The Dying Light / Sean Williams & Shane Dix

The Dying Light

category: science fiction, author:

Sean Williams & Shane Dix

book 2 of Evergence
original copyright 2000,
read in October 2010

Agamedes' opinion: 7 out of 10

For the first page or three I was very confused... I'd read two Williams & Dix books a few months back. Both of those were book one of three. For some reason... I expected The Dying Light to be a continuation of Echoes of Earth. Where really, The Dying Light continues the story after The Prodigal Sun... Who are all these people? I wondered.

Once I sorted out my memories, the book made a lot more sense :-) And was a lot more enjoyable...

The Evergence series is also more enjoyable than Orphans of Earth. Orphans is just too big; the characters have no time to gain our sympathy. Evergence has an equally large scope of impact -- but the story is held down to just a handful of, in general, sympathetic characters.

I read The Dying Light as an adventure, with a handful of heroes battling incredible odds and (incredibly!) winning. The big picture is there, but the adventure is constrained. The story is tight enough -- and human enough -- to be appreciated and enjoyed.

It's probably not essential to have read The Prodigal Sun in order to enjoy The Dying Light. The adventure is exciting enough to enjoy, even if the characters are unknown. Still, it would help to have read Sun.

On the other hand, these first two books of a trilogy are set in totally different environments... The characters get to know each other on a single planet, then battle baddies in spaceships and space-stations in a different part of the galaxy. Will the third book be set in yet another different environment?

I hope to read the final book of this trilogy, to find the explanation to the plague of killer superhumans...

Yet I do not have to read the third book. And I see that as a strength of this series. It would be nice to read all three books. But each book is an enjoyable story on its own.

A trilogy is fine. But not if it is really one book published in three volumes: that's just lazy writing and sneaky marketing.

Evergence is an ideal trilogy: three good books, three good stories, one consolidated epic.

..o0o..

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