Customer Reviews

Child of the River: The First Book of Confluence (Confluence Trilogy)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

So why did I give it only four stars? Two reasons. It's the first book in a trilogy, and I always reserve some opinion (in this case, one star's worth) for the final work all together. Secondly, it's not really a trilogy, but a single novel broken up into three printings. This can be somewhat frusterating when you're ten pages from the end and asking yourself, "How is this going to wrap up?"... Answer: it doesn't.

That said, this is a terrific book. The descriptions of exotic locales and strange creatures are not only imaginative, but eloquently written, beckoning to be spoken aloud at times. While reading, I often drifted into a lush animated world of McAuley's creation. I wanted to pop "ghost berries" into my mouth and feel the tangy juice on my tongue as I burst open the skin. The Child of the River is that delicious. It doesn't even really need a plot. But it has a great one, or at least the beginnings of a great one.

Yama, the child of the river, is completely and totally unique among his fellows of Confluence. He doesn't know where he came from, how he was born, or what he is to be. But as he developes and begins to learn the standard lessons of adulthood, he stumbles upon some abilities that might come in handy for others. How these powers will play in the war between the Heretics and the Preserver's Theocrates is one of the many decisions Yama must make on the long road to discovering himself.

A wonderous start for a trilogy... now on to the second book, Ancients of Days.

'Child of the River' is a great novel.

Paul McAuley has created an amazing universe, one where the tropes of fantasy fiction interact with all of the gizmos and gadgets of the hardest SF. The protagonist, Yama, discovers that he's not like the others..that on a world that contains 500 different species, there's no one else like him. So Yama wants to discover who he is and where he came from...and why he's able to command machines.

McAuley is a master wordsmith. The words meld together and form an incredible tapestry. The reader feels as though he's present in McAuley's universe. And really, any book that contains men fencing with chainsaws has to be worth reading. I couldn't put the book down. McAuley has taken a place on my Must-Read list. Highly recommended.

I think if I'd not been a McCauley fan and had read that this was a Gene Wolfe pastiche. I'd have been unlikely to have bought it.
It's really not too bad at all. Has a lot of Wolfean elements, basically combining the far, far future of "The Book of the New Sun" with the artificial enviroment of "The Long Sun" books.
Gene Wolfe lite desribes it well and though it lacks the embedded complexity of Wolfe it does capture a lot of his stylistic touches well.
I agree with those who think this should have been released as a single novel rather than a trilogy but its still an interesting journey rather than a compulsive page turner.

This book is really 4-1/2 stars. It shows a lot of creativity, with a far-future setting that has touches of fantasy. The fast-paced plot, the action, and the slowly unfolding mysteries make this a book a winner. Don't, however, expect any kind of closure at the end of the book, as you have to keep reading to continue the story. The lose ends really pile up.

McAuley invents great backdrops, inventions and moods in his first book of the Confluence trilogy. The City of the Dead gives the reader chills with the dust, isolation and silent videos that activate as visitors stroll by the tombs.

Most of this books races with adventure at a fast pace. A few chapters slow down the action, but only for the reader to catch his breathe.

McCauley does well in keeping the plot from making puppets out of the characters. Yama has an obvious goal: he wants to find his people, or at least who his people were. The characters are likable, but some are cliches--Dr. Dismas or Tamara, for example. Ananda and Pandaras, two different characters whose appearances don't overlap in this book, seem to be too much alike. Overall, however, the characters will endear the reader to this series.

Don't expect Child of the River to be a complete story. The three books in this series may have been only one when the author planned it, but the publisher's marketing department may have seen fit to present this story as a trilogy. I am eager to finish this series and am willing to reserve final judgement until after I read the final chapter. Worth your time for a fun afternoon of speculative fiction.

While I certainly understand Mr. McAuley's wish to pay a tribute to Wolfe's masterpiece "The Book of the New Sun," "Child of the River" lacks the clarity of vision, quality of writing, and strong story line of that masterpiece. Mr. McAuley's awkward writing style and bad grammar is terribly distracting. Although at times he manages to conjure interesting images and (very rarely) injects philosophical ideas into the story, the characters and plot devices are hopelessly cliched. Mr. McAuley is not without talent, but he needs to pare down the excessive verbiage and work harder on developing his characters. For better "Wolfesque" writing, try Paul Park's "Starbridge Chronicles" and Patrick O'Leary's "The Gift."

I enjoyed the literary style of the writer. The story was alright, however I thought it was pretty predictable-no real surprises on the different character roles or what the overall conclusion is bound to be. The world of the confluence is a wonderful concept and was delightful to read about from a fantasy standpoint, but there are the typical plot twists that have become sort of the "norm" in SF ,ie the bad guys are really the good guys and the good guys are really the bad guys; hero is from a special background which gives him special powers to deal with any situation even though he can't think of anything to do; everybody knows all about him but nobody will tell him (even though it might be pretty obvious to the reader by this time). It's OK.

I almost quit about 25% of the way in. At first the story is very confusing. For one thing, the lead character is named Yamamamamama. It is really hard to get the "world" set in your head. "People" can seem to be not even all the same species. For example, some have tusks, some have fur,and some have 4 nipples. A character could plow a field with a horse, ride in to town to sell radishes on his horse-cart, look for a sword or armor in the market, and just when you think this place is set up about circa 1300 AD, the sodium vapor street lights come on at sunset. Then you might find people looking through the market for used cassette tapes and maybe an illegal energy weapon as well. As the story progresses it becomes obvious why this is so and things get better and better. I can't wait to get the next one.

On the world of Confluence, a young boy is found drifting on a small boat with a dead woman as his only companion. The young boy is taken into the household of the Aedile of Aeolis...basically the governor of the small town of Aeolis. The young boy, Yama, is educated in the Aedile's household and the Aedile even thinks of Yama as his own son. But Yama is very different from anyone else on Confluence, and though he can't quite express this in a coherent way, he can feel it.....

The heart of Confluence is the Great River...the vast majority of the inhabited areas on Confluence exist around this river and a few of its tributaries, for the rest of the world is desert. The denizens of these towns and cities spring from ten thousand bloodlines created by the Preservers, the builders of Confluence that disappeared many, many millennia ago. Each bloodline is unique and has qualities that are frequently animalistic...sharp teeth, tusks, etc.

Throughout his childhood, Yama lived in the Aedile's household and led a relatively normal life. But now, certain entities have discovered that Yama is unlike anyone else on Confluence and these entities set into motion a series of events in which Yama is forced to seek out his heritage. And so Yama begins a journey of discovery, a journey that will -- hopefully -- reveal exactly who and what he is and how it all connects to Confluence and the Preservers.

McAuley's Child of the River starts off a bit slow, but makes up for it after the first quarter of the book. This is understandable, especially for a trilogy or series, there's lots of background needed before the characters can really begin whatever journey they are setting out on. But what made this initial process more difficult than it had to be is that McAuley is especially verbose. His propensity towards arcane vocabulary makes having a dictionary around a must! Nonetheless, I enjoyed McAuley's world-building as well as his characterizations and the overall concept of Confluence. I do wish he had provided a bit better ending to this first tale of his trilogy though, the denouement serves as a fine ending to an in individual chapter and is clearly intended to get you to pick up the next book, but it does not really end this individual story -- Child of the River -- very well. However, it has served its purpose, I have every intention of picking up the second book in the near future.

Child of the River is recommended to anyone who enjoys creative world-building and colorful characters.

Paul McAuley is one of those sleeper type SF authors . . . his work is generally excellent but nobody really seems to have heard of him. Maybe it's because some of his stuff is a little out of step with what the contemporary SF authors are doing at the time, maybe it's because his work ranges from hard SF to space opera to near-fantasy works, maybe being just consistently "great" isn't as noticeable as being groundbreaking or having a whole series of books to keep mining ideas from. From what I've seen, he rarely repeats himself, which is always a good deal in my book.

Having said that, this is the first book in a trilogy so perhaps I should properly say "Except for this, he rarely repeats himself."

No matter. It's still consistently great. Having done space opera before, McAuley takes a page from a few different SF authors to come up with what hopefully will be a fairly interesting saga. Basically, we're taken to a far-future world that was set up by a group of beings called the "Preservers" eons ago. Those Preservers seeded the world with a zillion bloodlines that are now running around today, giving us a whole host of alien-type races all living together. Lately heretics are challenging the prevailing wisdoms and war is breaking out further down the really long river that runs through most of the world. Into this potential mess comes a child from a mysterious boat on the river who doesn't look like any bloodline that anyone has seen before.

This is the story of how he basically lives a normal life, falls in love and lives to a ripe old age before peacefully dying. Oh, I'm kidding, that's not what this is about at all. For as you can expect the boy is about to find out that his bloodline hasn't been seen in a while and may have ties to the origins of this world. And that of course will change everything.

The bare bones of the plot sound derivative (hey there, coming of age tale) and as I said before (and others have noted) you can basically play spot the style . . . the world is reminiscent of John Crowley's "The Deep" in terms of construction, the idea of science so advanced that it looks like magic has the spark of Zelazny to it and the big influence is probably Gene Wolfe.

But this is more Gene Wolfe for Beginners, lacking the metaphorical allusions and complexities that so often make our heads hurt in his works. For once, things are relatively straightforward and you don't get the impression that everything important is happening in the book's peripheral vision. And while this may mean it's not as deep or rich as Wolfe's novels, this is by no means a bad thing. McAuley has got something here and succeeds because the world is so well thought out that it's frightening . . . even before it starts you have the idea that he's got the mechanics and social complexities of this place worked out to the letter. The range of bloodlines is fascinating, the history we're allowed glimpses of is tantalizing and the level of detail is amazing, as he sketches out street scenes like he lived in this place for a few years before writing about it. You get the idea that this is a fully functioning society and through main character Yama we're about to see a giant spanner thrown into it.

Which means that even when things are exactly revolutionary, we're treated to a level of world-building that we rarely see anymore, a far future that is removed from everything we know but yet comes across as plausible, with staggering science that seems grounded. The story clips along, adding more wrinkles as it goes and while ending the book basically on a cliffhanger probably wasn't the best idea, I can read them all straight through and don't have to worry about reminding myself what happened in between publishing dates.

It's a shame that this appears to be out of print since all those people who like Peter Hamilton might be interested in this, which isn't as wide-screen but perhaps a bit more exotic. The bits may be taken from all kinds of sources but judging from the first volume, McAuley has something that's uniquely his.