04-30-2024, 09:00 AM
Revenger by Alistair Reynolds
Revenger is kind of a steam punk space opera that kept me asking questions. Two sisters escape their controlling father because they are bone readers which means they can read messages generated by a skull in the heart of the sail propelled starship. These ships go after Baubles or planets encased by shields. The planets all hold valuable technology from long lost civilizations. Naturally, there are pirates that go after these ships....
I had a lot of questions about the make up of this civilization which kept taking me out of the narrative. Distance being the big one. It was odd because they didn't use a familiar unit of measurement to say how far things were apart. And the crew traveled between these baubles and worlds in a sail propelled craft that can't have been the fastest way to travel. This kept me coming back to shouldn't this take longer? Like decades. Or maybe everything is really close. It's not really clear.
Everybody in the book talk like they are living in 19th century England and they treat the spaceships like sailing ships. I think Jim Butcher does a much better job of this type of spacefaring granted they are all bound to the one planet.
I'm giving this an okay but the book left this reviewer puzzled. I'm in for another episode because I'm no quitter.
Revenger is kind of a steam punk space opera that kept me asking questions. Two sisters escape their controlling father because they are bone readers which means they can read messages generated by a skull in the heart of the sail propelled starship. These ships go after Baubles or planets encased by shields. The planets all hold valuable technology from long lost civilizations. Naturally, there are pirates that go after these ships....
I had a lot of questions about the make up of this civilization which kept taking me out of the narrative. Distance being the big one. It was odd because they didn't use a familiar unit of measurement to say how far things were apart. And the crew traveled between these baubles and worlds in a sail propelled craft that can't have been the fastest way to travel. This kept me coming back to shouldn't this take longer? Like decades. Or maybe everything is really close. It's not really clear.
Everybody in the book talk like they are living in 19th century England and they treat the spaceships like sailing ships. I think Jim Butcher does a much better job of this type of spacefaring granted they are all bound to the one planet.
I'm giving this an okay but the book left this reviewer puzzled. I'm in for another episode because I'm no quitter.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm