Paperback, 602 pages
English language
Published June 1, 2020 by Head of Zeus.
Humanity clings to life on a dying Earth in an epic, far-future science fiction novel from an award-winning author.
The sun is bloated, diseased, dying perhaps. Beneath its baneful light, Shadrapar, last of all cities, harbors fewer than 100,000 human souls. Built on the ruins of countless civilizations, Shadrapar is a museum, a midden, an asylum, a prison on a world that is ever more alien to humanity.
Bearing witness to the desperate struggle for existence between life old and new is Stefan rebel, outlaw, prisoner, survivor. This is his testament, an account of the journey that took him into the blazing desolation of the western deserts; that transported him east down the river and imprisoned him in the verdant hell of the jungle's darkest heart; that led him deep into the labyrinths and caverns of the underworld.
He will meet with monsters, madman, mutants. The question is, which one …
Humanity clings to life on a dying Earth in an epic, far-future science fiction novel from an award-winning author.
The sun is bloated, diseased, dying perhaps. Beneath its baneful light, Shadrapar, last of all cities, harbors fewer than 100,000 human souls. Built on the ruins of countless civilizations, Shadrapar is a museum, a midden, an asylum, a prison on a world that is ever more alien to humanity.
Bearing witness to the desperate struggle for existence between life old and new is Stefan rebel, outlaw, prisoner, survivor. This is his testament, an account of the journey that took him into the blazing desolation of the western deserts; that transported him east down the river and imprisoned him in the verdant hell of the jungle's darkest heart; that led him deep into the labyrinths and caverns of the underworld.
He will meet with monsters, madman, mutants. The question is, which one of them will inherit this Earth?
I binged all of Adrian Tchaikovsky's other books that I've read but I'm dropping this one halfway through (still a few hundred pages, like his other works, this one is not short). The world building is interesting but the dry narration leaves me...dry, and so far there is only a glimmer of other interesting characters. Maybe I'm missing out, but there's a lot of other reading I want to get to.
Mindpowers are my favorite kind of superpower. I felt a little resentful at this book, because as a younger reader I would have taken this book to maybe add to the hope that mindpowers might be attainable.
Thoroughly entertaining adventure fantasy. I don't know if it can be counted as science fiction for even though it nominally takes place in an uncertainly far future of our Earth, it has too many far too fantastical propositions. My only complaint is that every adventure story must have some action or fight scenes that I find boring, but these were concise enough and moved the plot. Loved it.
Second listen: While I was listening, noticed a friend reviewed it as "it's good but you're not meant to enjoy it" and with that in mind listened to all the nominally horrendous things happening in the book and wondered why I don't feel like my …
Mindpowers are my favorite kind of superpower. I felt a little resentful at this book, because as a younger reader I would have taken this book to maybe add to the hope that mindpowers might be attainable.
Thoroughly entertaining adventure fantasy. I don't know if it can be counted as science fiction for even though it nominally takes place in an uncertainly far future of our Earth, it has too many far too fantastical propositions. My only complaint is that every adventure story must have some action or fight scenes that I find boring, but these were concise enough and moved the plot. Loved it.
Second listen: While I was listening, noticed a friend reviewed it as "it's good but you're not meant to enjoy it" and with that in mind listened to all the nominally horrendous things happening in the book and wondered why I don't feel like my friend. My take is that the events in the book became so fantastical, that it was like looking at a Dali painting, even if it contains horrors, they're shown through such a prism of peculiar and quaint, that I'm looking at them abstractly and am enjoying the whole thing.
