Post your SF reading log here if you are reading any of the following books: Hyperion or Ilium, by Dan Simmons; Perdido Street Station, by China Mieville, or Spin, by Robert Charles Wilson.
The following is my thoughts and reactions regarding the first third (roughly) of the book The Scar by China Miéville.
My first few reactions on the book were “boring” and “going no where” however, these thoughts were quickly pushed from my mind after Miéville finished that background information on the lead character, Bellis Coldwine. As soon as he had dispensed with this, I was glad to see that he went immediately into developing the story with a relative early capture of the characters which left over 400 pages to develop the story further. After I started in, and reached around the first hundred pages, I was thoroughly hooked. Not only was I captivated by the gritty depiction of the floating city of Armada and its rough crew of Remade, press-ganged, and pirates, but I was also drawn by China’s frank language that he seemingly created himself with characters swearing to Jabber and languages like Salt, Ragamoll, and High Kettai. As I read further, I still had a few thoughts of “where is this going?” until I read about Bellis’ meeting with Johannes and became intrigued by what the Lovers were secretly working on. As I read more, Silas Fennec’s, or Simon Fench, stories of The Gengris made me curious as to why he would suddenly run from there and have to get back to New Corbuzon post haste. Finally, I was nearing the end of Part Two, I read of Shekel’s discovery of the book by Krüach Aum and its depiction of a man, building a boat on an island, and then the man on the sea with a giant eye visible on the bottom of the ocean. At this point I was thoroughly hooked. I was curious to see what the Lover’s interest in the giant eye is and even what it is. Surely this is one of the major things of the book and will be thrilling to see what happens.
The following is my thoughts and reactions regarding the second third (roughly) of the book The Scar by China Miéville. (Warning: Spoiler ahead)
I was interested to find that the first four words in Part Three answered a number of my questions but also posed a number of others. For example, I now knew what the eye represented but I was left wondering what an avanc was, what it meant to the Lovers, and why the term “raised” was used instead of “capture”.
As I read on, I began to answer some of my question and I realized what the avanc was, or at least its closest relation being a giant multi-planar whale…or sorts (kind of hard to describe without getting into a ton of detail). I was intrigued by Miéville’s use of multi dimensions and the need for a mass amount of power, as demonstrated in Aum’s book, required to split the dimensions allowing different things through, such as the avanc.
I was also struck by the Lover’s immediate backing of Bellis’ plan to find Aum but I realized that if raising the avanc was the final goal, then they would go to great lengths to bring about their desired end. Even if it meant dedicating a great deal of resources to constructing a massive airship that would be able to travel to the anophelii island. I noticed that during the trip, Doul became friendlier with Bellis. Maybe this was because she was helping his bosses, or maybe because this is foreshadowing a future relationship.
With the arrival of the Armadans on the anopelii island came more questions, why are the females the blood-sucking, violent- demons they are and does this have an underlying theme to be displayed in the future and why are the Gnurr Kett so interested in keeping the island under lock and key, besides stopping another event such as Malarial Queendom. Looking back, I figured that the reasoning behind the Gnurr Kett keeping the island locked down was not only to prevent another Malarial Queendom, but also to prevent other cultures from acquiring the anopelii texts.
The following is my thoughts and reactions regarding the final part of the book The Scar by China Miéville. (Warning: Spoiler ahead)
Well these last two hundred pages or so definitely threw me for a loop, a number of times and definitely made me question some of my preconceived ideas while proving others that I had barely given a second thought to.
I really liked Miéville’s exploration of the various characters as each begin to show some of their underlying agendas that for the most part have remained hidden. This was mostly because this added to the ever-developing story as more and more things are coming to the surface like the intended use for the avanc.
Further on, I was thrilled to find a massive battle take place between the Corbuzon Navy and Armada. I had not initially expected such a thing considering Miéville’s writing style and found it to be both incredibly graphic but also highly detailed from points of view from most of the main characters, including the, now widely known (to the reader) invisible Fennec. This massive battle was a precursor to other events such as the imprisonment of Bellis and Tanner.
From there, the story progressed as Armada moved through the Swollen Ocean and on into the Hidden Ocean and towards the Lovers eventual destination of The Scar. However, as they move farther, they notice the avanc is slowing. At first, I was not sure why it was slowing. Of course I had theories similar to those in the story except when I read the dialogue between the Brucolac and the unknown visitors and I made a slow connection to The Gengris which Silas had talked about many chapters previously. I was not sure why they were there or their role, but I was sure they would have a major impact.
And sure enough, no more than 50 pages later, I was right about The Gengris’ impact. They were causing the avanc to stop, they were to be the vampir’s allies in the mutiny against the Lovers but once they had their prize, they left the vampir to die. When I first read about Bellis taking the statue to the prison part of the Grand Easterly and yelling at The Gengris to stop and then proceeded to tell her that the statue was not what they were after, I was quite confused. Because I, like Bellis, had assumed that was what they were after. At which point they blow the porthole and take Silas. I had to reread the part a couple of times to make sure I wasn’t missing anything because the wording was slightly confusing and if I were the author, I would have tried to find a simpler way of putting, however, I am sure that Miéville did his best to describe the scene to the fullest of his abilities.
Further on in the story, when Hedrigall made his return, this was an obvious shock to all of the characters as well as myself (as I had imagined him drifting through the air on the Arrogance, some several thousand miles away). This of course, threw yet another metaphorical wrench into my theories as to the possible ends of the stories (which seemed to be changing every 5 – 10 pages now). Though my theories on the ending were wrong, I did notice that I was right about the tie between the anopelii females and the female Lover, where both were ‘blood-sucking’ and violent. This also was a much different conclusion to the book than I had expected. Instead of Fennec or the Brucolac trying to undermine the Lovers’ plans, it was in fact their right hand man using other people to do his work while he kept up the guise of a loyal servant. This proved to be a very interesting and unique ending to a very interesting and unique book.
Brian W -- Wow! Your comments about The Scar are truly a delightful compendium of your thoughts about and reactions to the book. It appears from these that you found yourself immersed in Mieville's world, which of course is the point. I'm glad you enjoyed the book enough to move on to Perdido Street Station. When you finish that, if you're not tired of Bas-Lag, there's a third book titled Iron Council.
Hyperion Stories 1/2 The Priest's tale The Soldiers tale
When I started this book, my first thought was holy crap, this is going to be terrible. But instead the first story (priest's) turned out to be my favorite. Dan Simmons takes a world torn apart by conflict and just makes all hell break loose on this planet with a legendary force (the shrike.) But intelligently, the first tale sets the stage, and helps the reader navigate the planet as the explorer finds a village of very small, dull, immortal beings. The end of which turns out to be extremely brutal. Next the soldiers tale brought in a much needed element of violence and action. The soldier is a lean mean fighting machine that gets stranded onto Hyperion, and sees the full power of the shrike.
So far Simmons has done a great job of introducing the planet, the characters, and the project. Get to the shrike, and pray that it grants a wish as fabled.
Next comes the poet, along with the scholar, Part 2.
The real thick of the book, the stage has been set, the bad guys are on the way, now its time to get across some land to the Shrike's land near the Time Tombs.
The poet is a very cocky, but brilliant character who is incredible with using words. "The difference between a word that words and the perfect one, is like the difference between a storm, and being struck by lighting." I really liked that one.
The poet gets bribed into going to Hyperion to continue his series by the aptly named "Sad King Billy." The poet seems fascinated by the shrike and even refers to it as his "muse" and it seems the only reason he wises to return is to regain his "muse."
Even advertised as a boring story, the scholar lived right up to his reputation, no action, no violence, nothing. Well, actually kinda cooly, his daughter was touched by the Shrike and now every day grows one day younger...she now has about 2 weeks left to live.
Simmons gets deeper into the plot now, setting the stage for a cliffhanger to end everything off with.
This starts off with the detective's tale, which is UNNECESSARILY confusing. She meets a half-human, half-droid, that was "murdered." So now she has to find out why someone would want to kill him and why the heck the church that worships the shrike wants him to travel to Hyperion. After he actually dies, she decides to go in his place to find out what actually happened.
The consul's tale also turned out to be kind of boring, the only surprise was that he turned out to be a double agent, spying on the Ousters that were attacking Hyperion and only a few days behind the Pilgrims.
Then the cliffhanger, they end the book with the group approaching the shrikes lair. A little frustrating.
Well, now the cliffhanger got me so I ordered the sequel, "The Fall of Hyperion" mainly because I just want to see what happens when these characters interact with this fascinating beast.
The book Hyperion was enjoyable, and I would reccomend it, however it was a little long and the stories only slightly painted a picture for me, the plot was still pretty confusing. 9 out of 10
The following is my thoughts and reactions regarding the entirety of the book The Scar by China Miéville as well as a brief recap of what happened.
The Scar as a whole is a hard story to classify to a specific genre and tack down with any specific themes as is Miéville’s style apparently (after reading a large portion of Perdido Street Station). To begin with, it encompasses parts of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Gothic, Romance, and tidbits of a myriad of other genres. There are also themes of xenophobia, the Frankenstein complex present throughout the novel, and if you pay close attention, there are some strong inferences to foreshadowing of future events.
In regards to the genre layout, Miéville is easily one of the most unique writers I have ever encountered. He is not bond by the unwritten boundaries formed by various genres and instead forms an ever-changing mass that encompasses a great deal of those in existence. The part that is so amazing though is that he does so in a way that the reader does not even recognize the shift until after the fact and it dawns on them that they were no longer reading Science Fiction but rather Horror or Fantasy or any number of other things. There are times where he doesn’t shift between them but instead combines them into beautiful pieces like when the Lovers summon the avanc from the depths of the sinkhole through the use of thaumaturgy, which is combination of science and sorcery as well as the summoning and capturing of lightning elementals, which definitely have their ties to fantasy.
Miéville also includes themes of xenophobia, and later equality, when Bellis talks about the shunned nature that the Remade suffer through when in New Corbuzon but then how there is an equal opportunity for Remade in Armada. The best example since he is one of the main characters, is Tanner Sack. He is Remade and is in the prisoner holds on the ship the Bellis is traveling on the get to the colonies. When they are captured, everyone is treated equal, no matter race, age, gender, or Remade. Obviously, those that were too brainwashed by New Corbuzon were held in confinement until they were “suitable” to enter into regular Armadan life. Xenophobia is probably most common in the differences held between the people of Armada and the vampir. This is mostly due to the fact that people are scared of them, even though they only come out at night and feast through the use of the goretax and nothing else. Despite this, however, there is an underlying fear in everyone about the vampir, and this fear is only amplified several fold when they stage their mutiny with the help of the very eerie and very disturbing creatures of The Gengris.
On of the other things that Miéville does an amazing job doing is incorporating an underlying theme of the Frankenstein complex in a number of ways. The primary and probably the one that becomes the most apparent is how the Lovers get the populous so riled up over the possibilities that come with finding the Scar. Yet, when truth comes to them about what the Lovers are planning to do when Hedrigall makes his mysterious return, they become destructive and take over Armada and turn it around and begin their return trip out of the Hidden Ocean and towards the part of the fleet that they had left behind. The other part of the complex that becomes apparent is the fact that when they summon the avanc, everyone assumes that it is to be used as propulsion to move Armada around the oceans at speeds that before they had only been able to dream of. Yet, the Lovers, being the devious, rather villainous individuals they are, have a different plan for it and this plan eventually becomes tangled with the fact that Silas is on Armada, which of course leads to the conflict between the New Corbuzon navy and later, the arrival of the Gengris and the conflict that follows. Because of their summoning of the avanc, these events transpired the way they did. However, one can only speculate how things would have been different if the avanc had not been summoned, of course, that would have changed the story entirely and the plot would be so drastically changed that it could easily be another story altogether.
Overall, I really liked the book and found it to be very engrossing to a point that I would spend several hours reading it and be some enthralled that I had no idea about how much time had passed. I would definitely recommend this book to any SF fan and even to those that aren’t because it is not just SF as I have mentioned before. There is enough of each genre present (except maybe romance, since there are only a few underlying stories) that it will keep most any audience happy. For this book, I would give it a 5 of 5 and would easily rank it in my Top 10 list of favorite reads.
Billy -- Your comments about the book are direct and honest. I'd like to see a little more of your reactions to specific details, but overall you responded well. If you were hooked enough to get "Fall of Hyperion" my work here is done. (But it turns out that, even though the Hyperion story ands in the next book, two more books -- Endymion and Rise of Endymion -- continue the exploration of this universe further...)
Brian W -- Your final post is another outstanding piece of writing. You describe Mieville's style to a T, and you added some very perceptive observations about his treatment of the xenophobia and Frankenstein's Complex ideas, filled with vivid details. When you finish Perdido Street Station, there's yet another book set in the Bas Lag universe -- Iron Council (about a massive train...)
12 comments:
The Scar - (pg. 1 – 183 ‘Start of Part Three’)
The following is my thoughts and reactions regarding the first third (roughly) of the book The Scar by China Miéville.
My first few reactions on the book were “boring” and “going no where” however, these thoughts were quickly pushed from my mind after Miéville finished that background information on the lead character, Bellis Coldwine. As soon as he had dispensed with this, I was glad to see that he went immediately into developing the story with a relative early capture of the characters which left over 400 pages to develop the story further.
After I started in, and reached around the first hundred pages, I was thoroughly hooked. Not only was I captivated by the gritty depiction of the floating city of Armada and its rough crew of Remade, press-ganged, and pirates, but I was also drawn by China’s frank language that he seemingly created himself with characters swearing to Jabber and languages like Salt, Ragamoll, and High Kettai.
As I read further, I still had a few thoughts of “where is this going?” until I read about Bellis’ meeting with Johannes and became intrigued by what the Lovers were secretly working on. As I read more, Silas Fennec’s, or Simon Fench, stories of The Gengris made me curious as to why he would suddenly run from there and have to get back to New Corbuzon post haste.
Finally, I was nearing the end of Part Two, I read of Shekel’s discovery of the book by Krüach Aum and its depiction of a man, building a boat on an island, and then the man on the sea with a giant eye visible on the bottom of the ocean.
At this point I was thoroughly hooked. I was curious to see what the Lover’s interest in the giant eye is and even what it is. Surely this is one of the major things of the book and will be thrilling to see what happens.
The Scar - (pg. 183 - 316 'Start of Part Five')
The following is my thoughts and reactions regarding the second third (roughly) of the book The Scar by China Miéville. (Warning: Spoiler ahead)
I was interested to find that the first four words in Part Three answered a number of my questions but also posed a number of others. For example, I now knew what the eye represented but I was left wondering what an avanc was, what it meant to the Lovers, and why the term “raised” was used instead of “capture”.
As I read on, I began to answer some of my question and I realized what the avanc was, or at least its closest relation being a giant multi-planar whale…or sorts (kind of hard to describe without getting into a ton of detail). I was intrigued by Miéville’s use of multi dimensions and the need for a mass amount of power, as demonstrated in Aum’s book, required to split the dimensions allowing different things through, such as the avanc.
I was also struck by the Lover’s immediate backing of Bellis’ plan to find Aum but I realized that if raising the avanc was the final goal, then they would go to great lengths to bring about their desired end. Even if it meant dedicating a great deal of resources to constructing a massive airship that would be able to travel to the anophelii island. I noticed that during the trip, Doul became friendlier with Bellis. Maybe this was because she was helping his bosses, or maybe because this is foreshadowing a future relationship.
With the arrival of the Armadans on the anopelii island came more questions, why are the females the blood-sucking, violent- demons they are and does this have an underlying theme to be displayed in the future and why are the Gnurr Kett so interested in keeping the island under lock and key, besides stopping another event such as Malarial Queendom. Looking back, I figured that the reasoning behind the Gnurr Kett keeping the island locked down was not only to prevent another Malarial Queendom, but also to prevent other cultures from acquiring the anopelii texts.
The Scar - (pg. 317 - 578 )
The following is my thoughts and reactions regarding the final part of the book The Scar by China Miéville. (Warning: Spoiler ahead)
Well these last two hundred pages or so definitely threw me for a loop, a number of times and definitely made me question some of my preconceived ideas while proving others that I had barely given a second thought to.
I really liked Miéville’s exploration of the various characters as each begin to show some of their underlying agendas that for the most part have remained hidden. This was mostly because this added to the ever-developing story as more and more things are coming to the surface like the intended use for the avanc.
Further on, I was thrilled to find a massive battle take place between the Corbuzon Navy and Armada. I had not initially expected such a thing considering Miéville’s writing style and found it to be both incredibly graphic but also highly detailed from points of view from most of the main characters, including the, now widely known (to the reader) invisible Fennec. This massive battle was a precursor to other events such as the imprisonment of Bellis and Tanner.
From there, the story progressed as Armada moved through the Swollen Ocean and on into the Hidden Ocean and towards the Lovers eventual destination of The Scar. However, as they move farther, they notice the avanc is slowing. At first, I was not sure why it was slowing. Of course I had theories similar to those in the story except when I read the dialogue between the Brucolac and the unknown visitors and I made a slow connection to The Gengris which Silas had talked about many chapters previously. I was not sure why they were there or their role, but I was sure they would have a major impact.
And sure enough, no more than 50 pages later, I was right about The Gengris’ impact. They were causing the avanc to stop, they were to be the vampir’s allies in the mutiny against the Lovers but once they had their prize, they left the vampir to die. When I first read about Bellis taking the statue to the prison part of the Grand Easterly and yelling at The Gengris to stop and then proceeded to tell her that the statue was not what they were after, I was quite confused. Because I, like Bellis, had assumed that was what they were after. At which point they blow the porthole and take Silas. I had to reread the part a couple of times to make sure I wasn’t missing anything because the wording was slightly confusing and if I were the author, I would have tried to find a simpler way of putting, however, I am sure that Miéville did his best to describe the scene to the fullest of his abilities.
Further on in the story, when Hedrigall made his return, this was an obvious shock to all of the characters as well as myself (as I had imagined him drifting through the air on the Arrogance, some several thousand miles away). This of course, threw yet another metaphorical wrench into my theories as to the possible ends of the stories (which seemed to be changing every 5 – 10 pages now). Though my theories on the ending were wrong, I did notice that I was right about the tie between the anopelii females and the female Lover, where both were ‘blood-sucking’ and violent. This also was a much different conclusion to the book than I had expected. Instead of Fennec or the Brucolac trying to undermine the Lovers’ plans, it was in fact their right hand man using other people to do his work while he kept up the guise of a loyal servant. This proved to be a very interesting and unique ending to a very interesting and unique book.
Brian W --
Wow! Your comments about The Scar are truly a delightful compendium of your thoughts about and reactions to the book. It appears from these that you found yourself immersed in Mieville's world, which of course is the point. I'm glad you enjoyed the book enough to move on to Perdido Street Station. When you finish that, if you're not tired of Bas-Lag, there's a third book titled Iron Council.
Well, as of the moment, I am about 100 pages in Perdido and hope to finish before May 1 so I can write a review on it as well.
Hyperion Stories 1/2
The Priest's tale
The Soldiers tale
When I started this book, my first thought was holy crap, this is going to be terrible. But instead the first story (priest's) turned out to be my favorite. Dan Simmons takes a world torn apart by conflict and just makes all hell break loose on this planet with a legendary force (the shrike.) But intelligently, the first tale sets the stage, and helps the reader navigate the planet as the explorer finds a village of very small, dull, immortal beings. The end of which turns out to be extremely brutal. Next the soldiers tale brought in a much needed element of violence and action. The soldier is a lean mean fighting machine that gets stranded onto Hyperion, and sees the full power of the shrike.
So far Simmons has done a great job of introducing the planet, the characters, and the project. Get to the shrike, and pray that it grants a wish as fabled.
Next comes the poet, along with the scholar, Part 2.
The real thick of the book, the stage has been set, the bad guys are on the way, now its time to get across some land to the Shrike's land near the Time Tombs.
The poet is a very cocky, but brilliant character who is incredible with using words.
"The difference between a word that words and the perfect one, is like the difference between a storm, and being struck by lighting."
I really liked that one.
The poet gets bribed into going to Hyperion to continue his series by the aptly named "Sad King Billy." The poet seems fascinated by the shrike and even refers to it as his "muse" and it seems the only reason he wises to return is to regain his "muse."
Even advertised as a boring story, the scholar lived right up to his reputation, no action, no violence, nothing. Well, actually kinda cooly, his daughter was touched by the Shrike and now every day grows one day younger...she now has about 2 weeks left to live.
Simmons gets deeper into the plot now, setting the stage for a cliffhanger to end everything off with.
and the clincher: Part 3
This starts off with the detective's tale, which is UNNECESSARILY confusing. She meets a half-human, half-droid, that was "murdered." So now she has to find out why someone would want to kill him and why the heck the church that worships the shrike wants him to travel to Hyperion. After he actually dies, she decides to go in his place to find out what actually happened.
The consul's tale also turned out to be kind of boring, the only surprise was that he turned out to be a double agent, spying on the Ousters that were attacking Hyperion and only a few days behind the Pilgrims.
Then the cliffhanger, they end the book with the group approaching the shrikes lair. A little frustrating.
Well, now the cliffhanger got me so I ordered the sequel, "The Fall of Hyperion" mainly because I just want to see what happens when these characters interact with this fascinating beast.
The book Hyperion was enjoyable, and I would reccomend it, however it was a little long and the stories only slightly painted a picture for me, the plot was still pretty confusing. 9 out of 10
The Scar – Final Response
The following is my thoughts and reactions regarding the entirety of the book The Scar by China Miéville as well as a brief recap of what happened.
The Scar as a whole is a hard story to classify to a specific genre and tack down with any specific themes as is Miéville’s style apparently (after reading a large portion of Perdido Street Station). To begin with, it encompasses parts of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, Gothic, Romance, and tidbits of a myriad of other genres. There are also themes of xenophobia, the Frankenstein complex present throughout the novel, and if you pay close attention, there are some strong inferences to foreshadowing of future events.
In regards to the genre layout, Miéville is easily one of the most unique writers I have ever encountered. He is not bond by the unwritten boundaries formed by various genres and instead forms an ever-changing mass that encompasses a great deal of those in existence. The part that is so amazing though is that he does so in a way that the reader does not even recognize the shift until after the fact and it dawns on them that they were no longer reading Science Fiction but rather Horror or Fantasy or any number of other things. There are times where he doesn’t shift between them but instead combines them into beautiful pieces like when the Lovers summon the avanc from the depths of the sinkhole through the use of thaumaturgy, which is combination of science and sorcery as well as the summoning and capturing of lightning elementals, which definitely have their ties to fantasy.
Miéville also includes themes of xenophobia, and later equality, when Bellis talks about the shunned nature that the Remade suffer through when in New Corbuzon but then how there is an equal opportunity for Remade in Armada. The best example since he is one of the main characters, is Tanner Sack. He is Remade and is in the prisoner holds on the ship the Bellis is traveling on the get to the colonies. When they are captured, everyone is treated equal, no matter race, age, gender, or Remade. Obviously, those that were too brainwashed by New Corbuzon were held in confinement until they were “suitable” to enter into regular Armadan life. Xenophobia is probably most common in the differences held between the people of Armada and the vampir. This is mostly due to the fact that people are scared of them, even though they only come out at night and feast through the use of the goretax and nothing else. Despite this, however, there is an underlying fear in everyone about the vampir, and this fear is only amplified several fold when they stage their mutiny with the help of the very eerie and very disturbing creatures of The Gengris.
On of the other things that Miéville does an amazing job doing is incorporating an underlying theme of the Frankenstein complex in a number of ways. The primary and probably the one that becomes the most apparent is how the Lovers get the populous so riled up over the possibilities that come with finding the Scar. Yet, when truth comes to them about what the Lovers are planning to do when Hedrigall makes his mysterious return, they become destructive and take over Armada and turn it around and begin their return trip out of the Hidden Ocean and towards the part of the fleet that they had left behind. The other part of the complex that becomes apparent is the fact that when they summon the avanc, everyone assumes that it is to be used as propulsion to move Armada around the oceans at speeds that before they had only been able to dream of. Yet, the Lovers, being the devious, rather villainous individuals they are, have a different plan for it and this plan eventually becomes tangled with the fact that Silas is on Armada, which of course leads to the conflict between the New Corbuzon navy and later, the arrival of the Gengris and the conflict that follows. Because of their summoning of the avanc, these events transpired the way they did. However, one can only speculate how things would have been different if the avanc had not been summoned, of course, that would have changed the story entirely and the plot would be so drastically changed that it could easily be another story altogether.
Overall, I really liked the book and found it to be very engrossing to a point that I would spend several hours reading it and be some enthralled that I had no idea about how much time had passed. I would definitely recommend this book to any SF fan and even to those that aren’t because it is not just SF as I have mentioned before. There is enough of each genre present (except maybe romance, since there are only a few underlying stories) that it will keep most any audience happy. For this book, I would give it a 5 of 5 and would easily rank it in my Top 10 list of favorite reads.
Billy --
Your comments about the book are direct and honest. I'd like to see a little more of your reactions to specific details, but overall you responded well. If you were hooked enough to get "Fall of Hyperion" my work here is done. (But it turns out that, even though the Hyperion story ands in the next book, two more books -- Endymion and Rise of Endymion -- continue the exploration of this universe further...)
Brian W --
Your final post is another outstanding piece of writing. You describe Mieville's style to a T, and you added some very perceptive observations about his treatment of the xenophobia and Frankenstein's Complex ideas, filled with vivid details. When you finish Perdido Street Station, there's yet another book set in the Bas Lag universe -- Iron Council (about a massive train...)
Post a Comment