This trilogy is so long that it became a bit of a slog towards the end but I’ve finally reached the end. This is my least favorite of the three books as there are entire plotlines that I feel are ultimately pointless such as Louise and Genevieve’s adventures on Earth and the Skibbows’ vendetta against Kiera. On the other hand, there are also some spectacular setpieces. We get to visit the true homeworlds of the Kiint, and there are multiple first contact scenarios with alien civilizations both more and less advanced than humanity. As the title suggests, the crisis is resolved by a literal deus ex machina. That’s never great but it’s especially egregious here as one hero singlehandedly flips the table for everyone.
I’ve known about James Blish’s Cities in Flight setting for ages but never got around to reading any of the books, save a couple of short stories collected in anthologies. But it was this 1958 novel that won him a Hugo Award. It’s a very short book and unfortunately very much a product of its time in its depiction of the state of society and fears of nuclear weapons. But at its heart is a crisis of faith in Catholicism, arriving at a conclusion that is mind-blowing. This truly is one of the more unique pieces of science-fiction out there and deserves its place in the sci-fi Hall of Fame.
As promised, I’m on the second book of Peter F. Hamilton’s Night’s Dawn trilogy and with the entire Confederation now aware of the crisis, it’s action-packed right from the start. I’d complained earlier that my main issue with the first book was the character of Joshua Calvert being set up as the stereotypical action hero. He does get a little less of the limelight but unfortunately we also get another copy of him? While still very entertaining, I like this somewhat less than the first book, partly because the Confederation is rather smart about containing the possessed, so they don’t turn out to be as large-scale a threat as they initially seemed. Plus, I strongly dislike the new possessed leader characters such as Al Capone. I mean, really?
The Reality Dysfunction was a hefty read and so I wanted lighter and different in between the volumes of the massive trilogy. I picked Marcus Aurelius’ famous Meditations both because it’s definitely different from my usual reading material and because I’m getting of constantly seeing references to it and not knowing what it’s about. It is prominently featured in The Holdovers for example. Unfortunately it was largely a waste of my time. This is basically a self-help book and a very repetitive one at that. It’s impressive that it was so far ahead of its time for its genre and was written by an actual emperor of the Roman Empire but that’s about it.
The name Peter F. Hamilton was not familiar to me and I thought I knew all of the big name science-fiction writers. While popular and commercially successful, this trilogy is closer to being space opera and so never won any major awards which could be why I never noticed it. The books are also notable for being huge doorstoppers. That kind of length isn’t that unusual for the current era of web series but present real logistical issues when printed on paper. The cast of characters is extensive and Hamilton takes his time to describe his setting so the plot doesn’t really get going until a few hundred pages in. For a long while, I enjoyed the action adventure story well enough but couldn’t see much point in it. Then the action got started and I must admit that I got hooked.
I’m continuing my deep dive into great science-fiction books that I missed out on back in the day so here’s one that was first published in 1993. It’s another book that is difficult to read because it’s full of slang words whose meaning you’re expected to infer from the context, there are no chapter breaks and it freely segues between the perspectives of different characters. Working one’s way through it is well worth your while however as it is simultaneously a very science-fiction novel, being a very detailed account of ordinary life on the surface of the Moon and a very mainstream one as it is an old-fashioned coming-of-age story.
I’ve had this novel on my list of books that I want to read for so long that I’d given up all hope of finding it. Many writers and critics loved it when it was published but it seemingly never found commercial success, few copies were printed and no ebook version was made. Now nearly 30 years later, it has finally been made available in electronic form. Naturally I’m among the first in line for it and like everyone else I am awed by how ahead of its time it was as a masterpiece. Even so, I can also see why it might have struggle to find success back then. Almost all of its grand revelations are from interviews by the protagonist, so it’s very much a case of telling instead of showing. This isn’t a good science-fiction novel in the conventionally marketable sense but it is breathtakingly original and unique.
