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..

These reviews are provided by Agamedes Consulting. For an independent and thoughtful review of your processes, problems or documents, email nickleth at gmail dot com.

The Prodigal Sun / Sean Williams & Shane Dix

The Prodigal Sun

category: science fiction, author:

Sean Williams & Shane Dix

book 1 of Evergence
published by Voyager,
original copyright 1999, read in July 2010

Agamedes' opinion: 7 out of 10

I think that I am beginning to see a pattern in the Williams & Dix books... Okay, I've only read two (that I remember). Still: galactic in scope, science to the max, characters who snipe. In Echoes of Earth the sniping was a bit too much. In The Prodigal Sun the balance is much better.

In Sun, the characters do snipe. But, as the book progresses, they do the expected: see past surface differences to the nice person beneath. Sure, it's expected -- perhaps cliched -- but it does make for a more enjoyable book. The Sun characters also take more independent action... No bureaucratic stalling, just reasonable discussion followed by relevant action.

The Galaxy is a big place and humankind has filled it. All the alien-type creatures are really just evolved, devolved or changed humans. The many millennia of human expansion have also resulted in scientific advancement but with several gaps yet to be explored. This all adds up to a setting with scope, science, interest and variety... and plenty of humanity.

Many of the main characters are "pristine" humans, based on the original human genetic stock. These characters give us relatively simple associations, people with whom we can associate. For the more extreme amongst us -- we can associate with the "aliens", the modified humans.

In reality, the modified humans are stereotypes given vastly altered shapes. The ESPers are small, cute and hairy. The traders are lean, bald, almost rubbing their hands together as they do a deal. The brown and bear-like Mbata are peaceful lovers of their land who speak Bantu. Stereotypes and, mostly, two dimensional.

Still, this is science fiction: no room here for three-dimensional characters!

There's action a-plenty, great (or do I mean greatly exaggerated) science and good ideas. Here, for example, is a vat-bred super-soldier from a long-extinct culture: why does he help the heroes? There is the super-computer in a box: is it really "just" a computer? And -- as with plenty of good science fiction -- there are big ideas which are fully grounded in today.

What happens when one nation invades another? Do the original citizens -- now second-class citizens on their own world -- have any rights? In a democratic Commonwealth but with limited travel rights, how can they get a fair hearing?

Plus, largely in an appendix, there is an overview of the Commonwealth. Is this just background reading? Or is it the authors' extra emphasis on the way in which they believe that a democracy could be organised... At the very least, it can make the reader think.. and that is the sign of good science fiction.

Science fiction. Human scale. Planetary action. Galactic scope and current relevance. All good.

..o0o..

These reviews are provided by Agamedes Consulting. For an independent and thoughtful review of your processes, problems or documents, email nickleth at gmail dot com.

Echoes of Earth / Sean Williams & Shane Dix

Echoes of Earth

category: science fiction, authors:

Sean Williams & Shane Dix

book 1 of The Orphans Trilogy
published by Voyager, original copyright 2002, read in June 2010

Agamedes' opinion: 6 out of 10

Okay, here's the idea: Human minds are copied into a computer then spend a century flying to another star system. There, they are given alien artifacts including an FTL spaceship; they could fly home in two days. So what do they do? (btw: FTL = Faster Than Light.)

Well, John Carter of Mars would have leaped into the spaceship and rescued a beautiful, scantily-clad princess by lunchtime. Richard Ballinger Seaton would have analysed the FTL drive, upgraded to Skylark FTL and rescued an entire civilisation (whose people are all beautiful and/or handsome and can see no point in wearing clothes), all within a couple of days. Even Bilbo Baggins would have used the spaceship, possibly to escape from the Sackville Bagginses...

The characters in Echoes of Earth... call a management meeting to discuss the question. The meeting can barely agree to put a flight plan proposal to the rest of the crew, with a vote on future use of FTL spaceship to be put to a general but non-binding vote, perhaps in a week or two, for further consideration by management.

What a load of time-wasting rubbish!

The whole book is like that: slow.

Worse yet... After endless debate on whether or not they should use the free FTL spaceship, they leap with almost no discussion into use of the alien FTL communicator. And -- here's a plot spoiler -- use of the FTL communicator is the one thing that they should not have done!

Several years ago I picked up the second book of this trilogy. I read the brief "what came before", the summary of book 1, Echoes. I read the summary of book 1 and thought, Good grief! that's ridiculous! ... and decided to not read book 2.

I've now read book 1. The plot is actually not as bad as the summary indicated. It is just... soooo... sloooooowwwww.

It's not really a bad book. Just slow. Doc Smith could have crowded the entire trilogy into a far more exciting, single volume. And still had enough great storylines for two more volumes.

Read Echoes to pass the time. Its ideas may make you think. But it may just put you to sleep. And the characters will make you want to kick them into doing something -- anything -- rather than just sit around in endless, tedious, wondering-what-will-happen-next discussions.

..o0o..

These reviews are provided by Agamedes Consulting. For an independent and thoughtful review of your processes, problems or documents, email nickleth at gmail dot com.