Customer Reviews

Chill

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

 

 

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...

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.

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.

The survivors on board the Jacob's Ladder know they are fortunate to be alive following the supernova destruction of their sun. However, as the injured like Tristen Conn learn from Angel their world dropped to 43 percent intact due to the explosion. There are areas of the space vessel that are beyond repair while the known zone suffers from all types of catastrophic deterioration. Newly appointed Captain Perceval struggles with the remaining rebels led by Arianrhod, who has fled to unknown areas and personal doubts about the right course of action.

Tristen and Benedick pursue Arianrhod through regions of the world they've never visited before. What they observe shakes both of them up while Arianrhod tries to find time to regroup the rebels. Neither pursuer realizes the danger to their way of life that surfaces.

The second Jacobs Ladder parable is a fabulous fast-paced space odyssey that fans of Elizabeth Bear will relish though newcomers must read the previous tale Dust to understand how the populace got to the point of the explosion. The reactions of Tristen and Benedick make the story line fun to read as they visit locations never seen before by either of them; observations that shake their belief system. The audience will relish a visit to the exciting Great Bear universe where the impossible is possible.

Harriet Klausner

This book tops the excellent Dust in pure sensawunda, building deliciously on the world Bear began for us there. Some of the new coolness in this installment blew me away. If you read the first book you will get this: Bear's new playthings are even better than Inkster and the librarian.

She talks about family on a scale that makes the micro into macro, dysfunction on an epic scale - like a greek saga set on a generation ship. And the *spoiler deleted* that she reveals at the end makes me eager to start Grail asap.

Highly recommend this entire series.