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Terminal World
Feb. 7th, 2011 09:56 amAnother one down--Alastair Reynolds'sTerminal World. Pain and depression are good for something, I guess. I'm getting lots of reading done!
One of the criticisms I've heard about Quantum Thief (my favorite so far) was that the world was confusing and hard (if not impossible) to understand. The environment of Terminal World is similarly far-future, but easier to grasp. It is, however, hugely depressing. It seems these not-really-steampunk-but-sorta worlds (Bacigalupi's Ship Breaker, Mieville's Perdido Street Station) are dark, dirty, and mostly someplace you wouldn't want to live. A lot like Victorian London, I guess.
I liked Reynolds's analysis of how the different technological zones worked, but his reasons for how they got that way (explained in the last twenty pages of the book) completely blew it for me. Ugh. The ending was a weird tease, too. I wasn't sure if he was trying for a cliff-hanger or whether he was making a statement about the uncertainty of life. It was strange, and felt slightly contrived.
His characters were fun and appropriate for the setting, and I thought he did a good job of playing with noir themes and archetypes. They banter well, and while they might not be exactly well-rounded, they fit nicely in his seedy underworld. Most of the book reads like a thriller, and his fight scenes are fantastic.
I can't shake the suspicion, though, that he started writing this book thinking "I want to write something with airships!" and then figured out how to build an SF world around his goal of placing half the story on airships without it seeming like his goal was writing about airships.
One of the criticisms I've heard about Quantum Thief (my favorite so far) was that the world was confusing and hard (if not impossible) to understand. The environment of Terminal World is similarly far-future, but easier to grasp. It is, however, hugely depressing. It seems these not-really-steampunk-but-sorta worlds (Bacigalupi's Ship Breaker, Mieville's Perdido Street Station) are dark, dirty, and mostly someplace you wouldn't want to live. A lot like Victorian London, I guess.
I liked Reynolds's analysis of how the different technological zones worked, but his reasons for how they got that way (explained in the last twenty pages of the book) completely blew it for me. Ugh. The ending was a weird tease, too. I wasn't sure if he was trying for a cliff-hanger or whether he was making a statement about the uncertainty of life. It was strange, and felt slightly contrived.
His characters were fun and appropriate for the setting, and I thought he did a good job of playing with noir themes and archetypes. They banter well, and while they might not be exactly well-rounded, they fit nicely in his seedy underworld. Most of the book reads like a thriller, and his fight scenes are fantastic.
I can't shake the suspicion, though, that he started writing this book thinking "I want to write something with airships!" and then figured out how to build an SF world around his goal of placing half the story on airships without it seeming like his goal was writing about airships.