I absolutely loved this conclusion to the Final Architecture series, for some of the same reasons that other reviewers didn't like it so much. There's a lot of battle sequences--I think they are really exciting and Tchaikovsky's background shows (he shares in his bio that he's trained in stage fighting, and that experience clearly informs the battles). He manages to make something as ridiculous in scope as saving all sentient life in the universe scale down to something we can get our heads around.
The whole series is worth reading for the relationships between the crew of the Vulture God (a deep-space salvage tug). Through all the insanity they are deeply devoted to each other, and particularly to Idris. Idris is endearing for his over-the-top depiction--he's only got one job, that of saving the universe, and he is conspicuously and self-consciously terrible at anything else. He is the most vulnerable lead character that I remember reading, and the rest of the crew is symmetrically devoted to him. I am sad to come to the end of the story--I will miss these folks. I also think Tchaikovsky has effectively closed off the series so that we can truly miss them.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Rakesfall, by Vajra Chandrasekera
What to say here? This is one tough read. I got through it, and I can see the through line (with help from the author at the end). I cannot ...
-
Shadow Christ is an awfully tough story to explain. It's sort of about playing with time, and religion, and deeper cultural commentary...
-
The introduction to Slow Tuesday Night is by Gardner Dozios, the great editor, and he tells us that "only those stories that were the ...
-
There are some interesting theories out there on what Gene Wolfe's "The Ziggurat" short story means . Indeed, Wolfe is heavil...
No comments:
Post a Comment