This might become one of my favorite Alastair Reynolds novels. Why? Because he manages to turn one hell of a tale out of a kitchen sink worth of ideasThis might become one of my favorite Alastair Reynolds novels. Why? Because he manages to turn one hell of a tale out of a kitchen sink worth of ideas. Great characters, from an ex-jazz musician/gumshoe from an alternate-timeline 1959, to a complex archeologist 300 years in the future sifting through the remains of a nanotech-eaten Earth, to wormholes, body-snatching, one hellofacool mystery, with murder, Casablanca vibes, and a nail-biting space battle that reminded me of Iain M. Banks and Neal Asher in a huge way. Or, if I'm being literal to a fault, it reminded me of Alastair Reynolds at his best. :)
There's so much I could say about this book, but let me boil it down to the basics.
This particular Earth is caught in amber. Caught in a pre-nuclear, pre-computer state. And it is being kept that way. Was kept that way for 300 years until the future factions (heavy nanotech or purist humans) unlocked frozen Earth. Roll with this, Reynolds explains it all a lot better than me. :)
Enter in the conflicting factions to this lesser-tech Earth and follow the Noir gumshoe across Paris, murders, awesome alternate Earth worldbuilding, and fantastic characterizations.
Any one of these elements are noteworthy and a cool read, but Reynolds went all-out ambitious and tied EVERYTHING together in a huge way and I loved it. :) Really perfect for mystery lovers AND hardcore missile/laser beam fanatics. Oh, and horror fans, too. Creepy undead children. :) And didn't I mention body-hopping?
Excellent novel that left me tearful, but perhaps not for the traditional reasons. There are certain sci-fi ideas that always kick my ass, and one of Excellent novel that left me tearful, but perhaps not for the traditional reasons. There are certain sci-fi ideas that always kick my ass, and one of them are stories about how the stars open up. I certainly got very emotional by the end of this novel, and that might have been a little more surprising, had someone asked me how the novel was shaping up by the half-way mark. It had become a scavenger hunt with interesting elements, and that's fine and fun, but I hadn't expected the huge consequences that had come out of it. I should have guessed, having read a number of his other novels, but I didn't. I thought it was a gloriously relaxed, but not necessarily dull, novel. Of course, I now need to know what happens in the second one of the series.
In case anyone is curious, yes, all of the novels are tied together, but not necessarily very close. The effort one puts into reading them, not to mention the author writing them, really pays off with your devotion. I love getting to know his universe....more
I had to pick this up again and hop on to the second and third books mostly because I was guilted into it by the Netflix production. :Re-read 2/27/18:
I had to pick this up again and hop on to the second and third books mostly because I was guilted into it by the Netflix production. :) I really enjoyed the show and found myself misremembering some plot points.
It turns out I didn't misremember. The tv show was close to 90% faithful. :) The other bits might be reveals pulled forward from the subsequent books which I haven't read! I honestly don't know. And that's why I'm doing the re-read. :)
So did I enjoy it more the second time around? Yep, I did.
I really appreciate the whole concept of post-cyberpunk societies running with the technological development and getting established darkly. We're all just meat suits. No one really dies unless you get your implant destroyed or your backups corrupted, but in the meantime, you can get a new meat suit. Or if you have a religious outlook that prevents it, you can't. :) Starting from there, it's a great crime drama, a private PI with a dark past, and enough twists and turns to turn most regular mysteries into cheap trash. :)
So do I recommend? Hell ya. :)
Original review:
Great genre writing, even if it is a perfect mix of noir and post-cyberpunk. I know, I know, cyberpunk is generally associated with noir 50's style tough guy private-eye pulp, only with the shiny.
This is different because it is POST-cyberpunk in the great tradition I love to associate with Brin's Kiln People or any of the hard-sci Stross or some of the best of Stephenson. You know, the sci taken to the second or the third steps, and then twisted and here you've got a stock character thrown into this really messed up science fiction world and it all depends on how well the story is written, and yes, oh, yes, it is written very well and is very enjoyable. :)...more
Slightly more enjoyable than the first novel in the Daye series, but even though I thought the mystery was pretty interesting, I'm reaRe-Read 1/17/24:
Slightly more enjoyable than the first novel in the Daye series, but even though I thought the mystery was pretty interesting, I'm really just looking forward to the later novels. It does get much better than this. As for now, it's mostly a fairly average UF with an utterly delightful auntie Sea Witch to keep things spicy.
Original Review:
I need to clarify my adding this book to the transhumanism bookshelf. It really ought to have it's own category of transfaeism, but the fae really act so much like humans that I just couldn't find the real difference.
In the end, I decided to let the characters climb their own trees.
The book was solid, if a bit difficult to pull off. The novel had less melodrama and a lot more plot this time, and really felt like a mystery for our intrepid fae private eye. There were a lot of interesting character concepts, and I think that's what makes these books quite good. I mean, really: a seal fae? Oh yes.
This time, I read it with my daughter. Sure, it might be a bit too soon for her, but she DID insist because we'll be Update 6/27/23
Re-read, number 15.
This time, I read it with my daughter. Sure, it might be a bit too soon for her, but she DID insist because we'll be seeing Dune part 2 later this year. And she happens to know that I'm a rabid uberfan with no mercy or remorse.
PLUS, I was able to read from my gorgeous new hardcover copy gifted to me by my best friend and that really does make all the difference, no?
Update 9/15/21
Re-read. Number 14.
I cannot get over how beautiful this book is. Still my favorite after all these years. It only gets better with every re-read.
Update 8/28/17
Re-read. Number 13. :) I cry when Paul meets Gurney. I shiver when Jessica consoles Chani. I'm awestruck by the peaks and troughs of time, free-will, and the weakness in Paul even as he heroically strives against the evil that is about to be unleashed upon the universe.
*sigh*
Perfection. Easily the number one book I've ever read. :)
I waver, sometimes, but right now, it is my absolute favorite. :)
Original Review:
This is a phenomenal classic of literature.
It's not just science fiction. It transcends science fiction, as a fascinating discussion of free-will versus inevitability. Can the Jihad be denied? Can Paul ever really avoid his own death, despite seeing every time-line play out with him as the butt of every cosmic joke? Can even cruelty or mercy even remain comprehensible after such knowledge?
Yes, I think this work outdoes Nietzsche. It certainly does a great job of making us care about the question.
Is this all? Is this just a work that pays great justice to philosophy of action and inaction?
Or is the novel merely a clever play at turning the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle into the physical embodiment of a man? It is that, of course. The Kwisatz Haderach can be many places at once, and he can be both alive and dead at the same time just like that certain cat.
Is the novel a coming of age tale, first set as a mirror against his father Leto, only then to mirror the whole universe that had just turned against him? Yes, of course. He was, after all, both the product of all his upbringing and his genes, embodying the question of nature versus nurture. He was taught within many schools of martial arts and assassins, as well as training the mind in both the schools of the Mentats with their pure logic and that of the mystics, the Bene Gesserit, that allows complete control over the body down to the cellular level. And if this training wasn't enough, he was deeply schooled in politics, leadership, and the meaning of loyalty. The boy was raised right. Of course, that is nothing without ninety generations of genetic bloodline tampering from the Bene Gesserit, right? To become the fulcrum between cellular memory, tapping the minds and lives of all your genetic ancestors as well as tapping the ability to fold time and space, to become the eye of a storm of time.
What a damn brilliant setup for one tiny character, no? His training links to the unlocking of his genes and to the life-extending and enveloping spice, Melange, to make him not merely aware of time in a theoretical sense, but eventually to be unable to discern what was in the past, the present, or the future. Here's a true Super-Man, well beyond Nietzsche.
And don't believe for one second that this serious discussion about what would make a superior man makes for dull reading. No. We've got PLOT that's probably some of the most exciting and visceral in all of literature, driving us right into the web of intrigue, vengeance, treachery, and galactic politics.
To quote the text, we've got "Plans within Plans," and it hardly stops there. We know the House Atreides is falling into a trap laid by the Emperor and House Harkonnen, and yet free-will and pride prevents any chance to avoid it. The setup is brilliant and extremely political, giving us character sketches of some of the most brilliant and memorable characters of all time.
Duke Leto, the Red Duke, the most honorable and beloved leader. Duncan Idaho, the emotional and intuitive hero. Gurney Halleck, archetypal loyalist and troubadour. Lady Jessica, the woman who ought to have had all honor in life, but was unjustly reviled and set aside for political necessity. (Chani being both her mirror and her eventual glory.)
And of course, my favorite character of all time, Paul Muad'dib Atreides, the one that would prevent the greater evils he foresaw, and went to enormous lengths and sacrifice to achieve, but who eventually failed in his task because even a god cannot overcome destiny. (Or the will of so many minds set as one.)
So damn brilliant.
Frank Herbert spent five years writing this treasure, working and reworking it until he published it at age 25. None of his other works come close to this masterpiece, and there's little wonder. It was birthed, fully-formed, like Athena from Zeus's head, with enormous forethought and care.
The worldbuilding was just as carefully formed, from the ecology of Arrakis and the life-cycles of the sandworms, to the history and the creation of the Fremen from their mild beginnings as Zensunni Wanderers, adherents to the Orange Catholic Bible, to their history of oppression so like those of those who are Jewish, to their settling and hardening of their bodies and souls in the wastes of Arrakis, also just like the Jewish who carved out a place for themselves in Israel. (Current politics aside, this was a very potent idea before 1965 when Herbert wrote this, and indeed, the core is still just as powerful when you turn it back to Muslims.)
The Galactic culture is rich and detailed. The CHOAM economic consortium, with their monopoly on space travel and their need for the Spice to allow them to see a short period into the future to plot a safe course before folding space. The Empire is caught on a knife's edge between a single power and every other House who sit in the possibility of putting aside all their squabbles for the sole purpose of checking the Emperor, if they so desired. (And Duke Atreides was such a possible popular leader among all the Great Houses, which was the primary reason the Emperor wanted him dead.)
And of course, we have our Villains.
The Baron Harkonnen has always been a crowd pleaser. Brilliant in his own right, devious and able to corrupt anyone with just the right sorts of pressure, including a certain absolutely trustworthy doctor we might mention.
"The Tooth! The Tooth!" -- You can't handle the Tooth!
Feyd Rautha Harkonnen is especially interesting for the question of nature versus nurture.
The Bene Gesserit had intended him to mate with Paul, who should have been Leto and Jessica's daughter, and that offspring should have been the cumulation of ninety years of a breeding experiment to recreate the Kwisatz Haderach which had come about almost by accident during the Butlerian Jihad in the deep past, to overthrow the AI overlords.
He was practically Paul's genetic twin, or at least, his potential to be the "One who can be many places at once" was on par with Paul. But instead of fulfilling the kind of destiny that we get with Paul, we see him grow up under the auspices of his Uncle the Baron, becoming as cruel and devious as he was deadly. He was the argument of nurture in the conversation, of course, and having so very little of it eventually cost him his life.
I often wonder about the directions that Dune could have taken, all those little paths in time and circumstance that could have been. What if Feyd had been brought to Arrakis earlier and overwhelmed with Spice the way that Paul had? Sure, he wouldn't have been able to convert the unconscious changes into conscious manipulation, but he might have had enough glimpses of the future, the way that the Fremen did, to have given him the edge he would have needed to kill Paul.
And then there's a relatively minor character, Hasimir Fenring, the Emperor's personal assassin, who was nearly the Kwisatz Haderach, himself. Unable to breed true, he was still potent enough to be completely hidden to Paul's time-sight in the same way that Paul was hidden from the Spacing Guild's weaker time-sight. His training as a skilled killer was also superior to Paul. He was, by all the hints and tricks in the tale, Paul's perfect downfall. It always gives me shivers to think about, and it was only in a single instant of both recognition and pity from Paul that stayed Fenring from killing our hero. It was just a moment of whim.
The setup was gorgeous. Paul's pity, had it been missing at his moment of greatest triumph over the Emperor, would have meant Paul's assured death. I still wonder, to this day, what stayed Frank Herbert's hand from killing his most wonderful darling. We knew the pressure of religion and politics was going to have its way upon all the oppressed peoples of Dune. The return of a monstrous religious Jihad was going to happen one way or another, sweeping across the galaxy and toppling the Empire, regardless of Paul's frantic plans and desires. Paul's own death would only mean a higher level of fanaticism, and Frank Herbert's warning against unreasoning devotion would have been made even clearer with Paul's death.
Perhaps it was pity that stayed his hand. Who are we to say who lives and who dies?
If you really think this review is overlong, then I apologize, but please understand that I could absolutely go on and on much longer than this. It is a symptom of my devotion to this most brilliant of all tales.
And yes, it still holds up very, very well after twelve reads. I am quite shocked and amazed....more
Old SF sometimes has a kick to it that nothing modern can quite manage. There's a speed and economy of words, of action progressing so quickly that I Old SF sometimes has a kick to it that nothing modern can quite manage. There's a speed and economy of words, of action progressing so quickly that I feel like I'm on a roller-coaster ride and it's all downhill.
This is what Childhood's End feels like.
It's hard not to write about this book without giving away spoilers, so I'll just warn you now and get right down to business.
It starts out with damn old tropes and bit of spunky adventure, but it quickly becomes obvious that all that was a lark. The real story wasn't glamorous in the traditional sense. It was certainly glamorous in a few instances, but it did manage to do was pull off both tragedy and glory. Or the old definition of Romance, if you so prefer.
Who are the overlords who have disrupted and forced humanity to behave? They hid their faces for good reasons. Our race has had an old premonition of its end, and these tragic figures figure heavily.
But wait, is this a novel about them, or humanity?
Humanity has had its last hurrah. Our childhood is done. It is time to move on and discard everything we might recognize as *our* lives.
There's no sense of the life we known continuing. It's certainly the end of the novel. There's no hint of anything resembling future conflict, no hook to give readers further meaning or interest beyond a "Hey, look at those pretty lights!" moment.
Of course, the point is that when we're ready to put down our toys and pick up the mantle of adulthood, we'll not understand a damn thing from this side of the veil, and that's just fine from a story standpoint, and it definitely has a lot of impact. It doesn't pull any punches with me. I like that.
But then, I'm handed a full-stop.
There's no where else for this novel to continue, even in my head. There's no further wondering or amazement. When it's done, it's completely done.
Even our tragic overlords sit and pity themselves, never having changed as a people from page one. They're stuck in the same cycle forever, living out the same story, guarding and watching other's children grow up and leave home, without ever once having a taste of something truly grand.
Of course, that's the point.
The fall from heaven, always being cast out, learning that the greatest hell is the one in your own mind, always separate from the state of grace. Yes, they are a tragic race.
Fortunately for us, the readers, Clarke doesn't expound. He weaves a simple tale from start to finish and ends it on a full-stop.
Am I the only one that wishes that such a story might have been teased into something much greater, and have avoided that dreaded full-stop? If SF is in a constantly shifting conversation with itself, including the other writers of the craft and the public that reads it, then this book is an utter conversation-stopper. There's no where else to go unless we change the nature of what is written.
It's a great story. Don't get me wrong. But it's about as subtle as an SS boot on my neck.
Still, this is a classic for a very good reason, and it will always be memorable, even if there are a lot of imitators. I think this one is going to remain superior, even if I think some of the old cultural quirks (such as referring to blacks as negros) really needs to be edited out, and damn "literary integrity." Leaving that stuff in at this late date serves absolutely no purpose to either the story or the character. It only serves to date the novel and pull it out of an argument that it should be considered one of the "Great SF Masterpieces".
But even so, it still deserves to be on that list, even with its faults. :) Truly a great re-read....more
There's a lot to love about this novel even though I have a few quibbles. My issues are purely personal in nature and do not reflect an actual fault iThere's a lot to love about this novel even though I have a few quibbles. My issues are purely personal in nature and do not reflect an actual fault in the novel, however.
First, the good:
We're split in the action between the digital new year coming up for us in about 25 years, at a time when Michael Poole has a stalled career and is still trying to overcome personal tragedy. The worldbuilding at this time is pretty awesome. Sentient houses and landscapes, severe environmental guilt that has led to us giving up cars in favor of virtual, and an extremely pragmatic outlook when it comes to recording genomes as so many species die.
Fast-forward half a million years in the future. Far beyond the conflict with the Xeelee, so many branches of humanity live and diverge and come back together again. Interestingly, the feel of this is very close to Olaf Stapledon's brilliant future history explorations, dealing with big species and existential issues in such a broad, astronomical space-and-time sense that I can't help but be awed by it.
Humanity has become as diverse and interesting as we could have hoped, adapted to any and all kinds of environments, developed symbiosis with alien biologies, techs, and even AIs. Some are undying, having lived a truly vast amount of time. Some are focused entirely on transcendence.
Interestingly, individuals in this far future are given the chance to be the ultimate observers for individuals in any portion of history. The MC in the future observes the MC of the past. Loves him. Feels his pain. And she is offered the opportunity to join the vast collective consciousness (augmentation) of the Transcendence.
The quibble:
The direction the transcendence takes is one of guilt and suffering, reliving every individual of humanity, of whatever flavor, and feeling their pain.
Yeah. Well, that's kinda the point of the novel, too, and it's rejected as the faulty logic it is. I'm not complaining about that. I'm only complaining that such an entitled future of humanity should fall into that trap in the first place.
But then, we've always fallen into worse, haven't we? lol
Even so, the novel is fascinating and filled to the brim with great ideas and techs and it falls into the full future history that Baxter has painstakingly built up. It's pretty amazing.
This novel does NOT need to be read in any particular order with any of the others. In fact, I might recommend it for anyone new to the SF mythos. :)...more
This novel was something of a shocker to me. I actually expected a continuation of Coalescent with the hive-mind Romans even if they take place in theThis novel was something of a shocker to me. I actually expected a continuation of Coalescent with the hive-mind Romans even if they take place in the near future with more George Poole or perhaps a future Michael Poole, but nothing could be farther from this.
(Not ENTIRELY true, actually, the hive-mind humans and a remnant 20-thousand-year-old near-immortal in Exultant gave us some continuity.)
But in actual fact, Exultant reads more like a bonafide Xeelee novel. As in, pulling together all the Time-Like Infinity short stories, references to Flux, Ring, and even a hint of what could come in some of the others.
We jump right out of the past and into the deep future after two great expansions of humanity across the galaxy and 20k years into an ongoing rear-guard near-retreat against the inscrutable Xeelee project that herds stars into the center of the galaxy to make the super black hole in its center ever larger.
Humanity is losing the war. Barely bringing the Xeelee to a stalemate, we've bred ourselves into a race of children designed to fight a losing war. For 20 THOUSAND years.
Not everyone thinks this is admirable or smart, however, and this is where the novel starts. Expect all the timey-wimey stuff of Baxter's other novels. Closed Time-Like Loops are a major plot point and I think it's gorgeous. Closed-Time-Like computing, especially. Cuts down on the wear and tear of the computers. :)
Moreover, this novel gives us one of the most epic moments in all of Baxter's future history, the push and last hurrah against the super black hole, the big reveal about the Xeelee's purpose, and THEIR great enemy.
Since I was already familiar with some of these events explained in retrospect in the other novels, I thought it was something of a really cool treat to see it up close and personal.
I may have been surprised with this novel, expecting something else, but what I ACTUALLY got was better. It was just... kinda out of the blue. Maybe it should have been billed as a direct Xeelee novel, marketed as one of the great and gorgeous battles of a galaxy-spanning mankind against a race who thinks we're less than vermin and aren't to be bothered with communicating with us. :)...more
Update 5/13/17: I had to dive back into VALIS because certain tales continue to resonate with me... and this one is still one of the very most importanUpdate 5/13/17: I had to dive back into VALIS because certain tales continue to resonate with me... and this one is still one of the very most important.
Who knows? Maybe I am just a crazy as PKD because I'm obsessed with the perception of reality, holographic universes, the edict of "As Above, So Below", and the nature of consciousness.
Or maybe I'm just a naturally curious person that happens to be heavily stimulated by PKD's intelligence, his humility, his sincerity, and his travails.
Any way that I look at it, however, I am still in awe of this man's writing. This one more than all his other novels, in fact, for the way he bleeds all over the page with his personal experiences, his deep searching, and his willingness to look practically everywhere for an answer.
So beautiful. Of course, after all these years, I can now see this as the capstone to the great pyramid of his other works and words. From Ubik and the nature of reality, to Galactic Pot-Healer for both the genetic regression and memory, and even to The Man in the High Castle for the alternate dimension mystery... for which all four of his last novels tie so well together.
I disagree with the blurb, of course. It wasn't a trilogy.
There were four, with The Divine Invasion exploring the return of Elijiah and how Sophia and the Logos reworks reality and the Earth, The Transmigration of Timothy Archer for the exploration of immortality in the form of a mystical mushroom and Pike (otherwise the most down-to-earth and charming of the tied-in-books), and Radio Free Albemuth which has the closest ties to VALIS out of the entire bunch since it IS the story of Brady from the movie VALIS and his troubles with president Faris F. Freemont in the police state that was the Black Iron Prison. :)
All of these diverse novels sprang, fully formed, from the brainchild that was VALIS. So rich a novel!
*shiver*
It's easily one of my favorites of all time. :)
Old Review:
This book has everything except plot. I still love the fraking hell out of it. As a mind experiment gone horribly, horribly awry, I felt myself slipping into PKD's mindset and taking every point seriously, as you could just tell that he was. It felt like the ramblings of a man who had gone through something he couldn't explain and did his damned awful best to figure it out, but that includes religious horror, classical Greek authors, a ton of philosophy, and a life that is falling apart. I've since read his Exegesis, or at least the edited parts of it, but I was personally horrified by his own accounting of the Exegesis that he was currently writing at the time of, and within, this novel. A million words. Ten novel's worth. All densely populated with thought experiments, rationalizations, religious thought, humor, self-deprecation, and so much more.
Knowing what I know now hasn't diminished my respect for this novel, just given it more dimension. At the time I first read it, I honestly thought that PKD had specifically picked this highly intellectual, spooky, crazy method to tell a story in a novel, while using himself as a split personality as a foil. I thought it was Brilliant. I know now that he just took out a lot of his salient points from the exegesis and made a slapped together novel. That being said, it still doesn't deplete the depth and the density of this great novel.
I shook myself after reading it the first time and sat around dazed for a day. If I'm going to rank my favorite novels by the effects they had upon me, by their lasting effects upon my life, then I'm going to slap this one up near the very top. It still gives me shivers, and it made me feel small in a huge world of thought.
I've since read all of the authors that he name-dropped, and have explored the catacombs, and can rebut and argue with PKD now; but first I had to be bitch-slapped by this great man before I could get back up and try again.
It was NOT an easy read, but it was a fairly short novel. It was also a heart-wrenching piece to get through, as well. More than all of this, it was also an extremely rewarding piece of fiction, if you're willing to put the effort into not only it, but into PKD's thoughts and your own growth as a person....more
I remember being blown away by this twenty years ago, being flabbergasted by the fantastically rich, almost line-by-line idea smorgasbord of this StroI remember being blown away by this twenty years ago, being flabbergasted by the fantastically rich, almost line-by-line idea smorgasbord of this Strossian youthful exuberance.
It was my first taste of his writing and I was gleeful to be burst apart with the so, so bright idea machine-gun fire.
Singularity fiction may not be for everyone, but a bona fide Rapture of the Nerds is a glorious, if rather ominous, thing.
Enter Accelerando, a saga of three generations, continued, redux, redux again, and redux again as humanity finds its way to ever higher computational states, uploads, re-instantiations, and enough fantastic Easter Eggs throughout the text to choke a colony of post-lobsters in the Oort cloud.
Truly, I think this novel is one of the brightest, kick-you-in-the-pants, funky future SFs I've ever read. A cat that becomes an AI? Klein bottle Earth-instantiation? Lobster astronauts? Visiting a funeral as a cloud of avians?
Or how about the realization that all business entities, once they become AI constructs, turn into basic primordial soup when left to run on their base principles? Muahahahahahaha Faster and faster breakdowns of value turn everything into slime.
Truly, this is one of those unique books that should never be forgotten. The generational stuff is fun and quirky, even if it is also a bit weird, but goodness gracious... THE CAT. Muahahahahahahaha
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