Re: Poseidon's Wake. Alastair Reynolds.

On 11/19/24 12:26 AM, Titus G wrote:

On 10/10/24 11:17, Tony Nance wrote:

On 10/8/24 12:42 AM, Titus G wrote:

On 9/09/24 14:07, Tony Nance wrote:
snip

On 9/4/24 1:56 AM, Titus G wrote:

Blue Remembered Earth. Alastair Reynolds. 2012

snip

>
I read this back in May, and didn't enjoy
it as much as you did. The setting and science were great. My main
problems were with the characters, but since the next one seems to
share
very few characters (if any) with this one, I plan to give it a try.

>

>
I am over halfway through the next one, On the Steel Breeze. Events and
science still outweigh characterisation. Whoops! They are mainly still
around but not Geoffrey, nor the cousins and some play minimal roles.
One is over three hundred and another is two hundred and forty but
Geoffrey did not take prolongation treatment. Even grandma Eunice is
sort of there but in a robotic format with simulated mind. Following
your criticism regarding the richness of the characters, I have paid
more attention to this aspect and really couldn't tell anyone anything
much about them but this is not detracting from my enjoyment of the book
for the same reasons as Blue Remembered Earth even without the novelty.
I could probably describe characters from Garry Disher's pot boilers
better :-)

>
That's all good to know - thanks. Unless there are some rather drastic
differences, I believe I'll be better prepared to read the second one.
More specifically, I believe the characters won't bug me as much, even
if they turn out to be similar.
>
Tony

 It would be an injustice to attempt to summarise this trilogy and I am
sure that a synopsis could easily be found elsewhere so I won't attempt
to do so.
I was pleasantly surprised by the final novel, Poseidon's Wake, which
introduced new conflicts between science and 'religion' as well as
exacerbating the continuing conflict between humans, intelligent
machines and the two alien technologies. I enjoyed it perhaps more than
the first two but was always worried about how it would all be tied up.
The last 50 or 60 pages were somewhat dull and banal but the journey to
get there, 700 plus pages, was brilliant. I love his writing and his
extensive scientific or pseudo scientific, (eg; infovore, a combination
of information and carnivore), vocabulary. The scope is just massive
covering huge distances across galaxies and more hundreds of years. The
Akinya family is still prominent with grandchildren from those in "On
the Steel Breeze" major characters but again events are more important
than character development. My main criticism of the characters was that
they were all too noble, too ethical as were the machine intelligences
as well as the elephants, (the dedication reads, "For my wife, who once
fell in love with an elephant.").
Another solid four stars.
 

Thanks for all of that. On the Steel Breeze is in the short stack, for near future consumption, but I've been in quite a reading drought recently[1], and I can't guess when I'll get to it.
Tony
[1] I do typically have a slow-down in my reading from Sep - Nov/Dec, but this year seems worse than previous years. <shrug> Whether it is or it isn't, I'll probably come out of it over the next month or so.