Antagonist (Childe Cycle) [Hardcover]

Gordon R. Dickson (Author), David W. Wixon (Author), Volkan Baga (Illustrator)

Book Description

Series: Childe Cycle | Publication Date: March 20, 2007

Gordon R. Dickson's "Childe Cycle" of novels depicting the future of the human race has been one of the grand epics of science fiction.  At the time of his death in 2001, Dickson was writing Antagonist, the tale of Bleys Ahrens' turn toward darkness.  Now Dickson's assistant David W. Wixon has brilliantly finished the long-awaited book, working from Dickson's copious notes.  Antagonist is a fitting capstone to one of the most ambitious series in SF history.
 
The Childe Cycle is the story of a new human evolution: the development of a real, hardwired sense of "responsibility" shared by all human beings. Donal Graeme was a Dorsai, a mercenary soldier, and also a mutant gifted with insight into the path forward for the human race. Through his gifts Donal would come to bend time and live three lifetimes--and, in the process, run into problems he had not expected: first, his own flaws, and second, the existence of another mutant, Bleys Ahrens.
 
Following Young Bleys and Other, Antagonist advances the story of the formidably powerful Bleys Ahrens. Bleys is a man with a clear vision of the struggle in which he's involved--but an increasingly deficient sense of human values. He and his organization, the Others, are tracking down an elusive interplanetary opposition. Meanwhile, Bleys' own intricate conspiracies and devisings, and his quest for power, which began with the best of motives, have become something darker and fiercer.
 
He's committed to his plans. They may bring about the advent of Homo superior. And they may destroy the human race.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Gordon R. Dickson fans were used to years of anticipating each installment in the Childe Cycle, begun with Dorsai! in 1959, but they may not feel this latest volume, completed by Wixon after Dickson's death in 2001, is worth the 13-year wait. The "classic" space-opera vibe of the series is sliding rapidly toward "outdated," complete with heavy oversized void pistols, planetary shielding and a lone female protagonist, the inscrutable Antonia Lu, who exists mostly to agree and sleep with her half-brother, Bleys Ahrens. The creepily persuasive Bleys, last seen in Other (1994), is increasingly megalomaniacal, so obsessed with his plan to save the human race that his uncle's disapproval and his brother's possible betrayal barely register. In Wixon's hands, Dickson's journalistic style becomes long stretches of exposition punctuated by disaster. SF readers who have come to care about Bleys may be unable to turn away from his slow moral decline; newcomers are unlikely to be captivated by it. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

The specialized humans of the Splinter cultures are evolving to be responsible. But Splinter renegade Bleys Ahrens believes in H. superior, not H. responsible, and has followers on key worlds misdirecting information and resources to short-circuit that evolution. Bleys' formerly clear vision of what he was trying to do has, however, degenerated into intrigue for its own sake, and H. superior could destroy the rest of humanity. Working from the late Dickson's notes, Wixon adds the eleventh and penultimate volume to the Childe Cycle. If not up to Dickson's standards, it at least augurs that the series will be concluded. Roland Green
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 432 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (March 20, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312853882
• ISBN-13: 978-0312853884
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,046,643 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars NOT "the Capstone of the Childe Cycle" ! Not by half ..., March 28, 2007

By 

Rick Korbeck "Voraciously Curious" (Riverside (near L.A.), CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Antagonist (Childe Cycle) (Hardcover)

Let me re-emphasize that point ... "Antagonist" is NOT the long-awaited conclusion to the Childe Cycle, and if you are responding to the pre-release advertising to that effect ... well, slow down and take a breath.

What "Antagonist" IS is a completing volume to an offshoot series that Dickson unexpectedly began after completing "The Chantry Guild", when instead of the looked-for "Childe", we were greeted by "Young Bleys" instead. Apparently Dickson felt that his protagonist, 'Hal Mayne', required (and perhaps, even deserved) a more fleshed-out opponent for the final act than we might have gotten from the few pages he (Bleys) had in "The Final Encyclopaedia" and "The Chantry Guild".

So we have watched "Young Bleys" Ahrens as a child (no "e"), becoming more aware of himself and the differences he has from the common man in "Other", but he still wasn't anyone to worry about yet. And in "Antagonist", we finally get to see Blehs attain the beginnings of his maturity.

He is definitely a darker character initially, especially when compared with Hal, and yet, the more detailed our view of Bleys becomes, the more we feel a growing sense that the two are not really so dissimilar. That which has nourished Hal's soul has been more pure in nature than the sources available to Bleys, but otherwise they might have been brothers. And both men feel this.

So, read this book for a greater insight into Bleys, to see the sides of the vast chessboard of historical forces begin to attain the same level of readiness for the final chapter, to watch the order of battle being set for Armageddon, or Ragnarok, or the Final Conflict, or <your term here>.

But DON'T look for this book to complete the Childe Cycle! In fact, with this book's publication, we actually take a step backward, because "Antagonist" ONLY TAKES US THROUGH THE TIME OF EVENTS WHICH OCCURRED AT THE END OF "The Final Encyclopaedia". And it is important to note this, because a great deal of the mental development and preparation Hal Mayne goes through, and in fact, even his fuller understanding of the tools and abilities which he discovers in the "Creative Universe", all of this occurs (in "The Chantry Guild") AFTER the time that "The Final Encyclopaedia" concludes.

And there the void beckons. Nature (and your above-average science fiction reader!) abhors a vacuum ... so is it logical to assume that our Antagonist (Bleys), having attained nearly the same stature and capabilities as our Protagonist (Hal), would do nothing to further his own development during the time that Hal is off in the mountains of the former Exotic worlds? Of course not ... and that is the story which will now need telling before the final story, "Childe", even begins.

All that having been said, the book is fairly enjoyable and an engaging read BUT ... and its a big BUT ... it's just NOT a Dickson story. The characters are there, the situations are there, but the ambience has gone ... where? The "Childe Cycle" stories were going somewhere special, perhaps more magical than scientific in nature (the roots of which were first shown in "Necromancer") ... someplace literally across the "rainbow bridge" which closes "The Chantry Guild".

And whatever was on the other side of that bridge, it's fairly obvious that Mr. Wixon, for all of his contacts, note-taking, and whatever else, has never even glimpsed the place. If you can't bring yourself to believe in Faerie, the least that you can do is avoid writing fairy tales. Those who follow later will praise your discipline.

I still hope that the story will someday be completed, and that Mr. Wixon, as well as Mr. Dickson's estate, will allow others the chance to finish it in the way Gordon would have wished it to be. And that this book, "Antagonist", was only a foretaste of treasures yet unseen.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars NOT a Dorsai book. Not a Childe Cycle book., June 14, 2010

By 

Michael Cooper - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Antagonist (Childe Cycle) (Mass Market Paperback)

First of all, let's get something clear. My definition of "Dorsai Book" or "Childe Cycle Book" is pretty simple: a book set in the Dorsai "universe" and written by Gordon R. Dickson himself, with only the minimal customary amount of input from others. For example, editors, first readers, friends & family could all quite reasonably provide feedback to an Author. What is NOT a Dorsai/Childe book is anything written from Dickson's notes (copious though they might be), taken from unfinished manuscripts, given to other authors (regardless of how intimately acquainted they might be to the Author and his works), or any new works in the same universe authorized by the estate of the Author. Antagonist falls into a couple of categories in this latter definition, being a work finished after the Author's death and written from his notes by his assistant. Therefore, it is not a Dorsai book.

Antagonist is at best a misguided attempt to give the fans what they want, and at worst an attempt to capitalize on the good works of the deceased Author. I want to believe it's the former, but in reality publishing companies know that an Author's name is at least as valuable as his existing works. And they really don't care that the price for exploiting the name is paid by the Author's reputation.

Antagonist is one of the best examples of this problem. Here you have David W. Wixon, the Author's long time associate and assistant. If anybody could add another chapter in the Childe Cycle, one would think it would be him. Unfortunately, it is not to be. No two writers have the same style, no matter how one tries to imitate another. At best you get an echo of the other's voice. Wixon's attempt is even feebler than most other copy-cat impressionists. One gets the feeling that he is floundering around desperately trying to ask himself "What Would Gordon Do?" and generally coming up with the wrong answer. Like so many posthumous sequels in other Authors' universes (Darkover, Dune, etc), the lack of Author/Universe connection shows. Antagonist fails to draw the Reader into that connection. There is no Author/Universe/Reader triad.

Effectively, this book is merely "authorized fanfic," written by someone who is perhaps more legitimate of a fan than the typical basement dweller logged into a website. Is it worth spending eight bucks to read fanfic? I'd say no, because you can find LOTS of Dorsai fanfic out there. The only real difference is that the publishers of Antagonist probably ran it through a spelling and grammar checker, and Harry Potter doesn't appear anywhere in it. Which is sort of a shame, because a Hal Mayne/Hermione Granger/Bleys Ahrens love triangle might throw a couple of really neat plot twists into the mix.