Mare Somniorum

Hrrmpf. I really enjoyed the first third or so of the book. The middle part was interesting and I quite liked some of the character transitions we were witness to. Oh, and of course, the “guest appearances” were nice — even if they did feel a tad tacked on, but that was probably done to avoid requiring previous understanding of the setting. The last third of the book though, well, it just doesn’t really work for me. It’s not bad, it’s not a big cliché, it’s not dull… But it is however fairly predictable, fairly typical and quite heavy on the techno-talk. It might not be babble, but in certain quantities, it might as well have been.

The last third of the book is tying a lot of things together and the tying itself happens to work well enough, but it doesn’t give the individuals much space, it doesn’t give them much of a journey and there is “too much” stuff going on at once. Where “Chasm City” was pure and to the bone, this does indeed become a space opera. Down to the point of requiring “Revelation Space” to be read and remembered. As a side note on that, there are some story lines that could be cut without very little real loss to the story.

All in all, “meh”. I’ve read worse, I’ve after all read things like “The Swarm” semi-recently, it’s amazing what noisy kids on an eight hour plane ride can make you accept. “Revelation Space” grew on me, it got better and better the more I read. “Redemption Ark” had almost the opposite effect. At this point I’m going to go back to “The mind’s eye” and “Labyrinths” for a few, before I pick up “Absolution Gap”. It’s the classical trap where you’ve read so much of a series that you might as well read on — Peter F. Hamiltion perfected bits of this in the “Nights Dawn” saga. Don’t get me wrong, “Nights Dawn” isn’t bad (I’ve read it twice), but it has parts that make you wonder if Hamilton is on autopilot and getting payed by word count.

Now, sadly, I feel that “Absolution Gap” shares some of the same pitfalls. Bits just aren’t that good, at least not when you’ve read “Chasm City” to get a feel for what the author can provide. I suppose, if this was the first book I’d read of Reynolds, I’d be a fair bit more positive about it, but right now I’m even putting off the next book for a bit. The upside? I get to read other great books!