Customer Reviews

The Clock King and the Queen of the Hourglass

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

 

 

The Clock King and the Queen of the Hourglass is a novella (99 pages) set in the landscape of a future Earth, where human beings have become androgynous, slow aging and sterile. The book opens to a miraculous event - the genetic engineering of the ova and sperm of earlier humans to create a fertile female. Humanity's survival depends on the production of a child to expand the available gene pool.

The novella is a bit strange in tone, spinning between clinical impressions, the touching humanity of the heroine as she grows up to be a teenager (with a heavy burden), and sly commentary on our present-day society as viewed through the lens of this future version of humanity. The heroine, Liaei, stays true to age - a believable character, complete with embarrassment, intelligence, frustration and fears. The landscape is interesting - the ocean has become deadly, the sun has undergone changes, there are technologies that are vital, but, as with the aquaducts and plumbing after the fall of the Roman empire, no one knows how they work or how to repair them.

While I enjoyed most of the novella, there were a few things that just didn't sit well, particularly in the second part with the Clock King, and the ending. Part of me was happy at the ending, but the other part was thinking how unlikley it was that it would be left like that.

All in all, I enjoyed reading The Clock King and the Queen of the Hourglass; it stayed more human than many future earth stories I have read. I'd give this 3.5 stars, really, but Amazon only goes by whole stars, and I don't want to give it less than it's worth. I recieved this review copy from the author as part of LibraryThing's Member's Giveaway.

Received through LibraryThing Memeber Give Away.

I very much enjoyed this book. The sort of flat writing style perfectly complements the tone of the story. It evokes a kind of calm despair and disconnect that the "evolved" people must be feeling. Humans have "controlled" things until they are impotent both physically and intellectually. They go through the motions of a life they can't live or enjoy. So stagnant have they become that they do what they have always done to survive and seemingly never attempt to try to come up with any better way of surviving. They rely on their "genetic throw backs" to supply them with new genetic material to carry on a human race that merely exists. Liaei, The Queen of the Hourglass, defies expectation and the reader is left with the hope she resurrects life. I would love to read what happens next, but the author leaves it to the readers imagination, but she leaves us with hope.

This quick little novella runs its course in the extremely distant future, where Earth has been reduced to a shrinking lake of sludge at the bottom of the Pacific basin and two highly advanced cities of demi-humans. Our protagonist, Liaei, is an engineered 'modern' homo sapien who comes to learn that her DNA is part of a millenniums-long program of genetic renewal.

In The Clock King and the Queen of the Hourglass, Ms. Nazarian presents us briefly with an understated view of a vastly different human race. Our world has become strange, but in her hands it is not difficult to accept her future-people and their alien worldview. Her language sometimes has a shade of Bradbury, both to good and bad effect, but she plies her metaphors without overwriting. Questioning and curiosity -- both important themes -- exist both within the plot and without, as the author uses her character's displacement from our own time to re-frame gender identity and sexuality as an outside observer. These monologues unfortunately range from the thought-provoking to the funny to the irritatingly didactic, but come with good intent and real insight.

A few features of the story do grate a bit. The characters can't seem to decide if they measure time or not; in the same page they both criticize their ancestor's clocks and track their own heart's beats per minute. Even in 100 pages, one or two spots seem to start sputtering. However, the last few pages open up the whole story's foundation, that it is our human drive to discover and explore that makes us great and gives us our best chance for the future. I am certainly curious to seek out more of Very Nazarian's work and see if it stands up to another such rigorous and heartening message.

While I will not go so far as to say I disliked this short story, I must admit that I would never desire to read it again. Whilst reading, for example, I found myself trying to understand the story, the plot; in fact, I would silently ask questions to myself, hoping that the book would answer them in time. For the most part, I forgot my questions - so unimportant and uninteresting were they. By the finish, I simply did not care to understand. There were also parts that I disliked altogether, although I tried very hard to remember to keep an open mind. Sex does not bother me, and I recognise the truth that only a century ago it was common for a child of 15 to be considered a woman (menses were a main determinant there), now it is not. I don't want to read about a 15-year old having sex, let alone a 15-year old having sex because she's been coerced into believing that it's her "duty".

While I appreciate the great imagination Vera Nazarian has and uses, for some people (like myself), the journey from her mind to theirs simply becomes too sidetracked, regardless of how well-written and detailed said journey might be. I felt like there was no purpose to this story, and that is what makes me not care for it. I gleaned nothing from it, and almost had to force myself to keep reading. I am aware, however, that this story might be more than slightly interesting to many other people, so I cannot say that it is a pointless book. Would I suggest this to a friend? Not a chance. Would I ever read it again? Absolutely not. Was it a waste of my time? Not completely. I am hoping that others find the greatness in this story that Nazarian feels is there.

i'd never have read this, although i am a fan of speculative fiction, because i would not have known where to find it; and my expectations were low.

but i was very wrong - this has been a charming fast-paced work that successfully leads us on to whatever may come next. the central character being groomed to save the civilisation is utterly familiar to us although alien to her tender nurturers - i liked the sermons on the care of animals and the delineation of the lines between forcing personal encounters and allowing them to develop - since this is at the heart of the story line's tension, it was refreshing that no violence has yet been perpetrated in this one. the heroine is as gorgeous and innocent and her coming to terms with her earthly form, and reacting to her emotions are plausible and very familiar in a way

Vera is a writer to watch - she is a good story teller, and deft at characterisation. it will be wonderful to see what happens next.

Far into the future, the earth is a barren desert where few have survived. Human kind has evolved into an emotionless, passionless group who are no longer able to procreate in the traditional manner. Using DNA from ancient humans, Liaei is created to be the Queen of the Hourglass. As Queen, once she reaches a fertile age she is taken to meet the Clock King, a man preserved and periodically reawaken to provide new genetic material for humankind.

Overall, I found this book to be a bit odd. Not bad, just odd. I thought the book was well written and the characters well-developed. The plot was not very appealing to me, but I think science-fiction fans would find the book to be fascinating.

This was a nice read and I recommend it to any sci-fi reader; it's a quick read also, compared to typical multi-part sci-fi series. The plot makes it more than sci-fi, as the other readers described it, somehow philosophical. It reminded me of "A brave new world" somehow.
However, I would have liked more: more on the Clock King own history (at least to balance with the Queen of the Hourglass history), something like flashbacks into the past, i.e. the time between now and the story's time... Maybe also something about the previous Queens.
But all in all, time nicely spent.

This 99 page novella left me wanting more for an ending - or else I just didn't get it....
This is a genre that I don't normally read so my rating probably represents my lack of interest in the sci-fi/fantasy/futuristic genre. Nevertheless, I found the writing style compelling and enjoyable. I thought the story was fluid and piqued my interest.

I even felt I sort of could even visualize the androgynous character that populated the book. The main character Laiei was a worthy lead.

I would have given this novella a 3.5 star rating if that was possible on this site.

The somewhat average rating is due to the lack of a viable end to the story. If you "got" the ending, then please excuse my rating. I do recommend this book to people that enjoy this genre as it is well written.

First some quick comments to help you decide quickly if you want to read the book: The Clock King and the Queen of the Hourglass is well-written and contains some fascinating thematic elements. I recommend reading it with the following caveats: If you're uncomfortable with strong sexual content in fiction, there is one scene that you may not like. If you're currently in the mood for adventure fiction, save this story for a later read when you're the mood for something cerebral.

In Clock King and the Queen of the Hourglass, Vera Nazarian presents us with a fascinating and imaginative future setting. The unique setting brought back memories of Silverberg's Majipoor and the writing of Ursula K. Le Guin to me, and by the end of the story left me with a desire to explore the setting further.

The characters behave in a believable and consistent manner, while they have a culture and motivations that are somewhat "alien" to us, they're comprehensible within the context of their situation and the setting. My suspension of disbelief easily maintained throughout the book--it was effortless to become immersed in the story.

As I mentioned earlier, this is not an action/adventure story. Instead its an exploration of the mind--which can be regarded as an adventure if one's tastes run that way--which mine do.

I have only two complaints about The Clock King and the Queen of the Hourglass. The story doesn't evoke my sympathy for the characters--I didn't become emotionally invested in the outcome of the story. A smaller issue is that I felt that 'Part 1' was either a little long or perhaps too slow moving for my taste. Both of these issues are subjective--other readers won't have any issue with the pace or have difficulty making a connection with the characters.

Overall an interesting read and I'll be keeping an eye out for related fiction--either other stories about the main character or those set in the same setting.

A sweet and kind tale of humanity's destruction. Liaei is the only traditional human among a society of humanity's descendants living in one last outpost on a dying Earth. She lives a semi-isolated life due to her differences, and is raised to be the Queen of the Hourglass and reproduce with the Clock King, a man frozen in time who is wakened once each generation. Current humanity is asexual and mostly sterile, and they use the old human genes of each Queen-King coupling to invigorate their own. Liaei's story is what it is like to be raised, kindly, like this, and how her interaction with the Clock King proceeds. Like all of Vera Nazarian's work, the ending is not entirely expected.