When it talks about this being two books in one, it's not messing around. The structure of the book is very odd, and it took more than a moment to get in to, but once you're in - wow. Once again we have a theme of pooters out to get you and telling you porkie pies, but this is much more ingrained than in Man Plus, much more substantial in scope.
The first book: this is essentially the back story as to why the main characters are in place at the start of the book, but none the worse for that - those stories are involving and really carried me along, so that in the second book I felt I had a genuine idea of where they were coming from. The MacGuffin of the shrike in the first book is almost imaginary - there's a sense that it's involved everywhere but is visible nowhere.
The second book is a different animal - leans much more on the usual crutches of science fiction (space battles, teleports, time travel and so on) but it's not really about that, as much of the story still involves the handful of characters in the first book. It's all placed in a good historical context, though some of the remarks wear a little thin (the Beatles being "classical")
Impressed with: back story of Rachel, idea of spreading your house across many planets (with a corresponding comeuppance) and clear indications of the risk of relying too much on technology no one understands...
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment