Navvy Dreams is a big, sweeping space opera of a kind I haven't seen in a long time, where everything hangs on character. It's been comped with KOTOR Navvy Dreams is a big, sweeping space opera of a kind I haven't seen in a long time, where everything hangs on character. It's been comped with KOTOR and I think that's about right: it's all the stuff you want from something like Star Wars, but fresh and far enough away that nothing feels rote. The universe feels expansive, like there's always a little bit more waiting just beyond the margins of any given page, and I liked learning the ins and outs of how these worlds operate. The conflict is operatic, as it should be, but our heroine Polla has a real down-to-earth quality that keeps us grounded in her struggles and invested in the mystery of just what exactly has happened to her....more
Real curate's egg thing going on here. Some parts I found tedious, some brilliant. Doesn't really cohere. Liked the cyberpunk stuff, which isn't normaReal curate's egg thing going on here. Some parts I found tedious, some brilliant. Doesn't really cohere. Liked the cyberpunk stuff, which isn't normally my thing. Possibly has an evolution of the light/darkness of stars metaphor employed by Alan Moore/Matthew Stover/Nic Pizzolato et al, but have to think on it more. Big points for that. Kinda has that Atwood thing going on where a literary writer talks themselves into thinking they're doing some classic scifi stuff for the first time. But some of the stuff, particularly the ending, is really well done.
Started off kinda slow but I grew into it. Annoyed that the prose style doesn't change within the stories, it's still using that sort of moment-to-momStarted off kinda slow but I grew into it. Annoyed that the prose style doesn't change within the stories, it's still using that sort of moment-to-moment/play-by-play style when you expect people relating a story orally to clip it a bit, you know? I guess that's partially offset by having the Consul recording these stories afterwards. That aside, I really liked the universe and lore of Hyperion.
One particular nice touch was how our current religions are still alive in this future. Some considerably changed and with new ones alongside them, but the old ones are still there. Not something you see a lot of in far future science fiction.
I think my favourite of the stories was the Palestinian military commander....more
Damn, what a ride this was. An absolute masterpiece. Don't think I've ever read anything like this before.Damn, what a ride this was. An absolute masterpiece. Don't think I've ever read anything like this before....more
Think this might be my favourite entry in the series yet. I love the way Wolfe reveals and conceals things.
"Do you know what I brought up?"
She was sta Think this might be my favourite entry in the series yet. I love the way Wolfe reveals and conceals things.
"Do you know what I brought up?"
She was staring at the low ceiling, and I had the feeling that there was another Severian there, the kind and even noble Severian who existed only in Dorcas's mind. All of us, I suppose, when we think we are talking most intimately to someone else, are actually addressing an image we have of the person to whom we believe we speak. But this seemed more than that; I felt that Dorcas would go on talking if I left the room. "No," I answered. "Water, perhaps?"
"Sling-stones."
I thought she was speaking metaphorically, and only ventured, "That must have been very unpleasant."
Her head rolled on the pillow again, and now I could see her blue eyes with their wide pupils. In their emptiness they might have been two little ghosts. "Sling-stones, Severian my darling. Heavy little slugs of metal, each about as big around as a nut and not quite so long as my thumb and stamped with the word strike. They came rattling out of my throat into the bucket, and I reached down—put my hand down into the filth that came up with them and pulled them up to see. ... Do you remember, Severian, how it was when we left the Botanic Garden? You, Agia, and I came out of that great, glass vivarium, and you hired a boat to take us from the island to the shore, and the river was full of nenuphars with blue flowers and shining green leaves. Their seeds are like that, hard and heavy and dark, and I have heard that they sink to the bottom of Gyoll and remain there for whole ages of the world. But when chance brings them near the surface they sprout no matter how old they may be, so that the flowers of a chiliad past are seen to bloom again."
"I have heard that too," I said. "But it means nothing to you or me." Dorcas lay still, but her voice trembled. "What is the power that calls them back? Can you explain it?"
"The sunshine, I suppose—but no, I cannot explain it."
"And is there no source of sunlight except the sun?" I knew then what it was she meant, though something in me could not accept it.
"When that man—Hildegrin, the man we met a second time on top of the tomb in the ruined stone town—was ferrying us across the Lake of Birds, he talked of millions of dead people, people whose bodies had been sunk in that water. How were they made to sink, Severian? Bodies float. How do they weight them? I don't know. Do you?"
I did. "They force lead shot down the throats."
"I thought so." Her voice was so weak now that I could scarcely hear her, even in that silent little room. "No, I knew so. I knew it when I saw them."
Really interesting. Not without its own flaws but it could have redeemed the failed trilogy, and at the very least was lightyears better than that awfReally interesting. Not without its own flaws but it could have redeemed the failed trilogy, and at the very least was lightyears better than that awful third film. But I guess Disney got cold feet when Solo was a disappointment, which is actually kinda funny because Solo was one of the better Disney Star wars products....more
She has a point, stories should have something of the stuff of life about them. But I don't think stories revolving around heroes or violence (or evenShe has a point, stories should have something of the stuff of life about them. But I don't think stories revolving around heroes or violence (or even just using violence to generate cheap heat) are necessarily problematic. We need new stories, it doesn't make the old stories bad. I dunno....more
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