Customer Reviews

Broken Land, The

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Fast moving reflection of personal courage and rising to meet one's life challenge. Main character's reactions to life's events are inspirational. You will immediately be drawn into this well fleshed out world/society, become attached to the characters and hope for a continuation of this story.

McDonald swept me away with his unique view of organicals amidst a futuristic world of modern day conflicts. I fell in love with Methembe, the lead character, from the beginning and the undertones of spirituality kept this novel alive. I highly recommend to anyone interested in a hard sci-fi novel.

Personally, I find this to be one of Ian McDonald's better books. I've always been a fan of organic technology in sci-fi so I am always pleased to see a book that uses it. Unfortunately, his use of organicals tends to mirror typical sci-fi technology a little too closely. McDonald usually includes some sort of discussion of spirituality (thankfully not overdone). In this work, he does a great job of weaving this theme in amongst a tale of diaspora in a nation torn with religous conflict. While the setting's technology can get a little cheesy at times, the political backdrop makes for a truly interesting tale. Over all, the author's writing in this book is very good. I am a very critical grader, and so even though I enjoyed many parts of this book, the overall literary quality makes me tend to rate this one at a three (it would take an astonding masterpiece of literature that happened to appeal to me personally to get a five). I would most certainly recommend this book to any sci-fi fan.