Customer Reviews

Cloud Warrior (The Amtrak Wars, Book I) (Bk. 1)

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

In the year 2015, a nuclear war destroys the world as we know it. Now, in the year 2989, the human race is split into two groups - the Trackers, members of the highly-advanced Amtrak Federation who live in underground cities to escape the radiation of the outside world and dream of rebuilding America as it once was; and the primitive Mutes (short for mutants), who live on the surface and have adapted to the radiation in the atmosphere. The Amtrak Federation, with its lethal technology, is hell-bent on exterminating the Mutes but the Mutes possess magical powers that make them a match for the Trackers. Steve Brickman, a Tracker, joins the air wing of the Federation, but while on a mission he is shot down and captured by Mutes, who make him realise that not everything the rulers of the Federation say is true. Very interesting, especially as it describes the world from the view of both sides - it certainly makes you want to finish the series.

I started reading this series at school as it was coming out, so when the new book was released there was a huge fight amongst friends as to who would get it. I have since read the 6-book series once every year (at least 6 times) and it never gets dull! I still love reading it. The plot is literally mindblowing as it reaches a crescendo and you feel incredibly attached to the characters. A top contender for a Lucas or Spielberg treatment (hint, hint).

Summary

Set after WWIII, this book focuses on two groups. The first, the Amtrack Federation is descendant from military personnel who survived underground. The second (Mutes) developed from holocaust srurvivors who reverted back to tribal status and are considered non-human by the Federation, and are in the process of being exterminated.

Steve Brickman, a brilliant young pilot with the AF, and with all it's prejudices crashes and finds himself rescued by a clan of mutes and held captive. Whilst there, he realises that he feels more at home in the 'overground' than in the underground cities of the Federation. And what about Steve's telepathic connection with his sister which makes them outsiders in a world of conformity? And are they the only two races left on earth? Read on my friend and enjoy the ride!

I was in the library one day at my school trying to find a science fiction book to read for one of my subjects. I love books but i hadn't read for a long time. Suddenly a teacher came to me and suggested the Amtrak Wars. I was very curious. So I started to read, and I couldn't stop! The book was so great with so many things happening and so many great characters I really couldn't stop. Every free moment I had I read the book. The story tells a war story from two different views. One is of the mutants who live on the surface of Earth and the other the Amtrak Federation, an advanced society of Humans living underground. The setting is 10 centuires in the future after a war that has wiped off life as we know it. The story is fantastic with excellent description. I couldn't believe how good and easy I could imagine the events using the words the writer choose. I recommend this book to anyone interested in a original intresting future world epic! I'm definatly going to read the rest of the series, and so should you!

AD 2989. Nine hundred and seventy-four years ago, the Old Time ended in the War of a Thousand Suns. The cities of the United States were seared from the face of the Earth in a nuclear holocaust unleashed by the evil 'Mutes', malformed immigrants whose only desire was to destroy all that was beautiful and good about this great country. Or at least, that's what the historical databanks of the super-computer COLUMBUS say, anyway.

The Amtrak Federation: a network of underground cities and overland way-stations that grew out of a few bunkers where the top-ranking politicians and generals of the United States rode out a thermonuclear war. Forced to abandon the surface world due to radiation, the descendants of the survivors dug out a vast subterranean, high-tech civilisation where everyone knows their place and does their bit to help society survive, whilst the wise and just First Family rules over everything. Once radiation levels had dropped to a relatively safe level, the Federation emerged to retake the surface world. Unfortunately, they found that the Mutes had prospered and multiplied to truly frightening numbers in the intervening centuries. The Federation's response is to build enormous 600-foot-long wagon-trains and send them into Mute territory to begin the process of conquest and purification. With the Southern Mutes cowed, the Federation dispatches one of its most decorated trains, the Lady from Louisiana, and its air wing deep into the heart of the territory of the northern Mutes, or the Plainfolk as they call themselves. But the Plainfolk are a hardier breed with unusual weapons at their command, and in the epic Battle of the Now and Then River the clan M'Call drives off the Lady and takes one of its pilots captive.

For Steve Brickman, captivity amongst the Mutes is a terrifying prospect, but as he plots his escape he learns from his captors a radically different version of history and begins to question the very foundations of the society he was born into.

The Amtrak Wars is Welsh author Patrick Tilley's grand SF adventure series, originally published in six volumes throughout the 1980s. It is a cross-genre story, incorporating elements of post-apocalyptic SF fiction with the Western and epic fantasy (with North America standing in for a Middle-earth clone as the landscape) and, in later books, Shogun-style historical fiction as well. There is also a strong, often darkly comical subversive and satirical streak as well, with the Amtrak Federation itself coming over as a fascist state which employs some of the rhetoric and traditions of the 20th Century United States. Tilley himself spent a lot of time in the USA in the 1970s and 1980s and appears to be something of an Americanphile (not just in the Wars but also in his excellent 1976 disaster novel Fade-Out), but his use here of many of the traditions and 'feel' of the US government and military in the hands of an unelected dictatorship is effectively disturbing. However, I gather that American readers got the impression that Tilley was taking the mickey instead, perhaps accounting for its low sales in the USA compared to its much greater success in the UK, Canada and Australia.

In the first book, it is fair to say that Tilley is still getting a feel for the story. His previous novels had been an SF-tinged disaster scenario called Fade-Out and a rather bizarre story about Jesus turning up in modern New York (Mission), so Cloud Warrior represented a rather unusual new direction. The tone of the writing here is less formal than in his earlier novels, and it has to be said that the prose jumps around in its remoteness from the reader (at one point directly addressing the reader in a rather jarring fourth-wall-breaking moment). Some scenes take place in the limited third person perspective that is now traditional in epic fantasy, but most adopt an omnipresent viewpoint which feels curiously old-fashioned (and this is a book that's 26 years old) but not ineffective.

It's a tribute to Tilley's vivid and well-conceived (if somewhat barmy) story, characters and setting that the book overcomes these problems and roars along like a greyhound on crack. The traditional modern fantasy approach of the author spending two hundred pages just clearing their throat has no truck here as we are whizzed through the Amtrak Federation's air force training programme, introduced a dozen protagonists in both the Mute and Tracker camps and machine-gunned with inventive concepts and ideas (although luckily most are revisited later under somewhat more relaxed circumstances) in less than a hundred pages. The book hangs on its characters and one of The Amtrak Wars' trademark concepts is that half of those characters are tools whom you want to spend a fair amount of time beating the hell out of, most notably Steve 'All-American Hero' Brickman, whose arrogance and pig-headedness makes him a hero that's hard to like. However, he is also only 17 and the result of a disturbing indoctrinated upbringing, and as the book progresses and you see the scales falling from his eyes (a bit), the reader warms to him a bit more. Amongst the other characters, Steve's Mute antithesis Cadillac is well-drawn but is also a bit of a plank (the contrast between these two characters' developmental arcs over the course of the series is extremely well-handled), with the most fascinating character in the book being Mr. Snow, the Mutes' chief wordsmith and summoner who fulfils the traditional mentor role, although his approach of thinking his would-be students are total morons is refreshing (Mr. Snow is the missing link between Gandalf and Abercrombie's Bayaz). Other characters such as the inevitable romantic interest Clearwater are a bit one-note in this first volume, whilst later, more important characters like Jodi Kazan and Steve's sister Roz barely get more than a few lines. There is also an intriguing mention of a group called the 'iron masters' and a typical cliffhanger ending, setting up the inevitable sequel, First Family.

In Cloud Warrior (***½) Tilley sets up an interesting and somewhat original (in combination, if not in original conception) world and story with well-drawn and often ambiguous characters and some fresh takes on old concepts (Tilley's handling of the tired prophecy motif is particularly nicely done). The writing is a bit all over the place, though never less than readable, but settles down in the later, stronger volumes. The novel is not currently in print but second-hand copies appear to be readily available in the UK and USA.

Patrick Tilley has crafted an epic story that is part Sci-Fi, part fantasy, part Western, and ALL brilliant!!

Set 1 000 years after a nuclear war all but destroyed the earth, it tells the story of the hi-tech Amtrak Federation (the survivors from underground missile bases), and their struggle to take back the 'blue sky world' from the technologically inferior Mutes, other survivors who have adapted to their radioactive environment.

In effect it's a futuristic version of cowboys versus indians, but it has so many other levels too - technology versus spirituality, conformity versus diversity, freedom versus rule of law, and many other similar issues.

It's a wonderful take on how racism affects everything, and how people can be indoctrinated into one form of belief - while the Mutes worship a god that controls their destiny, the Federation believes in the the power of the 'First Family', who are the rulers of Amtrak - it poses the question of who is greater, man or god, and both sides of the equation are well fleshed out and both display good AND bad points...and on top of that, it's a cracking, fast-paced, well plotted action story, that is one of the best Sci-Fi/Fantasy series I have ever read!!

Do yourself a favour - GET IT, you won't be sorry!!!

Having just read all 6 books for the first time, you can imagine my howls of frustration on discovering that the series is left unfinished. If it had been wrapped up (at all) this would definitely have been a contender for a 5 star rating as the story is quite amazing and imaginative but leaving his fans hanging with no conclusion to the story is unforgivable. I can only hope that Mr. Tilley plans on a book 7.

I was engrossed in the series from the first chapter. A real page turner. I was able to picture everthing as it unfolded. The plot is good. I nice mix of action, drama, cross-cultural relations. I loved the ideas about how the races followed slightly historical paths (as with the feudal Japanese "Iron Masters"). Book six was a let down as Mr. Tilley seemed to be in a hurry to finish the story. But this is the only downside to an otherwise masterful tale. Anyone who reads this series should try and get the follow up art book based on the series, as it shows portraits of all the main characters, the different clan colorings, the Amtrak Federations vehicles. To name just a few of the images. A must-have for any sci-fi lover.

Patrick Tilley has created a post-apoclaypse America where the human race has moved underground. Quite a few people didn't and now they have seperated themselves into two seperate races and waged a bloody war with each other. The humans underground are very advanced but there are serious flaws in there society. The 'mutants' as the underground people call them rely on no technology but have magicians and live in brutal tribes where if someone trespasses or invades another tribes teritory they cut off their scalps. One man from underground who has joined the air-force crashes down and is rescued from his burning veichle by mutants. The first book is based mainly on him much to his surprise falling in love with a mutant and then trying to realise that they are still people even if they have adapted to the poisonous atmosphere. I was so caught up in this amazing story-line which is basically about racism I read this book for countless hours on end. The only problem which might not appeal to some readers about these books is the way Tilley describes the deaths of soldiers and tribesmen. Reading about someone spraying some sort of liqued napalm on to a group of people and then being told the way the flesh burned off is not my idea of fun. Altogether one of the most excellent science fiction books I have ever read but I only reccomend it to people who don't mind being shocked

All i have to say is that i bought the series 4 years ago and every year since i have reread this intriguing series. This story involves many highly developed characters pitting there wits against each other to see who can reclaim a post-apocalptic earth.

In short, an amazing book. At the prices you can find it for you really can't go wrong. I only wish the book was a little bit longer.