304 pages
English language
Published April 19, 2013 by Tor Books.
well, what can i say... didn't know one could make space sci-fi so... boring. i did like the aliens' stories though, but all the rest ― meh.
Disappointing. The basic premise is somewhat promising: a group of beings from various species and planets are on a pilgrimage in search of a Machine that may or may not exist, and may or may not offer some sort of transcendence. The ship they are traveling in and its crew are themselves suspect, and one of them may be the Prophet who started the rumors of the Machine in the first place. Each tells a story, Canterbury-Tales-like, along the way.
But the execution falls short of the potential. The stories are not all that interesting, the beings all turn out to be like the Top Person of their societies, the idea that each of those societies and other shadowy powerful groups has sent a Top Person to investigate a vague religious rumor (of which there must be thousands active in the galaxy at any given time) is just too implausible, …
Disappointing. The basic premise is somewhat promising: a group of beings from various species and planets are on a pilgrimage in search of a Machine that may or may not exist, and may or may not offer some sort of transcendence. The ship they are traveling in and its crew are themselves suspect, and one of them may be the Prophet who started the rumors of the Machine in the first place. Each tells a story, Canterbury-Tales-like, along the way.
But the execution falls short of the potential. The stories are not all that interesting, the beings all turn out to be like the Top Person of their societies, the idea that each of those societies and other shadowy powerful groups has sent a Top Person to investigate a vague religious rumor (of which there must be thousands active in the galaxy at any given time) is just too implausible, most of them just randomly die for no significant reason and might as well not have been there at all (unless they are going to reappear in some sequel), and so on. There is a city ruled by millions of hideous spider-like creatures who have eaten everything else that exists there, and who must therefore get awfully hungry you'd think, if they only get meals when hapless pilgrims come by.
The ending is somewhat unresolved, but if the rest of the book had been better it would've been fine. As it is I'm afraid it's just leading into a sequel, which I don't find myself eager to read. As a whole, it feels sort of like an early draft, or maybe a plot outline, of a good book...
