Customer Reviews

The Broken God (Requiem For Homo Sapiens)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

David Zindel's The Broken God is a novel light years ahead of it's time. I read this novel first over a few wonderful weeks two or so years ago. Since then I have read the prequel 'Neverness' and the following two books in the trilogy 'The Wild' and 'War in Heaven' While all four are excellent novels, 'The Broken God' stands above. The city of Neverness holds a special place in Science Fiction writing. It is one of the most beautiful, well realised cities ever imagined. Zindel's philosophical insight, broad reaching imagination, and poetic prose combine for a fantastic reading experience. It is a novel that you will always want nearby for a quick visit to Neverness. I am reading it now for the fourth time, and it is the only book that I have read multiple times in the past five years.

The six original Dune novels and Asimov's Robot, Empire, and Foundation series generally constitute the finest space science fiction I've read. Simmons' first two Hyperion novels make it up there as well. The Broken God easily ranks with these greats.

I'll echo other reviewers: Zindell's prose reminds me of Herbert's Dune. Almost eerily imaginative and convincing. He crafts a world, a universe actually, and makes it believable. No need to summarize the setting and plot here, the Amazon blurb covers it pretty well. What can I say, it's a very well-crafted, well-written science fiction novel. Vastly underrated. I believe it's out of print now due to lack of sales, but you can get it second-hand though unfortunately you might have to pay an arm and a leg even for the paperback. If you're a sci-fi buff, it will almost certainly give you many hours of enjoyment.

The only nit I have to pick is that Danlo is not a fantastic rendering for a protagonist. He's too upstanding and purely good. I feel that had Zindell added a couple minor flaws to his character the novel would have turned out even better. At this point I've read the sequel The Wild and I can say that though I enjoyed it greatly, Danlo behaves even more perfect and inhuman and I think this detracted from the novel. Who knows, perhaps the final novel War in Heaven will reveal a flaw in his character. I'm hoping....

Warning: this book is not for the all-action-no thinking-sci-fi readers. You find here beautiful word construction, great characterization and splendid athmospheres. The characters of Danlo the Wild, tortured yet innocent soul, of his friend Hanuman,haunted by his own interior ghosts, of the falstaffian Bardo, will remain in your memory. Here you will find reflections on human destiny, the implications of genetic and cybernetics, reflections on humand destiny and of the universe. Echoes of Douglas Adams, Neal Stephenson, Iain Banks and Isaac Asimov reverberate through this wonderful novel.(Not to mention that the Borja School chapters have a distinct harrypotteresque feel...and Danlo finds himself with a lightning scar on his forehead(!).This novel is real food for the soul, and whilst it could have been a bit less verbose, and some reflections may verge on the obvious (religions develops in directions their founders didn't foresee ... what else is new?), this book will make you think, whilst entertaining you with a magnificent story. And some notations on human alienation and the perils of religious dogmatism are very prophetics and actual. A must read!

4.5 Stars. I read this book before I read Neverness. I wouldn't say I regret it, but for those looking around for a good book, I reccomend checking it out first. It's not a must, but I think a lot of insight into Danlo and some other characters would be gained while reading "The Broken God." There isn't much to say about this book that hasn't been said, but if you're like the kind of books I do- epic universes, interesting characters, and cool tech that isn't the focus of the story. I think this book could please people with lots of different sci-fi tastes. The only bummer is that the sequel- The Wild- costs a whopping $27 for the paperback here on Amazon. Not sure what the deal is with that, but it's holding me back from reading on in this great series.

The Broken God can only be described as a tale of epic proportions.
This is a novel of ideas and philosophy so deep and rich in scope and imagination I needed to take breaks between chapters to think about and absorb what I had read.
It is the story of a young man's search for himself.
It is a tale of friendship and religion.
It is novel for and about humanity.
If you haven't read this --- DO!

Three features of this book, and of Zindell's sf series as a whole (I'm on the third book, The Wild), stand out for me. First and foremost, the series is very philosophical. Whereas most hard sf authors go into plot-killing descriptions of technology and scientific theories, Zindell focuses on the spiritual and ethical dimensions of his speculative history of the far future. This isn't to say there's no science or technology in Zindell's science fiction or that the series borders on fantasy. Zindell does back up many of his speculations with scientific explanations, but the focus is on exploring philosophical and spiritual ideas.

This might suggest that the series is a morality tale, but this would be so only if a morality tale were any story that is largely about morality or some other philosophical problem. Instead, at its worst a morality tale is a stilted, formulaic fable that so focuses on morality that the characters and the plot are beside the point. While Zindell's series is quite philosophical, Zindell is also a world-builder, and this is the second aspect of the series that strikes me. I happen to enjoy long, world-building sf series (Dan Simmons, Peter F Hamilton, Gene Wolfe). Zindell develops his vision of the far future to such an extent that the reader can't usually predict what will happen or discern any formula (except in the broadest sense of the formula for any epic story). For example, I wouldn't have predicted the disaster described in the very first chapter of The Broken God, nor could I have predicted what exactly is the broken god. Zindell's discussions of philosophical ideas and his invented world are so idiosyncratic that I wouldn't call the series a morality tale--at least not in a pejorative sense. Take the warrior-poets, for example. To some extent, these are Nietzschean overmen who are beyond good and evil, but there's also their preoccupation with finding the "moment of the possible," which I found peculiar and fascinating.

Perhaps the main philosophical theme explored in the series is the relationship between gods and mortal creatures, and specifically the prospect of becoming a god. By itself, this indicates an unusual, mystical, Gnostic perspective on the author's part (everything is divine, the kingdom of heaven is within you, etc). A far future setting may not be necessary to the pursuit of this theme, but obviously one way to become a god would be to harness the sort of technology which doesn't yet exist.

Finally, there's Zindell's writing style. Most of the writing I quite like, especially the similes and the substitution of detailed philosophical and psychological discussions for technoscientific ones. (Again, there are some technical scientific and mathematical descriptions, but they don't take up the foreground. For a fascinating philosophical dialogue, see the long, early conversation between Danlo and the Fravashi Old Father.) However, Zindell has an odd tendency to overuse certain phrases such as "utterly," "fairly," "in truth," "wild," "light of his eyes," and perhaps some others. Even the Devaki phrases Danlo would repeatedly speak seemed to contain only a handful of the same words (I think one of the words means "sleep"). I noticed this much more in the second and third books than in the first one, Neverness. This is a little annoying, but there's so much else going on in the story that I find in reading the third book I can set aside this quibble.

Regarding The Broken God, in particular, I found it just as engrossing as the first book, Neverness. The plot of Neverness is perhaps more interesting, since a great many major events take place in that part of the story, but the second book is more explicitly philosophical. For me the first chapter, the Architects' theology, the encounter with the warrior-poet, and the character of Old Father and the Fravashi philosophy are some of the book's highlights. The second book is primarily about the strange relationship between Danlo and Hanuman, though, and although I found the final revelations of the second book not as startling as those of the first, I still found the ending satisfying, if a little sad.

This has been one of my favourite books for a long time. Loved it. Just a note for those looking for out-of-print Zindell work - Neverness etc - hop on over to amazon.co.uk where they are all very much *in* print. His newer books ( not up to the standard of this one unfortunately ) seem to be released earlier in the UK as well. Weird for an American author.

After it had been sitting on my shelf for more than a decade, I only got around to reading 'Neverness' early in the year. I enjoyed it enough to do a search for further info, a search which led me to 'The Broken God' and (soon) to the others of the trilogy. My judgement is coloured not just by how well it fits into a universe as rich as Dune's but by my separate interests in fresh takes on deep philosophical questions and in coming of age stories involving exceptional talents and challenging relationships.

The Broken God confronts so many of my interests, that I can't pretend to know what it might be like for a reader with other interests, especially not in isolation from the rest of the series. What I can say is that anytime I started to think that Zindell's rich description was starting to feel a tad overdone, he hit me with a new thought which more than justified all the often almost poetic detail.

Potential interfaces between human mind and computers and their consequences are explored in depth, as is the tension between Danlo's wish to promote "halla", his vow of "ahimsa", and his ever increasing understanding of the essential role of pain and death in the appreciation and creation of life. Several scenarios are developing for collisions between great cancers of unchecked growth, setting the stage for the books to come. The importance of influence and interconnectedness on the shaping of humans is explored in detail, especially the fashionable hypothesis that some singular decision points can potentially set the world on very different paths.

As is appropriate to the first book of a preplanned trilogy, The Broken God leaves many questions unanswered, but for me none more than how can David Zindell remain such a relative unknown?

After thrilling intellectual scifi fans with Neverness, Zindell improves on his work with The Broken God. He seamlessly weaves together math, religion, science and philosophy, creating a beautiful tapestry of the journey of the young hero. Breathtaking and unforgettable. Shantih.

David Zindell's near-perfect first novel, "Neverness," is a tough act to follow. "The Broken God," while a very good book, simply cannot match up to the extraordinary, mind-boggling journey through the human imagination that "Neverness" is. I'll cite a few things that disappointed me in particular, but don't worry - I won't give away very much.

"Broken God" opens many years after "Neverness" ends, even though momentous events have taken place in between the two books. These events (the enigmatic disappearance of Neverness's protagonist and a massive space expedition to the most dangerous region of the galaxy) are both shrouded in mystery, but it is a contrived mystery. Zindell simply has chosen not to write about that time period. I'm not fond of this delibrate obfuscation as a literary device here.

Another missed opportunity: The hero of "Broken God," Danlo Ringess, was raised in a primitive, cave-dwelling tribe (the Devaki). Yet this novel all but omits his upbringing - by page three, Danlo's entire tribe is wiped out by a mysterious illness that somehow spares him. The sections of "Neverness" devoted to life among the Devaki contrasted spectacularly to the parts devoted to "civilized" life, and I wished that Zindell hadn't skipped this segment here in "Broken God."

This gets to the heart of my complaint about this novel: In "Neverness," the action moved from the Unreal City (another name for Neverness) to the inner core of an enormous, moon-sized god to the harsh, icy homes of the Devaki to the endless depths of war-fractured space. "Broken God," while it travels farther into the metaphysical realm than its predecessor, spends 800 of its 850 pages in Neverness itself. Though Neverness is easily the most fascinating city ever conceived, I was hoping to see some more varied terrain - especially considering that Danlo, for much of the book, is studying to be a star pilot.

Having said all this, I'll repeat that "Broken God" is a good book. It touches very profoundly on the nature of suffering and how that relates to and even defines what it means to be human. These are weighty themes which aren't usually explored this thoroughly - and accessibly - in science fiction, and Zindell's skill at weaving these ideas into his brilliant and exceptionally detailed world makes his "Requiem for Homo Sapiens" series a treasure.

I don't think you'll regret buying & reading this novel. Just read "Neverness" first, both for the sake of continuity and so you can see how amazing Zindell is when he's at his best.