Chill [Mass Market Paperback]

Elizabeth Bear (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 23, 2010

Sometimes the greatest sin is survival.
 
The generation ship Jacob’s Ladder has barely survived cataclysms from without and within. Now, riding the shock wave of a nova blast toward an uncertain destiny, the damaged ship—the only world its inhabitants have ever known—remains a war zone. Even as Perceval, the new captain, struggles to come to terms with the traumas of her recent past, the remnants of rebellion aboard the ship still threaten the crew’s survival.

Yet as Perceval’s relatives Tristen and Benedick play a deadly game of cat and mouse in pursuit of a traitor through a vast ship that is renewing itself in strange and dangerous ways, an even more insidious threat is building in a place no one ever thought to look. And this implacable enemy could change the face of the ship forever if a ragtag band of heroes cannot stop it.
 

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

The Jacob’s Ladder has a captain again: Perceval. But she hasn’t forgiven the angel of ship’s systems for not being Rien. Rebellious Arianrhod has escaped from her acceleration pod, which means the remaining Conns must track her across the wreckage of the ship, which something is eating away at, something that the angel who isn’t Rien can’t see. Arianhrod has at least one powerful ally, the remnant of an angel, and she makes sure that Tristen walks into a heaven where he’ll have to face his past. Benedick and Tristen have a long journey through a transit tube, on which they meet a fascinating bunch of creatures. Revelations about the original builders, family drama, and long-hidden secrets of the secret order of astrogators all figure into this altogether satisfying continuation of Dust (2008). Though still strongly echoing Zelazny and Peake, Bear’s storytelling is very much her own, and the Conn family’s dysfunctions are of a particular and distinctive flavor. The world of Jacob’s Ladder is magnificently populated, well worth visiting. --Regina Schroeder

About the Author

Elizabeth Bear was born on the same say as Frodo and Bilbo Baggins, but in a different year. This, coupled with her childhood tendency to read the dictionary for fun, has led inevitably to penury, intransigence, and the writing of speculative fiction. Her hobbies include incompetent archery, practicing guitar, and reading biographies of Elizabethan playmenders.

She is the recipient of the John W. Campbell Award for best New Writer and the author of over a dozen published or forthcoming novels, including the Locus Award-winning Jenny Casey trilogy and the Phillip K. Dick Award-nominated Carnival. A native New Englander, she spent seven years near Las Vegas, but now lives in Connecticut with a presumptuous cat.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Spectra; Original edition (February 23, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553591088
• ISBN-13: 978-0553591088
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #875,494 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I tell stories. I prefer the mountains to the desert, and rain to sun. My eyes are blue. I like flying on airplanes, but they keep making the seats smaller.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Dust Revisted, April 23, 2010

By 

Mugs Stump (Anchorage, Alaska) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chill (Mass Market Paperback)

I greatly enjoyed the first book in this series, Dust. Highly imaginative, well-written, nicely paced--a great read. You have a couple of heroines, Rien and Perceval, struggling through the derelict generation ship, attempting to combine the various broken computer programs governing all of the ship's systems--known as Angels--into one mega Angel. All the separate Angels are not too keen on this idea, however, as whichever Angel becomes the Angel in Chief will subsume all the other Angels, in essence killing their identities. It is an epic Angel fight to the death, where one Angel emerges victorious, the stars then nova, blasting the moribund space ship on a new journey. The book ends, along comes Chill, and...

Oddly enough, instead of an entirely new story, we have Dust Revisited. Instead of Angels, we now have Angel Fragments that roam the ship. Instead of Angels vs Angels, we have the Mother of All Angels vs the Assorted Angel Fragments. It was a great romp the first time, but I'm afraid to say it's a dreary rehash the second time around. After about half the book, I was so bored I switched reading to a biography of Hirohito.

Elizabeth Bear is a terrific writer with an equally terrific imagination. It's time to travel to strange new worlds and new civilizations, to boldly go where no Angel has gone before...

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The problems with the middle, April 12, 2011

By 

Chris Reviews - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Chill (Mass Market Paperback)

In a series you suffer from the same issues as the middle of a novel. You know the start already and it can't really end since there will be another novel after it. The action continues the characters deal with events that happened at the end of the 1st novel and mope for quite a few pages. Events start to pace and the chase is on again and then key event to the series to get things headed again finally happens. Then you are off to the third and final novel. I would recommend the series for those who are a bit open on their science fiction to add in elements traditionally found in fantasy.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars She did it again!, June 28, 2010

By 

Jodi Davis (Batesburg, SC USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Chill (Jacob's Ladder Trilogy) (Kindle Edition)

I think I may have liked it more than Dust. Only a bit.

I love everything about the world, the family, the technology, the prose, the plot, the shiny, the damage, the emotional states... Yeah, that. Everything.

I want to live there - which may sound idiotic - but dude!

ETA: The way some authors stay doggedly with a story in sequels, refusing to change, shackled to some imaginary framework of how to manage a *series* oft times bores me. This author is not afraid to change things as the story dictates - and if that means that a beloved character - is changed into a nearly unrecognizable other character - she is not afraid to do it. I just wished she'd be rewarded for it more often by readers who appreciate her fearlessness as a story teller.