BOOK REVIEWS

1998, Part I: October

1998, Christian Sauvé

Reviewed this month:

Also included are a few short reviews: A Talent For War (Jack McDevitt) The Claus Effect (David Nickle and Karl Schroeder) and Eternity Road (also by Jack McDevitt).

 

 

Ribofunk
Paul Di Filippo

Avon EOS, 1998, 241 pages, 3.99$ Can., ISBN 0-380-73076-6

It's no surprise if Ribofunk rhymes with cyberpunk. In his own way, Paul di Filippo created his own genre, a mixture of deeply ironic low-down technological anti-glitz combined with a distinctive narrative style that is, as pointed out in the opening-page blurbs, to biotechnology what cyberpunk was to the consumer electronic market segment.

Ribofunk is a series of thirteen short stories -published 1989-1995- unified by a common future history. Sometimes late next century (or maybe the one after that), biotechnology has progressed to the point where bio-modifications of the body are as commonplace as -say- tattoos, sentient human/animal beings are commonplace and North America is ruled by Canadians. Among other things. It's not an enviable future: despite the wonderful aspect of many technologies, it's also a world constantly threatened by genetic terrorists, runaway splices and experiments gone awfully wrong. It far less "clean" that even the dirtiest cyberpunk.

But what a trip it is! Ribofunk is a frenzied, ultra-dense ticket to a richly-detailed future too good to miss. di Filippo packs more ideas in a twenty-page story that some writers manage to put into full-length novels. Given some of the latest headlines, most of it even appears quite reasonable. It's been said that biotech will the twenty-first century's biggest science. Ribofunk shows that the same might be true for twenty-first century's science-fiction. When mixed up with the traditional SF elements like robotic servants, nanotechnology, space travel, moving walkways (take that, Heinlein!), amusement parks and such... it's an experience that will leave you wanting more. DI Filippo's satiric tone also helps.

Even better; up to a certain point, Ribofunk impresses more with is style that with its ideas. Di Filippo writes like Heinlein on an overdose of Gibson; densely-packed futurespeak evoking a fully-realized future that feels immensely real. One story is told by a narrator whose brain was damaged in such a way that he unpredictably breaks into rap rhyming in times of stress; it's a hoot. Another is a series of dispatches from a soldier increasingly affected by biological warfare. Three stories are in a deliciously noir-ish tough-guy PI tone of voice. Another one tells of a genetically-modified Peter Rabbit going against farmer McGregor... Virtually every page of this collection can be examined for textbook examples on how SF should be written. Di Filippo has done truly stupendous things with the English language.

Given this onslaughts of stylistic merit and overflowing ideas, it seems almost ungrateful to speak of shortcomings, and yet... Ribofunk's stories exhibits a curious tendency to falter at the end, or ending abruptly without any kind of after-denouement. Some stories also appear quite simplistic in retrospect, although most readers will probably be so caught up in the prose that they'll miss it the first time around. Characterization is adequate, although most will agree that di Filippo's world is the principal character. The last story also appears out of place with the remainder of the future history, for reasons that will remain a spoiler.

Still, Ribofunk takes its place along with Egan's Axiomatic as an SF tour-de-force, an array of future wonders and completely absorbing storytelling. One of the best collections in recent memory, and an exceptional value for anyone given its positioning as the last 3.99$ Avon/EOS special offer. It's the kind of book that creates fans. Don't miss it: As the jacket blurb says, "The future isn't electronic, nuclear or cyber... it's organic."

 

 

Forever Peace
Joe Haldeman

Ace, 1997, 351 pages, 8.99$Can., ISBN 0-441-00566-7

Most experienced SF readers faced with the occasion to read Joe Haldeman's Forever Peace will inevitably draw parallels and comparisons with the author's biggest success to date, the 1975 Hugo-and-Nebula winning Vietnam allegory The Forever War. Not only are the titles similar, but both stories star soldiers as protagonists and touch upon the theme of war.

But most differences end there. If The Forever War's protagonist Mandella was a true infantryman in the classical sense, Forever Peace's Julian Class is a soldierboy operator. Plunged in a full-VR suit, he controls sophisticated "robots" (soldierboys) hundreds of kilometers away. War by proxy, except that like Vietnam, Americans are still faced with a steadily worsening guerilla campaign. Not even the home front is safe, as Class will discover.

Class isn't a full-time soldier, though: once his nine days of continuous duty are done, he disconnects from the machine and resumes his job as physics teacher at an American university. What is at first a subplot -Class' relationship with a older woman and her stunning discoveries- soon becomes central to the plot, and the main thrust of Forever Peace begins.

It's not a bad novel. Among other things, Forever Peace has been selected as a Publisher's Weekly Best Book of the Year and has also won the 1998 Hugo Award for best novel. For the most part, Haldeman succeeds in producing a very good true Science-Fiction novel. Mixing good characterization with plausible science and readable style, Forever Peace is a better choice than many of the other nominees.

But, even despite the risk of sounding needlessly bitter, it might be time to reconsider Forever Peace. For all its qualities, it often has the feeling of a good first novel by a promising author, not the work of a seasoned pro.

Take the worldbuilding, for instance. Nanotech is there and some reasonably valid consequences are explained (like the essential remodeling of the economic system), but on the other hand these consequences still seem a bit irrelevant. The world of Forever Peace looks a lot like ours even though it seems like if a true leisure society has emerged.

Haldeman being a Vietnam veteran himself, it's a bit surprising to find out that the motivation for the war (and opponents, and tactics, and goals, and...) are so shallow. ("under-examined" might be a better expression.) Of course, Haldeman's attitude toward war, politics and government is as bitter as could be expected from him. It still doesn't create a good impression.

(No, but really; nanotech is there... why fight a war?)

Then the second half of the book is plagued with exactly the same problem that almost destroyed Spider Robinson's Lady Slings the Booze: Strange characters are assembled and shakily establish a doomsday scenario on a foundation of half-deductions, incredible speculation and doubtful assumptions. Then they make up a plan to save the world and the second half of the book is just an implementation of the plan. Booo-

Fortunately, Haldeman maintains a certain level of tension throughout and doesn't attempt to play it for half-laughs-half-tears like Robinson. Expert commandoes are sent, a few unexpected things happen but the hero still save the day/world/universe on schedule. At least, it's entertaining.

Yet, Forever Peace is a worthwhile read. Far from being as good as the classic The Forever War, it nevertheless remains a pretty good SF book in its own right. And somewhere near the end, maybe you'll glimpse the true nature of its relation with The Forever War. The first volume's resolution is precipitated by an event alien and frightening to the protagonist. The solution this time around is exactly the same and remains alien to the protagonist. But this time, we're supposed to feel grateful. We have become the alien. There is nothing to fear this time.

Nice trick, Mr. Haldeman.

 

 

The Dreams our Stuff is Made Of
Thomas M. Disch

1998, Free Press, 256 pages, 35.00$Can., ISBN 0-684-82405-1

Don't bother reading The Dreams our Stuff is Made Of if you don't really know your Science-Fiction. I mean it.

Good, serious, knowledgeable critical studies of Science-Fiction aren't exactly common. (recently, only David Hartwell's revised edition of Age of Wonders and the John Clute collection of reviews Look at the Evidence come to mind) So it wasn't a surprise if Dreams's reputation preceded its arrival in my reading stack. For a book as opinionated as Dreams, it's a wonder the whole work wasn't spoiled well beforehand.

Thomas M. Disch isn't exactly a superstar of SF nowadays, but he has published a variety of deeply impressive stories since the sixties, as well as several "classic" novels like Camp Concentration and 334. He has also published widely out of the SF genre, including a volume of poetry criticism. Part unfamiliar figure, part seasoned veteran, Disch is uniquely positioned to comment on the genre with a view that's both sympathetic and iconoclastic.

Books like Dreams are written to slaughter sacred cows. And SF has more than a herd of those. Disch spends pages explaining why Heinlein was racist and sexist, then turns around and mows down Ursula K. LeGuin. As if that wasn't enough, he moves on to easier targets like new-age wackoes, UFO true believers and scientologists only to drive the point home by stating than for better of for worse, these weirdoes were created and are sustained by SF. Many will blush.

Other highlights include an intriguing treatise on why Edgar Allan Poe is the true father of SF, not Mary Shelley, Wells or Verne. While the argumentation isn't flawless, it's interesting. Also worth reading is the effect of SF on the cold war, the argument that dreams entail responsibility and Disch's views on televised SF, Star Trek in particular.

And yet, despite these juicy bits, The Dreams our Stuff is Made of seems curiously tame, almost as if Disch pulls his punches. Call me a bloody ungrateful bastard, but I wanted more. I wanted Disch to spend more time on the Fringe/SF connection, the disappearing place of SF in a society more and more influenced by SF, the effect of contemporary fantasy on SF and the effect of SF on politics. But then again, I also wanted him to name the writers whose output was affected by drugs instead of getting away with such hints as "read between the lines of those senior writers who once seemed so wonderful and who now, so noticeably, are not. The reason, when it isn't booze, is probably pot." [P. 114]

The other major flaw of Dreams is more serious. While Disch tries to paint a picture of a whole genre, his examples of written SF are from before 1985, at the shocking exceptions of Greg Egan's Quarantine, Whitley Streiber's alien contact "non-fiction" and The Forstein/Gingrinch "collaboration" 1945. He does talk at length, however about INDEPENDENCE DAY while mentioning THE FIFTH ELEMENT, CONTACT and THE LOST WORLD... Is Disch trying to say that written SF isn't as relevant to the genre? Even though he's essentially saying this, it might lead some readers to suspect that there's almost fifteen years of SF that Disch is deliberately ignoring.

Finally, the book doesn't really prove its own proposition ("How SF conquered the world"), instead presenting a series of thoughts about the genre. It might be more appropriate to call this an essay collection.

Oh; Page 10: Wasn't Del Rey books named after Judy-Lynn Del Rey?

Perhaps the most shocking thing about Dreams is the way I wasn't shocked by Disch's argumentation. As mentioned, this is a bit of a disappointment. But it might also be a measure of Disch's ambiguous success, with a book of criticism that's recapitulative but not definitive, rough but not heretical, less impressive than expected but still commendable.

 

 

You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again
Julia Phillips

Signet, 1991, 628 pages, 7.99$ Can., ISBN 0-451-17072-5

Sex! Power! Drugs! Money! More money! More power! More sex!

Nope, I'm not talking about Washington. The New Babylon, as most suspect, is Hollywood. Tinseltown is what happens when you funnel millions (assuming that every American spends 25$ a year to see movies on screen or video, that's six billion dollars, folks.) and you place it in the hands of people without talent, brains or restraint. I've never had too much of a high opinion of Hollywood (that's what happens when you identify more closely with the writers and CGI animators than anyone else) and it sank even more with You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again.

Lunch is the autobiography of Julia Philips, a movie producer. Her filmography is semi-impressive: In the seventies, she produced The Sting, Taxi Driver and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Other than that, not much. No wonder that most moviegoers haven't really heard of her.

But outside a simple filmography, Phillips spent most of her time in Hollywood (and most of this book's hefty 600+ pages) doing drugs. Lunch is a confessional where she describes her ascent, descent and recovery. It's less glorious or fascinating than it sounds.

Lunch, in a few words, teaches important lessons: When reading an autobiography by someone you don't know, it is essential that:

A> The narrator is likeable. Not the case here, since Phillips is most definitely someone I wouldn't like to meet (and this is reciprocal; "Scorsese, Dreyfuss, Milius, Spielberg, Schraeder, etc. A rogues' gallery of nerds. There is not a single guy here I would have dated in high school or college." [P.131] I happen to be a nerd; G'bye, Julia!). Her constant, and unrepenting, abuse of drugs, alcohol and sex doesn't help. You'll excuse me if I don't find attractive folks accepting Oscars while on a coke high. What also grates is that while she says she stopped doing coke, by the end of the book she's still heavily in the so-called "softer" drugs... Redemption? Really?

B> If you can't be likeable, be interesting. Here too, Philips fails: Lunch is six hundred pages of minutia, of boring and unlikeable anecdotes, of flings with people we couldn't care less about. Some will say that this only adds texture to the narrative; I say that this would have been a crackerjax 200-pages autobiography. As such, most of the time we're wading in irrelevancies. I didn't skim, but I really wanted to.

C> The narrative should attach itself to known markers. Here, Philips is most interesting when she talks about the making of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, Steven Spielberg, Arthur C. Clarke or known actors. Since we've already established that we're not interested in her life (see A> and B>), she might as well talk about others. Sadly, this doesn't really happen as often as we wish it would. (In the middle of a chainsaw autobiography, however, it's fun to see who remains unscathered. Speilberg comes out okay.)

but finally...

D> Be coherent. And Phillips isn't. As said before, the book is overlong. But it's also full of digressions that aren't related to the tale, of sermonizing little philosophical speeches and of self-congratulatory monologues. Problem is, most of them don't make as much sense as she thinks it does (I did mention she was still doing soft drugs, hmmm?) and the remainder is just embarrassingly juvenile. It also doesn't help that Phillips consider herself as exceptionally intelligent. I was reminded of a line in John Brunner's The Sheep Looks up: "If [she's] so intelligent, then why isn't she so smart?"

The result is a bloated failure. Fortunately, a complete index will help out the impatient reader anxious to get to all the good parts. Read the sections about CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, about Spielberg, Beatty, Clarke, Gere, Rice, Truffault and (Don) Simpson, but don't give Phillips the karmic satisfaction of dumping all her anxious neuroses on you.

 

 

Dust
Charles Pellegrino

Avon, 1998, 387 pages, 19.95 $ Can., ISBN 0-380-97308-1

There is a fascination about contemplating the unthinkable. Survivalists, civil safety officials, prophets and science-fiction writers all depend in large part on this fascination. Somehow, imagining that everything we hold dear -including our lives- could be snatched away at any time makes us appreciate what we have even more.

Yet, destroying the world is easy, at least for the fertile imaginations of the latter twentieth century. From the oh-so-very-sixties retro nuclear apocalypse, we've moved on to plagues (King's The Stand), celestial objects impact (Niven and Pournelle's Lucifer's Hammer), Black Holes (Bear's The Forge of God), Alien Invasions (Again, The Forge of God) and the like. J.G.Ballard has even written four books dealing with end-of-the-world scenarios. At this point, it would seem unlikely to find a new and exciting way to end the world, but that's exactly what Charles Pellegrino does with Dust.

This time, the novel start with a deadly whimper as hundreds are eaten alive by swarming clouds of mites. But, as Pellegrino makes it very clear, this is only a symptom of a deeper problem; the disappearance of insects.

Sounds like a doubleplusgood thing to you? Not quite. Pellegrino neatly dissects Gaia's ecosystem with his clear and incisive imagination. Even early on, the novel makes no secret of the fact that this is The End. As in; no more human race. We're going the way of the dinosaur. Ecological collapse isn't quite as frightening as the resulting social, politic and economic descent in anarchy.

But why are the insects disappearing? That's one surprise best left between Dust's covers. As he had done with the concept of relativistic bombs in his previous solo novel Marching to Valhalla, Pellegrino pulls straight existential horror out of simple facts and reasonable extrapolations. "A novel even scarier than Jaws" blurbs Arthur C. Clarke. This is no inflated hype.

Dust is so stuffed with surprising factoids, ideas and concepts that the twenty-five pages scientific afterword is more than welcome. Pellegrino loves to have ideas and play with them; we should be grateful that he also loves to share them.

As a novel, most will agree that Dust isn't quite up for the Pulitzer. Characters are annoyingly similar to one another and rarely given the chance to distinguish themselves, the action is sometime jerkily shown (when it isn't simply told rather than shown), the dialogue -while seemingly authentic for scientists- is a bit stiff, the plotting has imperfections, etc... But given the density of Dust's narrative -it packs the end of the world in less than 400 pages- and the excellence of everything else, it really doesn't matter. Readers of hard-SF, techno-thrillers and other high-fact-density fiction will find here exactly what they wish for: a good, scary, unflinching and eminently plausible end-of-the-world novel.

As luck has it, Avon book is offering this full-size hardcover novel at a bargain price (16$ US, 20$ Can.) Rush to your bookstore and order it if they don't have it; it's worth every penny. It's frightening, thrilling, thought-provoking, ironic, brilliant and stunningly entertaining.

Dust offers a shocking contrast with the usual Hollywood-produced disaster story. Everything is convincingly explained, well-developed and brought to its logical conclusion. There is no last-minute reprieve, but if Dust is implacable, it is not entirely without optimism. Somehow, this is a happier, more satisfying ending than "Boom went the asteroid and they all lived happily ever after."

(Keep your eyes open for the lovely mention of Fahrenheit 451.)

 

 

The First Immortal
James L. Halperin

Del Rey, 1998, 342 pages, 35.00$ Can., ISBN 0-345-42092-6

Sometimes, it's difficult to say what's advancing faster; science or science-fiction. One of the best examples of this might be the recent interest in immortality. To live forever! To end death! To cast off the chains of predetermined lifespans! Sound interesting, but the wonderful thing is how we're not only talking about it, but we're doing so in a perfectly rational way. The underlying question doesn't seems to be "is it possible?" as much as "when will it happen?"

James L. Halperin's second novel The First Immortal has a large canvas (two centuries) and an even larger goal: to be the definitive novel about the coming obsolescence of death. In many ways, it succeeds.

Faithful readers might remember James Halperin's first novel, The Truth Machine. An ill-written, but fascinating novel about the development and consequences of a perfect truth machine, it was a splendid example of pure Science Fiction written outside the genre of SF. (Both novel share the same universe, though The First Immortal goes further in the future.)

The First Immortal is a bit like The Truth Machine on Prozac.

On one hand, it loses the fantastically unlikely characters of the first volume and tones down most of the embarrassing tendencies of the first volume. The afterword is shorter. It's better written too, although no one will praise the writing other to say than it's readable. Halperin exerts more control over the plotting, and the result is a better novel.

On the other hand, immortality is not exactly a new subject and considerably less so when compared to a perfect truth machine. A lot of the quirks that made The Truth Machine so infuriating at times also gave it its personality: Since these are ironed out, The First Immortal is less memorable than its predecessor. The ludicrous yet exciting main conflict of the first book has here been replaced by a series of believable, but uninvolving mini-crisis. No wonder that the half of the book is so excruciatingly long and the last hundred seems to be all sugar & sweet... (Idle thought: the book probably wouldn't work half as well with crackerjax writing and characters... or wouldn't be as accessible—same thing.)

But considered on its own terms, The First Immortal isn't bad as it may first seems. Halperin is an enthusiastic optimist (perhaps too much; the resolution of some problems is more formulaic than convincing), and the story shows it, with all its mock-newspaper heading chronicling humankind's progress over the next hundred years or so. The result is uplifting. The ultimate prize being to live forever, who would dare not being pleased with Halperin's extrapolations?

From a scientific standpoint, the novel holds together very well. Halperin is obviously someone who's as meticulous in his research and he is brilliant in integrating it. There are few discernible flaws in his argumentation (though some will quibble about deadline, psychology and sociology) but -ignoring the fact that the protagonists all seem to be world-leaders in their chosen genres- the scientific breakthroughs all seem plausible, even inevitable. Most extrapolative writers concentrate on a single technology at the expense of all others, but here Halperin makes a credible effort at creating an all-encompassing future.

The First Immortal isn't such a good choice for the die-hard SF fans, who are already quite familiar with cryogenics, A.I.s, nanotechnologies, virtual reality, digital personality copies, cloning and the rest. (In the introduction, Halperin caution the reader to be open-minded, a singularly useless caveat in the case of SF readers.) An intriguing use of the book, however, could be to painlessly introduce non-fans to a whole array of genre devices. Paperback stocking stuffers?

If anything, it might popularize a more hopeful, more optimistic vision of the future. And that would be quite a coup in itself.

Watch this space for "The First Immortal; a retrospective", to be uploaded in... oh... January 2098.

 

 

Permutation City
Greg Egan

Millennium, 1994 (1998 reprint), 310 pages, 9.99$Can., ISBN 0-75281-649-7

I usually read two books at the same time. One hardcover for reading at home or for where carrying hardcovers around isn't too much of a problem. At the same time, I usually carry a paperback with me to read on the bus or whenever I find myself with a moment to spare. Given that I've been doing this for more that a while (we're talking half a decade here...), I was convinced that there was scarcely any difference between my perception of a book read on the bus or at home. Looking at the paperback copy of Permutation City on my desk which I'm supposed to review today, I'm not so sure.

Permutation City is about a lot of things, but it really revolves around the concept that sometime in the future, humans will be able to be "copied" to electronic formats, which then live inside a VR environment somewhere on the Net.

Bah! Déjà vu! will say some. Already seen. Sawyer did it in the Nebula-Winning The Terminal Experiment.

Not so fast. Permutation City opens with a copy being activated, realizing that he's a copy imprisoned in a computer and immediately reaching for the suicide button. Quite a contrast with Sawyer's "oh yeah, cool!" approach. And, dare I say, somewhat more realistic.

(Please don't interpret this as unkind words about The Terminal Experiment which, despite significant flaws, remains of the of best SF books of 1995.)

As usual, Greg Egan packs idea upon idea and the results is as exhilarating as it's mind-bending. One can rest assured that every new Egan novel will be cracking with new concepts and nifty setpieces. Like his other novels, it's a trip, and a heady one. Unfortunately, Permutation CIty suffers from one usual Egan tic, and an unusual one.

The usual tic is that by the end of the book, all laws are being rewritten, the action is quickly moving on the metaphysical plane and things simply don't make sense any more. The good news are that Permutation City handles this breakthrough better than either Quarantine or Distress.

The bad news are that Permutation City seems to suffer from a slower beginning than Egan's other novels. Despite the gripping opening set-piece described above, the first half of the book settles down in a fairly hum-drum pattern that is either very subtle, or uncharacteristically overwritten. (Or, of a philosophical bent seldom seen around here.) This impression of a novel that should have been tightened remains even after the action starts. (Other nitpick: "baling out"... urgh!)

Fortunately, the remainder of the novel brings up so many questions that readers are unlikely to feel cheated. Which brings us back to the paperback copy of Permutation City staring at me. I'll admit that I wasn't in my usual frame of mind while reading Permutation City (job interviews will do that to you). Who knows whether or not I would have read a hardcover edition with the same attitude? (Philanthropic readers who wish to contribute to this experiment are encouraged to email me...)

This hardcover/paperback theme turned even stranger if you consider that the hardcover novel I was reading at the time was James L. Halperin's The First Immortal, a novel about immortality that uses "copies" in what is again a gosh-wow fashion. Egan's approach, using the usual cautious SF skepticism, does seem considerably more realistic that Halperin's. It's probably another element of the considerable different between the two author's approach: Egan is obviously writing SF shaped by previous SF.

For whatever reason, then, Permutation City didn't grip me as strongly as Egan's other novels. I reserve the privilege to re-read it again in the future and change my mind, while still encouraging everyone to grab whatever Egan they can locate. SF is terribly lucky, as a genre, to be able to claim such an audacious writer in its ranks. Let's see where Egan goes next.

 

 

Short Reviews

Books read, but not fully reviewed:

A Talent For War (Jack McDevitt), despite its name, is not a military SF novel. Instead, expect -if possible- a far-future story where an initially shallow pseudo-historian tries to uncover a historical enigma more than two centuries old. Of course, there are various action sequences sprinkled here and there. Pretty good stuff, but just don't make the mistake of reading the first hundred pages, letting it lie for a few days and then go back to it; you'll be hopelessly confused with the dozen of important character names. As ever, McDevitt writes clearly and the result is an unusual novel that can be read easily. Not as good as it could have been (tightening up the action could have been useful) but a good choice.

The Claus Effect (David Nickle and Karl Schroeder) contains more explosions, military hardware and evil villains than all three DIE HARD movie put together... and it still takes place at Christmas. It's a humorous fantasy, the story of a deeply disturbed (and supernatural) Santa who wishes nothing less but total destruction on an unsuspecting world. Working for him are homicidal elves and killer SDI satellites. Against him? A supermarket security agent and a naïve West Point cadet. Never underestimate the training of a ValueLand security guard. The action moves briskly, with a breakneck pacing reminiscent of men's adventure series. Nicely-written too; you'll probably want to read this one in bed as long as you don't have to wake up early the morning after. Sick, twisted fun. Unfortunately, it's a Tesseract book, and those aren't very widely available. Still, makes a great Christmas gift.

Eternity Road, by Jack McDevitt, is a disappointment. Despite his knack fro creating engaging plots around far-future archaeological/historical investigations (no less than four of his novels have this motif), here he fumbles and the result is overlong and short on satisfaction. Eternity Road takes place roughly a thousand years in the future, most of these years after the catastrophic fall of our civilization. The plot, roughly, is a quest toward a legendary place through post-apocalyptic countryland. Yes, we've seen this elsewhere. Though there are several odd quirky details to keep up our interest (the bank and the A.I. scenes are fun), the novel feels too episodic, to quickly wrapped up, too ordinary to be remembered fondly. It takes almost forever to start, and then cuts off almost in mid-story. Not up to McDevitt's usual standards, and not really worth your time unless you're a post-apocalyptic buff or a McDevitt completist.