Terminal World | |||||
Alastair Reynolds | |||||
Gollancz, 487 pages | |||||
A review by Rich Horton
The story centers on an angel named Quillon. Quillon was modified as part of a program to try to allow angels
to survive in the lower zones, and he went native, as it were, after learning that his masters have lied
about the purpose of that program. As the story opens, an angel on a suicide mission reveals to Quillon that
his former masters are sending newly modified angels to kill him. Quillon enlists the help of the only human
who knows his true nature, a criminal called Fray, to arrange for his escape to the surface of the
planet. He escapes in the company of Meroka, a violent woman with a huge grudge against angels, for having
caused the death of her lover years before.
Once on the surface, Quillon and Meroka encounter
the vicious Skullboys, who have been driven mad by the lack of drugs to cushion them from the effects
of zone shifts. Also, they experience a cataclysmic zone shift, which they realize has also affected
Spearpoint, such that that city appears to be in ruins. After rescuing a mother and her strange child
from the Skullboys, they end up rescued themselves by agents of the Swarm, a civilization living
entirely on airships. Soon they are enmeshed in the political machinations of the Swarm, allies of
the Swarm's leader, Ricasso, who is of a scientific mindset, and wishes to better understand his world
and the zones, and also develop better drugs to help people tolerate zone shifts; while his opponents
urge more direct action against the Skullboys. But, we soon gather, the most important factor in all
this is the young child they've rescued, who seems to be a tectomancer, with strange powers to tentatively
control the zones.
Well, that description seems rather busy, and I haven't even mentioned the vorgs, or any of the airship
battles, or the Bane, or the Mad Machines, or... but I hope you get the picture, This is a long book, and
it's full of incident, and full of neat ideas. The novel does resolve, mostly, the central questions it
raises (mainly, what is Spearpoint for?), while leaving others only hinted at. (For example, where is
the book really set? I think I know, but the book didn't confirm my guess, which is OK, I think.) So a
sequel seems possible, but not necessary. One aspect of Terminal World I failed to mention is
the sheer fun Alastair Reynolds has mixing and matching genre tropes: he plays with Steampunk (making sure to
include canonical elements like dirigibles and goggles), Westerns, Vingean-zones, hints of Space
Opera, hints of noirish mystery ...
generally with a light touch.
So -- interesting idea, some nice setting touches, some action. But is all that enough? The problems are,
quite simply, character, and plot motivation. I simply wasn't convinced by the characters. It's not just
that they aren't particularly three-dimensional, or particularly psychologically complex. We understand
that this is the kind of adventure novel that doesn't necessarily require profoundly limned characters. But
it does require believable motivations, and at every step I felt a sense of arbitrariness. We are told why
people do what they do, but they don't really seem to do very likely things.
Similarly, some of the action, while not uninteresting, seems also a bit arbitrary, not really very likely.
In the end, this isn't quite a successful novel. But for all my complaints, I did enjoy reading it, and I
had plenty of fun with the exotic setting. Reynolds has done much better, no doubt -- as for example
in House of Suns. But this book will do while we await his next.
Rich Horton is an eclectic reader in and out of the SF and fantasy genres. He's been reading SF since before the Golden Age (that is, since before he was 13). Born in Naperville, IL, he lives and works (as a Software Engineer for the proverbial Major Aerospace Company) in St. Louis area and is a regular contributor to Tangent. Stop by his website at http://www.sff.net/people/richard.horton. |
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