is… indescribably erratic. If I were to chart if on a graph, with 0 being boring and 10 being engaging, the line would shoot wildly between 2, 7, 0, 15, -8, 4, 10^89, 1, -2993 and 59 within the same chapter. The graph could then be made into the world’s most exciting rollercoaster. So, there were times where I seriously considered abandoning the book, which is something I rarely do, and a few pages later I would be on the edge of my seat and even sweating with excitement. Based on this, it took me roughly, reading on and off, over a year to read it (the first half was done in 2015, then some earlier this year, and I finished the last few chapters over the course of a week.) That sudden spike of interest at the end was due to the shift in writing from boring descriptions of useless stuff to writing about concepts I could never envision, nor could any normal person. The stuff that’s contained in the last few chapters can be compared to experiencing all conceivable realities within the space of a few seconds – and that feeling continues until the very last word.
At one point where I considered giving up, when Sumner was at a military camp, I suddenly had the thought that Radix is Attanasio’s autobiography, which would account for the erratic pacing. So the nickname “Sugarat” was probably similar to one Attanasio had as a child, the meetings with Corby could be his waking up to his inner child and the military camp part was a very tough time in his life, though, having never met the guy, I can only speculate. With this in mind the book became wonderfully interesting again, as, even before starting a psychology degree, I was thoroughly analysing Attanasio. Diagnoses? A deeply humble being with an infinitely broad imagination who just wants to play.
It pains me that this book is so obscure, but at the same time I can’t really imagine how it could be popular either. I know his other works gradually get so obscure there aren’t even Amazon pages for them. During selfscan after the book, I noted to myself that if every book ever written were to be turned into a movie, I would petition that Radix be skipped, as there is absolutely no way to capture the beauty of Attanasio’s writing – even with a quantum computer.
Now that it has been a few months since I finished, and I have spent a lot of time in selfscan, I still am at a loss for words for how to end this review, or if it should have an end (or if it’s even conceivable in this universe for it to ever end.) I know I haven’t done the best job of describing it; in fact this review probably makes you want to read it even less, as I just make it sound like some alien artefact (which it very well may be.) It’s all well and good for me to say “try it out” or “browse the first few chapters”, but you really need to have the right mind set to handle Radix. My recommendation is to reach out to a friend (or friend of friend) and see if any of them have read it. They will certainly have endless stories to tell you about their experience with this book, how it affected them and why you should read it too.
So, take a (massive) step outside of your reading comfort zone, and get transported to the world of this book. In fact, real life may start seeming strange, and Radix as the true reality. But you’ll have to experience that for yourself.
But why did I give it five stars? Well, because unlike most books I’ve read in the past few years, it actually had a profound impact on my life, and set off chain reactions of becoming more self-confident, interested in the world and some of the strangest dreams I’ve ever had. One of the hurdles one has to get past with this book is that Attanasio makes up a lot of words. And I mean A LOT. They are typically just two words strung together; skyfire, selfscan, and deepmind are some of them, but there are many others, he’s sort of like if Shakespeare frequently visited alternate dimensions. But they are all fairly self-explanatory. The only way I can do his style justice is to say that I have considered flying to Hawaii and marrying him, just because I’m curious what his vows would sound like. In fact, his made up words are used so effectively that some of them have literally entered my normal vocabulary, so I sometimes refer to meditations as “going into selfscan”, or if I need to think about something for a while, it “goes into the deepmind.” Obviously I have to be mindful of who I talk to, as to a normal person I would sound like I’m temporarily leaving reality, which is something you can expect to do a lot of when reading this book.
The pace of Radix is… indescribably erratic. If I were to chart if on a graph, with 0 being boring and 10 being engaging, the line would shoot wildly between 2, 7, 0, 15, -8, 4, 10^89, 1, -2993 and 59 within the same chapter. The graph could then be made into the world’s most exciting rollercoaster. So, there were times where I seriously considered abandoning the book, which is something I rarely do, and a few pages later I would be on the edge of my seat and even sweating with excitement. Based on this, it took me roughly, reading on and off, over a year to read it (the first half was done in 2015, then some earlier this year, and I finished the last few chapters over the course of a week.) That sudden spike of interest at the end was due to the shift in writing from boring descriptions of useless stuff to writing about concepts I could never envision, nor could any normal person. The stuff that’s contained in the last few chapters can be compared to experiencing all conceivable realities within the space of a few seconds – and that feeling continues until the very last word.
At one point where I considered giving up, when Sumner was at a military camp, I suddenly had the thought that Radix is Attanasio’s autobiography, which would account for the erratic pacing. So the nickname “Sugarat” was probably similar to one Attanasio had as a child, the meetings with Corby could be his waking up to his inner child and the military camp part was a very tough time in his life, though, having never met the guy, I can only speculate. With this in mind the book became wonderfully interesting again, as, even before starting a psychology degree, I was thoroughly analysing Attanasio. Diagnoses? A deeply humble being with an infinitely broad imagination who just wants to play.
It pains me that this book is so obscure, but at the same time I can’t really imagine how it could be popular either. I know his other works gradually get so obscure there aren’t even Amazon pages for them. During selfscan after the book, I noted to myself that if every book ever written were to be turned into a movie, I would petition that Radix be skipped, as there is absolutely no way to capture the beauty of Attanasio’s writing – even with a quantum computer.
Now that it has been a few months since I finished, and I have spent a lot of time in selfscan, I still am at a loss for words for how to end this review, or if it should have an end (or if it’s even conceivable in this universe for it to ever end.) I know I haven’t done the best job of describing it; in fact this review probably makes you want to read it even less, as I just make it sound like some alien artefact (which it very well may be.) It’s all well and good for me to say “try it out” or “browse the first few chapters”, but you really need to have the right mind set to handle Radix. My recommendation is to reach out to a friend (or friend of friend) and see if any of them have read it. They will certainly have endless stories to tell you about their experience with this book, how it affected them and why you should read it too.
So, take a (massive) step outside of your reading comfort zone, and get transported to the world of this book. In fact, real life may start seeming strange, and Radix as the true reality. But you’ll have to experience that for yourself.
February 19, 2023
Thanks to Gnosticangel for introducing Attanasio to me, I've been wanting to get around to this for a long time. It didn't quite live up to the hype, (this first novel and the 4th novel in the series have attained a cult classic status but never enough to be included in a classics line and it never gets in top100 lists, but I've seen a fair number of people say that the 1st or 4th book is their favorite book ever) but it is fascinating and I'm very eager to go further despite being quite disappointed.
It's about violent cosmic disruption that results in environmental chaos, a society of migrating alien consciousness, animal and plant mutation and a small group of people who transcend their previous lives.
Attanasio's style is very eccentric, his vocabulary is immense (he makes Clark Ashton Smith look like Homer Simpson forgetting the name for a spoon), grittiness and extreme violence alternates with ethereal/psychedelic/new age hippie passages about the forces that move the universe. I've seen Jodorowsky comparisons and they make a lot of sense.
He invents a lot of his own terminology, slang and there's lots of worldbuilding, I found this and the heaps of vague poetic paragraphs to be overcomplicated, wearying and needlessly obscure at times. The main story is easy to follow but there's so much beyond that, anyone who wants to understand this book exhaustively has a lot of work to do and I doubt even Attanasio understands every flight of scientific and philosophical poetry in here. The Appendixes are very helpful.
There's a lot of obvious brilliance and ambition in here but I missed the strangeness and tension of the first half of the book, the ending chapters feel almost like a drawn out action movie compared the more unpredictable weirdness early on. The descriptions of Sumner's youthful fatness might offend some readers. Despite feeling far too long and overcomplicated, I liked Radix more than disliked it, it's still a compelling story of transcendence with fascinating ideas and images and I'm looking forward to the slimmer sequels (different characters) and the more conceptually fascinating 4th book and his other writing. I hope readers who think he peaked with this first novel are wrong!
This book was revised and illustrated for the Phoenix Pick edition, I didn't buy that version because I didn't want to be interrupted by an artist's interpretation of the text but I'm very curious to know how much Attanasio revised and I might read that edition in the future.
It's about violent cosmic disruption that results in environmental chaos, a society of migrating alien consciousness, animal and plant mutation and a small group of people who transcend their previous lives.
Attanasio's style is very eccentric, his vocabulary is immense (he makes Clark Ashton Smith look like Homer Simpson forgetting the name for a spoon), grittiness and extreme violence alternates with ethereal/psychedelic/new age hippie passages about the forces that move the universe. I've seen Jodorowsky comparisons and they make a lot of sense.
He invents a lot of his own terminology, slang and there's lots of worldbuilding, I found this and the heaps of vague poetic paragraphs to be overcomplicated, wearying and needlessly obscure at times. The main story is easy to follow but there's so much beyond that, anyone who wants to understand this book exhaustively has a lot of work to do and I doubt even Attanasio understands every flight of scientific and philosophical poetry in here. The Appendixes are very helpful.
There's a lot of obvious brilliance and ambition in here but I missed the strangeness and tension of the first half of the book, the ending chapters feel almost like a drawn out action movie compared the more unpredictable weirdness early on. The descriptions of Sumner's youthful fatness might offend some readers. Despite feeling far too long and overcomplicated, I liked Radix more than disliked it, it's still a compelling story of transcendence with fascinating ideas and images and I'm looking forward to the slimmer sequels (different characters) and the more conceptually fascinating 4th book and his other writing. I hope readers who think he peaked with this first novel are wrong!
This book was revised and illustrated for the Phoenix Pick edition, I didn't buy that version because I didn't want to be interrupted by an artist's interpretation of the text but I'm very curious to know how much Attanasio revised and I might read that edition in the future.
January 30, 2015
It started off pretty well - the Sugarat takes out a gang, using his wits and some preparation. And then... telepathy! ridiculous science! pseudophilosophy! oneness-with-everything! long words that could have just as easily been replaced with much shorter words! lots of made-up words, just because!
I can't tell if the weird things are thinly veiled religious references, or racism, or what. I might just not have gotten it, or wasn't taken it by it. Either way, it wasn't a very enjoyable read, and so it takes its place among the Hall of Shame of books that I actually gave one star to.
I can't tell if the weird things are thinly veiled religious references, or racism, or what. I might just not have gotten it, or wasn't taken it by it. Either way, it wasn't a very enjoyable read, and so it takes its place among the Hall of Shame of books that I actually gave one star to.
December 2, 2012
Es bonito, lírico, interesante... y un coñazo monumental. Es dificilísimo de leer, especialmente hacia la parte media, más difícil aún de entender, pero en ocasiones te quedas mirando la página diciendo "nunca había leído una página mejor escrita y más bonita"... Así que he estado al menos 10 minutos dudando de si darle una estrella o cuatro :-D.
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May 1, 2024Elevator pitch : take the worst parts of Dune and magnify them. The best parts of The Shadow of the Torturer and demystify them. Throw in a bunch of babble about the self/ego/consciousness that would make Alan Watts blush from embarrassment. It's the hero's journey told in the most obtuse, clumsy, and least graceful way possible.
Here's an excerpt:
"The voors' psynergy had really dispersed into the planet's kha where the acuasal laws of Iz would return them to Earth as the memories of future voors."
that's some Jabberwocky shit. and there are 466 pages just full of stuff like that.
AND PUT DOWN THE F*****G thesaurus, ATTANSIO! Gargoyling, logodaedaly, empurpled, etc. your crimes with using outdated, odd or overwrought words are contemptible.
And yet, I don't hate it. It will probably stick with me for years to come. I never want to read it again.
Zero stars.
Here's an excerpt:
"The voors' psynergy had really dispersed into the planet's kha where the acuasal laws of Iz would return them to Earth as the memories of future voors."
that's some Jabberwocky shit. and there are 466 pages just full of stuff like that.
AND PUT DOWN THE F*****G thesaurus, ATTANSIO! Gargoyling, logodaedaly, empurpled, etc. your crimes with using outdated, odd or overwrought words are contemptible.
And yet, I don't hate it. It will probably stick with me for years to come. I never want to read it again.
Zero stars.
August 28, 2012
This is an old paperback given to me, used, almost 25 years ago. Now that I've read it I feel that I've found a new writer; and I plan to read other books of his. His imagination is astounding. But for me, this book was an effort to continue reading, maybe because of my current head state.
About a third of the way into this, the reader discovers that this is a "hero's journey"; and through the middle, the context and background are slowly revealed. This is where Attanasio's talent really shines. The assumptions and discoveries are the author's own; and are certainly not common in other science fiction or fantasies.
Transcendence is the foundation of this story's structure. And the descriptions of that experience can set your mind spinning. My brain found itself struggling to maintain its focus at many points along the path. But that work was almost always rewarded.
It feels that the ending developed into a good guys/bad guys scenario, too much for my tastes in any event. But now, a day later, the entire experience still seems much more than a simple operatic fantasy. My head is still spinning.
About a third of the way into this, the reader discovers that this is a "hero's journey"; and through the middle, the context and background are slowly revealed. This is where Attanasio's talent really shines. The assumptions and discoveries are the author's own; and are certainly not common in other science fiction or fantasies.
Transcendence is the foundation of this story's structure. And the descriptions of that experience can set your mind spinning. My brain found itself struggling to maintain its focus at many points along the path. But that work was almost always rewarded.
It feels that the ending developed into a good guys/bad guys scenario, too much for my tastes in any event. But now, a day later, the entire experience still seems much more than a simple operatic fantasy. My head is still spinning.
July 8, 2015
Not for all tastes, nonetheless, this, to my mind, has to be one of the most underrated SF novels I have read. It blends stylized, often excessive prose, metaphysics, and an epic storyline to create an intense, impossible to put down read.
Centered on Sumner Kagan, it follows his growth from an obese, vindictive killer to an almost god-like personage. Along the way, we meet a variety of colorful creations like distorts, voors, oorts, the Delph, and others. The scale is immense are the colors are richly detailed.
Perhaps like Jack Vance, reading Attanasio is a one of a kind experience: there is no other author or style quite like his.
Also recommended the sequel The Last Legends of Earth.
Centered on Sumner Kagan, it follows his growth from an obese, vindictive killer to an almost god-like personage. Along the way, we meet a variety of colorful creations like distorts, voors, oorts, the Delph, and others. The scale is immense are the colors are richly detailed.
Perhaps like Jack Vance, reading Attanasio is a one of a kind experience: there is no other author or style quite like his.
Also recommended the sequel The Last Legends of Earth.
October 11, 2016
The first half of this book is strange and enjoyable to read. I very much enjoyed reading about the growth of Sumner Kagan. But after the attack on Mirimol and the setting changes to Jac, the Delph and Rubeus in Graal the author doubles down on the strange and hard to understand, what I will call mumbo jumbo babble talk. The mumbo jumbo babble talk seems to be a mixture of religious spiritualism, philosophy, a wee bit of technology and ideas from the authors imagination. I found it very confusing/tedious and skimmed often to help get me through the mire. So I will give the first half of this book 4 stars and the second half of this book 2 stars for an average of 3 stars.
September 7, 2015
Great googly-moogly, this train wreck took me three torturous months to slog through. Whoever compared it to "Dune" needs to be slapped.
"You understand, too, that eternity's between us. Each of us moves alone through his own meaning, creating value as he goes along."
—Mauschel the Ranger, pg. 177
"You understand, too, that eternity's between us. Each of us moves alone through his own meaning, creating value as he goes along."
—Mauschel the Ranger, pg. 177
August 13, 2013
If you're a lazy reader, then stop right here. AA Attanasio isn't going to be your cup of tea.
However, if you like having your mind blown, your world expanded, your characters lusciously developed over time, having many sub-plots coalescing and finally cascading into each other like an impromptu orgy and love looking up words you've never read before or an author who can invent them - then please, by all means. Continue reading...
In no way, would I dare write spoilers in this review. Why? Well, if there is one thing AA Attanasio delivers, it's a memorable journey you will not likely forget anytime soon. I can honestly say that he's written the only stories and characters that have compelled me to become more. More than me. From a young age, when I spent summers in libraries, he helped push the limits of my thinking mind and invited me into a world, many worlds, all types of places and universes that I had always hoped exist - but wasn't quite sure if they did?
There are moments, when reading this sci-fi/fantasy classic that you have to wonder - has the author walked right into the body of someone? A troop of someones? Why, you wonder? Well, that's how vivid his fluid writing is. You're utterly convinced he's stepped right inside his character's life, head, body, and mind. All to reveal his soul. It's fictional poetry.
Truthfully, this isn't just a review for Radix. It's a review for all of his books. With each one, you may not be certain if the same author wrote them all? In fact, there was a point in time when I thought he had betrayed me and my curiosity and walked away from his books. Only to return, to realize his range is just simply outta control. Just like his genius.
Beneath all of the harshness and reality-building, are beautiful core truths. The type of stuff that never goes away. The things that speak to us, as a reader to our cores. He never just delivers a tale, a story, an epic. Although certainly, that would be enough. He delivers different ways to transcend, to be awake, to become enlightened, to understand power, truth and love.
There just might be a real Merlin, after-all. :)
However, if you like having your mind blown, your world expanded, your characters lusciously developed over time, having many sub-plots coalescing and finally cascading into each other like an impromptu orgy and love looking up words you've never read before or an author who can invent them - then please, by all means. Continue reading...
In no way, would I dare write spoilers in this review. Why? Well, if there is one thing AA Attanasio delivers, it's a memorable journey you will not likely forget anytime soon. I can honestly say that he's written the only stories and characters that have compelled me to become more. More than me. From a young age, when I spent summers in libraries, he helped push the limits of my thinking mind and invited me into a world, many worlds, all types of places and universes that I had always hoped exist - but wasn't quite sure if they did?
There are moments, when reading this sci-fi/fantasy classic that you have to wonder - has the author walked right into the body of someone? A troop of someones? Why, you wonder? Well, that's how vivid his fluid writing is. You're utterly convinced he's stepped right inside his character's life, head, body, and mind. All to reveal his soul. It's fictional poetry.
Truthfully, this isn't just a review for Radix. It's a review for all of his books. With each one, you may not be certain if the same author wrote them all? In fact, there was a point in time when I thought he had betrayed me and my curiosity and walked away from his books. Only to return, to realize his range is just simply outta control. Just like his genius.
Beneath all of the harshness and reality-building, are beautiful core truths. The type of stuff that never goes away. The things that speak to us, as a reader to our cores. He never just delivers a tale, a story, an epic. Although certainly, that would be enough. He delivers different ways to transcend, to be awake, to become enlightened, to understand power, truth and love.
There just might be a real Merlin, after-all. :)
February 4, 2018
Reading this felt like ages - more than once I thought to just abandon it, but I usually do read books through - just in case it will surprise me. Well, I definitly won't read the other three books.
There are some good ideas, and the setting is epic, with an interesting world-building. That the hero is an anti-hero is also ok - provided there is some development. That is the first problem I had with this book - in the beginning, the hero is just a quite unsympathetic guy, who kills "bad" people, but later he kind of evolves - by being dragged into different situations, where he is improving a lot physically - and mentally, too, at least in the sense that he is mastering his mind. But there is no real character evolution here - with rare exceptions, he is always being dragged by someone more or less willingly (a lot of destiny involved). Basically, he is evolving into a kind of a superhuman (it is often enough stressed that he is superior genetically, he's got a "white card" proving that, which, at least for me, has some quite unpleasent associations).
The other thing that is somehow related is the abundance of pseudo-philosophical gibberish (YMMV, of course) that may have been en vogue at the time this was written (you may like this, if you are into new age stuff). For me, it was just plain boring, and the try to put a pseudo-scientific base there made it only worse for me.
Also, the narrative feels a bit random - maybe the book would be quite good if it were condensed to a third of the current size. As it is, there are long chapters where the story just drags on and on. I couldn't decide on a rating until now, but well - after mentally going over the storyline again - a 2 it will be.
There are some good ideas, and the setting is epic, with an interesting world-building. That the hero is an anti-hero is also ok - provided there is some development. That is the first problem I had with this book - in the beginning, the hero is just a quite unsympathetic guy, who kills "bad" people, but later he kind of evolves - by being dragged into different situations, where he is improving a lot physically - and mentally, too, at least in the sense that he is mastering his mind. But there is no real character evolution here - with rare exceptions, he is always being dragged by someone more or less willingly (a lot of destiny involved). Basically, he is evolving into a kind of a superhuman (it is often enough stressed that he is superior genetically, he's got a "white card" proving that, which, at least for me, has some quite unpleasent associations).
The other thing that is somehow related is the abundance of pseudo-philosophical gibberish (YMMV, of course) that may have been en vogue at the time this was written (you may like this, if you are into new age stuff). For me, it was just plain boring, and the try to put a pseudo-scientific base there made it only worse for me.
Also, the narrative feels a bit random - maybe the book would be quite good if it were condensed to a third of the current size. As it is, there are long chapters where the story just drags on and on. I couldn't decide on a rating until now, but well - after mentally going over the storyline again - a 2 it will be.
December 27, 2010
This was a great novel. The journey of Sumner Kagan, a true anti-hero, was well-written with moments of "can't put down" excitement.
I think the destination of the novel was far more cerebral than its more earthy start and I did have a few issues with the more philosophical discussions and explanations toward the end. While the story remained exciting, the conversations became more and more incomprehensible.
Given the storyline, a certain amount of confusion is expected; it's probably too much to assume god-like intelligences would converse in straight lines. However, these constant circular discussions heavy with meaning while making little sense did introduce some pacing problems for me.
I think the destination of the novel was far more cerebral than its more earthy start and I did have a few issues with the more philosophical discussions and explanations toward the end. While the story remained exciting, the conversations became more and more incomprehensible.
Given the storyline, a certain amount of confusion is expected; it's probably too much to assume god-like intelligences would converse in straight lines. However, these constant circular discussions heavy with meaning while making little sense did introduce some pacing problems for me.
Read
August 9, 2021The first of a four volume series of novels referred to the 'Radix Tetrad', this work is largely a coming-of-age story of its young protagonist, moving from juvenile delinquent to warrior, from a social pariah to a near-divinity. It is set in the far future in a world largely different than the one we know.
Not really remembered, except as a far better than average scifi achievement.
Not really remembered, except as a far better than average scifi achievement.
April 4, 2024
This could have been an absolute classic...at about 1/3 the length. It is stuffed with memorable scenes and ideas, but those moments are surrounded by repetitive tedium. The epic structure works in some sense in regard to the protagonist's radical transformation over the arc of the story, but this isn't enough of a payment to justify the large amount of time invested in reading this stack of pages.
September 2, 2017
Glimmers of genius but an inability to express it. First half of book was really good. I'm glad other reviewers encouraged me to be patient and keep reading. Kagans development was great read. last third of book turned into filler mumbo jumbo.
November 28, 2017
If you want to simply sit down to comfortably read a clearly understandable science fiction novel, this book is probably not for you. Personally, I found Attanasio's book disjointed and chaotic. I am not sure what urged me to finish it other than I usually try to finish most of the books I start. In any case, Attanasio's dystopian type earth is populated with Aliens (voors), mutants (distorts), AI's, evolved humans, and who knows what else. In reading the book, I believe I spent most of the time saying to myself, "What is going on here!," particularly in its last 20 percent. In addition to the confusion and chaos, the author has a tendency to invent his own words. He particularly enjoys making compound words that one can normally not find in the dictionary. Attanasio also tends to use words as a different form of speech than they are normally used such as, "Twelve centuries has crazied (I thought crazy was an adjective, not a verb) away, ...", or "waves petaling (I though petal was a noun, not a verb) the beech." And if that weren't hard enough, much of the vocabulary he uses is obscure to the point that I would click on many of the words with my Kindle with a "no definition found" result. Just as an example (and I am simply picking a typical page here) he is using or creating such words as sky-filters, imago, power-muscled, collapsar, transpicious, odyl, seacliffs, self-bound, tidewall, cordillera, etc. Now, I realize that this book was nominated for a Hugo back in the 1980's. Consequently someone must have liked it, but for me, it was bewildering.
November 1, 2018
The greatest book I have ever read on so many levels. First encountered it as a teenager, it's full of spiritual goodness, mad aliens, crazy AI, gods, demigods, monsters. If I could make everybody read one book, this is the one I'd pick.
October 15, 2018
Figurative language is to books as spice is to food. Without it, a meal is bland and tasteless even if it is filling. Add too much however, and the meal becomes difficult to finish.
This book is like a meal into which one has dumped the entire contents of his spice cabinet. The plot is in there somewhere but it's buried under a sea of mismatched metaphors and pseudo-mysticism.
This book is full of themes of mysticism, spirituality, power of the Mind, the nature of the Soul, the infinite nature of the universe, psychic energy, etc. These topics might be interesting to think about in a work of nonfiction, say book of philosophy, but in a novel they just come across as mystical nonsense.
Reading this book was like listening to someone describe a psychoactive drug trip. They might describe it like a religious experience where the secrets of the universe were revealed but really it's just a bunch over-amplified of sensory noise with no real meaning.
Judging by some of the other reviews I guess some people really liked this book but for me personally, I had an extremely hard time finishing it.
This book is like a meal into which one has dumped the entire contents of his spice cabinet. The plot is in there somewhere but it's buried under a sea of mismatched metaphors and pseudo-mysticism.
This book is full of themes of mysticism, spirituality, power of the Mind, the nature of the Soul, the infinite nature of the universe, psychic energy, etc. These topics might be interesting to think about in a work of nonfiction, say book of philosophy, but in a novel they just come across as mystical nonsense.
Reading this book was like listening to someone describe a psychoactive drug trip. They might describe it like a religious experience where the secrets of the universe were revealed but really it's just a bunch over-amplified of sensory noise with no real meaning.
Judging by some of the other reviews I guess some people really liked this book but for me personally, I had an extremely hard time finishing it.
April 12, 2009
This is great stuff! a charmingly charmless antihero, great aliens and possibly overlords, powers beyond human ken, and a story that rips right along.
There is abit of a lull in the second quarter of the book, as the protagonist slowly comes into his ability -- think South Park's "Montage" song. but then it picks right back up, the true villain of the piece emerges and uberviolence ensues.
I really like Attanasio's style, and his vocabulary sent me off to the dictionary several times. He uses "Bastille" as a verb, and it works! as in, "We bastilled the place."
Now I just hope I can find the other three books in the tetrad.
There is abit of a lull in the second quarter of the book, as the protagonist slowly comes into his ability -- think South Park's "Montage" song. but then it picks right back up, the true villain of the piece emerges and uberviolence ensues.
I really like Attanasio's style, and his vocabulary sent me off to the dictionary several times. He uses "Bastille" as a verb, and it works! as in, "We bastilled the place."
Now I just hope I can find the other three books in the tetrad.
February 24, 2013
I have read this book for the umpteenth time. It has been years since I last read it and yet it still remains a brilliant work.
It is the tale of Sumner Kagan, a fat, miserable teenager with an unblemished genetic inheritance. The tale is set on Earth in the future when radiation from an open dark hole spills the earth, causing mutations and giant raga storms. Kagan moves through the story growing into a warrior and finally battles a godmind.
It is a simple beginning and soon becomes weird and complicated. Beautifully written and rich in colour and description. I can't even understand half of it but still I love it.
It is the tale of Sumner Kagan, a fat, miserable teenager with an unblemished genetic inheritance. The tale is set on Earth in the future when radiation from an open dark hole spills the earth, causing mutations and giant raga storms. Kagan moves through the story growing into a warrior and finally battles a godmind.
It is a simple beginning and soon becomes weird and complicated. Beautifully written and rich in colour and description. I can't even understand half of it but still I love it.
April 12, 2012
This book appears to gave been written in the late 70's, then updated in 2010. It shows its 70's heritage. It has a bizarre universe with no rationality to it, filled with a variety of powerful beings that make no scientific sense,, but because it is labeled SF and not fantasy I'm supposed to accept it.
The main character is unpleasant, and so is everyone he meets. Gah. I stopped reading after 100 pages.
The main character is unpleasant, and so is everyone he meets. Gah. I stopped reading after 100 pages.
January 25, 2009
This is one of the most interesting and inventive science fiction book I've ever read. It eventually made me look for Carlos Castaneda's books and opened me to a whole new universe.
Radix is one of my favorite and most influencial reads.
Radix is one of my favorite and most influencial reads.
April 19, 2020
This is another book that changed me when I read it. I haven't read any of the sequels, although I have read the first book of Attanasio's Arthurian series. His style is really unique. I'd compare him to Frank Herbert in terms of epic scope, deep worldbuilding, and cosmic level weirdness.
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