Divergence / Tony Ballantyne

Divergence

category: science fiction, author:

Tony Ballantyne

book 3 of recursion, capacity...
original copyright 2007

read in August 2012

Agamedes' opinion: 5 out of 10, readable but only if there's nothing else

For a while I thought, Okay, this is not such a bad book. The author's name was familiar but I could not remember what else I had read.

Then I met Judy.

Oh yes... Judy of the multiple copies. Judy the weird. Judy the pointless.

Judy from the just as ridiculous Capacity.

Divergence begins with a group of people on a spaceship. Traders. Just beginning their trading careers. So far, so good. Room -- I thought -- for some interesting developments.

Then the "plot" stumbles downhill.

Everything that happens is driven by the super-AI which rules the universe. Or, perhaps, by the super-AI which was created by the first super-AI and which then rejected its creator. Why? Neither AI knows.

Or, perhaps, every action is driven by the super-AI which is built into the universe. Which may be God. Which acts to ensure that each and every human will live in an anthill which is exactly the same as every other anthill... or something. I'm not sure what happens to the animals... Perhaps they are all killed so that each and every human can have a very small fur coat.

So the "plot" is a series of actions which is forced onto the human characters. No free will. No excitement.

So, who cares?! The characters are also boring. It's nice that most of them survive to the end of the book. Although, in the Divergence universe, they may well reappear, as good as new, in a processing space. Or in a robot body. Ho hum.

To be positive... This is traditional hard science fiction: solid scientific ideas, cardboard characters, pre-primary plotting.

Easy to read. Totally unsatisfying.
===

25oct16: 

I started to read this book again. Had a vague memory that I had read it -- and not enjoyed it -- before. Thought, it doesn't matter, my opinions do change.

My opinions have changed.

My original review begins, " Okay, this is not such a bad book." This time: It's rubbish. Right from the start.

A quick check of my original review. Now I've stopped reading.

..o0o..

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PissWeakly: the Index

Capacity / Tony Ballantyne

Capacity

(category: science fiction)
book 2 of a trilogy ? by

Tony Ballantyne

published by Pan Macmillan in 2005, read in August 2009

Agamedes' rating: 6 out of 10

Agamedes' opinion:

This is apparently the middle book of a trilogy. When I read, “Judy’s story will be completed in divergence” I was surprised: I had not missed a book 1; I had hoped for an ending; I had not even considered that the unlikeable Judy was the main character. Not that any of the characters were really likeable. More like, creepy, possibly evil. I was hoping that Helen would win through. The rest, as far as I care about them, could all have their processing spaces switched off. This is hard and complex SF. It does begin to make sense, somewhere after half way through. But it’s such a fantastic -- though believable, I guess -- world that I keep thinking, If this can happen then why not that? So much Big Brother control and continuous observation, yet the various characters still manage to think that they have self will. Readable but not particularly enjoyable.