Customer Reviews

Angelmass

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Zahn's engaging writing style makes this book a real page-turner. He blends some elements of "hard" sci fi within a space opera and spy thriller context. The political/strategic conflict between the Pax and the Empyrean is fascinating, as is the scientific mystery about Angelmass that slowly unfolds as the story progresses. The philosophical issues (can "Good" be quantified? What constitutes sentience?) are thought-provoking and handled very naturally in the narrative. We don't find out the truth about Angelmass until the end of the book.

Also, the main characters are very believable and realistic, in my opinion. Kosta, Chandris, Forsythe, Telthorst, Lleshi, Ronyon, Hanan, and Ornina are all very human, and each seems to have very valid reasons for his or her actions. Their motives are believable and reasonable, given their backgrounds. Each character has his or her own fears/vulnerabilities and aspirations, and I found them all to be very memorable (BTW, I keep imagining Christopher Lee as Lelshi, due to his aristocratic, military demeanor).

I found the plot to be highly engaging, and I found the ending of the book to be very satisfying. One previous reviewer thought there were some loose ends, but I don't see it that way at all. I found the conclusion to be perfectly reasonable, without resorting to a "storybook picture-perfect" ending with everything neatly tied with a bow. On the contrary, I found the ending had more of an authentic feel to it.
If you're looking for a science fiction story with both a sense of wonder and action, this might be what you're looking for.

The black hole dubbed "ANGELMASS" because of what it emits has dramatically changed the Empyrean colonists on planet Seraph. Apparently the unique particles impact people so that everyone goes out of their way to befriend everyone else. Peace, tranquillity, and honesty run the Empyrean colony, as ethical behavior is more than just the norm, it is six sigma. However, even with this high rate of adherence to using ANGELMASS to promote peace, some individuals fear the loss of free will. Still the Empyrean senate agrees to reject overtures to join the Pax Comitus alliance controlled by Earth.

When word reaches earth about these so-called "angels", the leadership concludes that it is a Trojan Horse sent by aliens to conquer humanity. To learn more about the perceived danger from the angels, earth dispatches subatomic research scientist Jereko Kostas to investigate. He quickly joins forces with thief Chandris Lalasha, Empyrean Senator Forsythe and his aide Ronyon in a quest for the truth.

ANGELMASS is as deep a science fiction adventure tale as one can get due to the powerful characterizations and the profound look at intergalactic political, social, and behavioral interactions. The question of what is and who determines ethics is interwoven into the fantastic story line without slowing done the action. Timothy Zahn paints quite a landscape that enables the reader to understand the author's message while entertaining the wide spectra of speculative fiction fans who will fully enjoy this zestful outer space novel that seems like a throw back to the Golden Age.

Harriet Klausner

I was extremely impressed wit this work and loved every minute of it until the bittersweet ending. Not being a science buff or someone who could tell if Zahn's use of Science was accurate or impossible, I was thoroughly dazzled by the content of this book. Even if just for some of the scientific thought process, this book was wonderful in my mind. I always liked Zahns analysis of situations and the infinite flow of possibilities he can throw out. And here, scientific theories are popped out as easy as Pezz.

It is mostly a story about two people, one: an academic, scientist who is talked into being a Spy in enemy territory (a handful of systems known as the Empyrean) and to research Angels. These subatomic particles are the essence of Good, which bring about calm, reason and honesty in those who wear them (mainly officials in government, military leaders and such). He, along with his nation, the Pax, believe Angels are alien invaders or a plot thereof to remove human suspicion and allow for an easy takeover. He's being sent to find a way to save them, by learning as much as he can about the Angels himself.

Second: a 16 year old girl who is running. She's an underground con-artist and thief who is trying to get away from the obsessed and insane person who taught her the tricks of the trade. She ends up encountering an Angel while trying to make a supposedly profitable "score" and ends up trying to fight against herself with either letting the Angel reform her or running from the Angel. She's also at conflict with herself over what she really wants and needs in her life.

There's also characters battling their own moral problems, a senator who's innocent and seemingly noble action starts to flower into a mess he cannot control, a general at war with politics and a pair of Angel hunters who just seem to smile at every problem over a hot cup of tea. They are all thrown into a pot and shaken around with the threat of an invasion and an enemy that comes from the least expected place.

It is a wonderful story that I'm still in love with, but I'm also easy to please. Zahn's book Heir to the Empire was the first book I read as a child that was not assigned to me as homework. I've been a fan every since.

This book has this type of basic plot line to it. Someone thrown into a place, isn't all that prepared for it, is actually there for a reason he doesn't quite know and has to figure it out for himself and then save the place where he was thrown into. If you have read Manta's Gift by Zahn you'll also note this is a very similar plot line... and the two books were written back to back (variety?). Manta's Gift features a person who basically lost their life in an accident and was talked into being "born" again as an alien, the Qanska. He's actually there for a reason he doesn't know yet and must face a threat against his new "people". Same basic idea.

Though Angelmass plays this out on a pretty large scale and has the issue of What is Good and Evil? As these Angels supposedly are the stuff Good is made of... it talks about that. Manta's Gift has the issue of What is Humanity? As a human is born again as an alien and becomes one of them, what does it mean to be human? Both stories also have a very annoying villain character, the Adjutor Telthorst and Liadof of the Five Hundred, they have someone aligned with the annoying villain but definitely not on the same thought pattern, Faraday and Lleshi, and a leader type character on the other end who's trust must be earned, Forsythe and Latranesto (though they differ highly in personality).

Still I loved this book even though I read itafter reading Manta's Gift and kept going "Wow this is a lot like Manta's Gift." I really liked the personalities and the way that the characters thought, because half the time they were trying to fool themselves more than fool everyone else and you knew it throughout the entire thing. I recommend it to anyone who is like me, a casual sci-fi fan, star wars fan, gamer and hopeless romantic that just eats of any hint of affection between main characters.

"It is a Serious Sci-Fi novel sneakily posing as a Golden Age thrill ride." -Locus

...

Author Timothy Zahn writes an exciting novel. ANGELMASS is enjoyable both because of the adventure plot and also because of the interesting scientific speculation about the nature of the angels and what they say about the nature of man. I did find the lack of security on a world under attack to be a little off-putting. With the level of computers that must exist in a world that supports advanced space travel, could someone really walk into a job at a research institute with so little background preparation?

Grit your teeth and ignore this bit of reality. Then sit back and enjoy a fine story.

BooksForABuck

When Timothy Zahn is at his best, there is nobody better. The Conquerors Trilogy deserves to be remembered as an all-time great, and The Icarus Hunt was a delightful action/suspense novel that keeps the reader on the edge of the seat. Angelmass, unfortunately, does not come close to Conquerors or Icarus. It is better than some of Zahn's middle-period works (like Triplet, for example), but not the five-star we'd been coming to expect. (And that's okay; we can't expect a writer to be perfect *every* time, can we?)

Angelmass is a black hole that spits out "angels." What the angels are and how they affect humans is the center point of the novel, and often the science babble overwhelms the story. Characters here are often too wooden, and sometimes seem to be caricatures of previous Zahn characters (High Senator Forsythe reads like a dumbed-down version of Talon Karrde, for example). We learn on the last page to our astonishing lack of surprise that the two main characters are becoming romantically involved - a result both blatantly predictable and poorly developed.

But then one doesn't read Zahn for character or romance, does one? Zahn is best at plotting and action, and Angelmass provides both. Zahn is a master of battle - both space battles and one-on-one combat, and there is enough of each here to please any Zahn fan. There's political intrigue, too, of course. In short, Zahn fans will find enough here to enjoy. Non-Zahn fans, however, may read this one and wonder what all the Zahn fuss is about.

...but not excellent. At first look, the actual concept is very original and promising. It is both of those, but there's something about how Zahn takes it that doesn't make it as interesting as it could have been.

Synopsis: Jereko Kosta is a spy from the Pax government who is inserted into the Empyrium, a seperatist collection of planets, to learn about a particle of matter called angels. It seems aparent that angels influence people to do good things, and Kosta's there to study their effect on humans and determine if this is a natural phomenon or an alien invason bent on conquering Humanity.

It's a little different in its writing style, and it comes off as a hard sci-fi book. There's a lot of scientific words and concepts, and it's harder to read than his other books. It was still a good book, definitely not his worst, but it's not quite up to the Conquerors' Trilogy or his Star Wars books. There's still some classic Zahn concepts in there, and the space battle scenes are excellent. I've always been amazed at how real he could make his space battles, and I like how he mixes a lot of tactics and strategy in. You can always picture what's happening where and how it's being counteracted, etc.

Can't wait for Manta's Gift!

Before I ramble on, I'd like to say that I recommend Angelmass, so please don't take this review as being negative in any way.

"The door dialated." That phrase from a Heinlein story is often used to illustrate how he began the practice of treating future technology as everyday life. The characters treated it as matter-of-factly as you'd treat syncing your PDA with your desktop (and wouldn't that be fun to explain in a 1950's story.) Early science fiction would have spent pages describing (inaccurately) how a door dialated and why it was so interesting. The mechanism got in the way of the plot.

Here, it doesn't, and that's both good (the story's tight) and bad (I want to know more about several aspects of it.) At the risk of my encouraging an octology, Zahn left me with many, many questions unanswered. They may have been addressed in previous stories I haven't read, but I want to know:

1. How did the Pax form and just how did the auditors gain so much control? It's explained in the book, but just in passing, and I'm sure there's a novel or two there.

2. Angelmass particles are difficult to capture. What lead to someone figuring out how to do it the first time? Why? And how were the effects noticed and quantified? Another novel?

3. How was the protagonist able to discover so much about the particles, when hundreds of scientists who had studied them for years were unable to? Was it his background? A passing mention in a future novel, perhaps?

4. Is Angelmass science fiction or fantasy? Definately another novel here to explain how the particles affect humans (and let's rise above the metaphysical and not deal with "good" vs. "evil" particles.)

Mind you, I'm not complaining. The story is nice and tight - a refreshing change from bloatbooks that drag on through novel after novel with never an end in sight. And the detail is sufficient to tell the story.

I hope what Zahn has started is not a series about Angelmass, restricted to the characters in it, but a series of novels about the particular future he's crafted. It looks to be an interesting place, and I'd like to visit again.

Whether you prefer "hard" science fiction or the softer variety, Angelmass will provide you with some fun reading; the book is enjoyable from either aspect. And I suspect, like me, you'll want to learn more about the future that was partially revealed in Angelmass.

Rick

Well, what can I say. I finished it, and I can't say I hated it, but I wasn't rushing home to finish it either. Interstellar war, spies, con artists, mammoth space ships and a thinking black hole... sounds like it could've been something, but... no, didn't work. The strange thing is that the characters were done pretty good, just the story was boring. Scientist spy is sent to investigate enemy's black hole, and... he does. Meets interesting people along the way. Ta-da. The war is a side story, no sense of panic or really anything, it's happening. The con-artist is the love interest and almost works, yet, doesn't. The battle ship is under utilized, nice side story, but yet unimpressive. The black hole was, well, just there. I never got involved in this book, everything was ok but not exciting. Did like the space travel concept though.

This is not your everyday novel involving a massive interstellar plot. It involved few character to keep track of. It was definatly a change of pace. I realy enjoyed it. Instead of all out war there was subtle hints of a possible alien invasion.
The Empyrean has found a way to keep their polititions and high ranking military members ethical. The use of angels. The angels are produced by a small black hole aptly named Angelmass. The Pax, a goverment that seems like the good guys at the begining, see the angels as a alien intelligence trying to warp the minds of the Empyreans. The Pax has sent a young inexperienced spy, Jeriko Kosta, to find out the truth behind the angels. But instead finds the whole thing to be utterly confusing. Meanwhile the Pax is sending a task force to "liberate" the Empyrean's form the angels. This presses Kosta for time to find what is really going on out at Angelmass.
I was expecting a plot more like the other Timothy Zahn books I have read. Nevertheless i still enjoyed this novel aproach on the whole good vs. evil idea. The only thing I didn't like was the sub plot with the Adjutor's real agenda came out at the very last and didn't have the mystery and guessing I would have liked with plot twists. All in all, a good book.

Timothy Zahn does a great job developing his characters in this mysterious sci-fi thriller. One thing I like about Zahn's writing is how he draws the reader into his compelling stories, and "Anglemass" is no exception. I really like how much depth there is to the plot and characters and how we gradually learn more and more as the story progresses about these things called "angels" that come from this strange, large object in outer space called Anglemass. Atomic physician Jereko Costa has been sent by the Pax Empire to spy on the smaller, weaker Empyrean Empire and to also learn more about the angels, which exist in Empyrean space. At one point he encounters a young woman named Chandris Lalasha, who is a thief on the run from her dangerous ex-boyfriend, and the two end up teaming up together to help each other out. It's a very interesting story, although the ending might be a little anticlimactic for some people. It's kind of abrupt and doesn't have a whole lot of action like one would expect with a story like this. I think 4.5 stars might be a more accurate rating because of that, but because that isn't an option I decided to round up because Zahn does a great job telling this story, and the plot is wrapped up nicely in the end. What really drives this story is the characters and the plot. That's where Zahn excels, and that's the main focus of Angelmass, not just the action as the case may be for some sci-fi authors (though this story did have room for more action, especially toward the end). The ending was completely unpredictable, and it gives the reader something to think about once they finish reading the book.

This is one of those rare and special sci-fi novels that just about anyone can enjoy. It's a very engaging and well-written story. It's entertaining, it's unpredictable, it has interesting characters, and the story gives the reader a lot to ponder even after they've finished reading it. Zahn has written some really good sci-fi novels over the years (most of which are Star Wars books), and Angelmass, I think, is one of his best.