Customer Reviews

In the Courts of the Crimson Kings (Lords of Creation)

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Second volumes in series are often a disappointment. This is actually MUCH better than the five star first one. Then again it is less a second volume than another story set in the same universe and somewhat later in time [think Cherryh's Company Wars where the books are clearly stand alone]. Stirling's world builidng was always one of his major assets and it just gets better with time and practice. This is a Mars that never was but you wish could be. The world is beautifully thought out and conveyed without annoying data dumps. The characters are great, the action non-stop [think the best dungeon crawl you ever saw but without the boring on the road parts]. This is what adventure fiction should be and very seldom is. In an era of door stopping books on often mind numbing lengths this book actually leaves you wishing the author had taken 200 more pages to reach the end. Once can only hope the series continues.

This book is a clever updating of Burroughs' A Princess of Mars. The basic plot is identical; athletic, intelligent Earthman is transported to Mars, meets beautiful and talented Martian princess in exile, romance and adventure ensue, they end up on the throne. The background of the story, used also in Stirling's entertaining The Sky People, is a solar system in which Venus and Mars were seeded with life, including humans, from Earth after considerable planetary engineering. Mysterious forces (The Lords of Creation) are responsible for the large scale manipulation of the Solar System. Stirling has done a nice job of imagining Mars and Martian society, though his Mars owes more to Leigh Brackett's superior planetary romances than to Burroughs. Stirling's Mars has a longstanding Imperial tradition, a highly stratified society, and impressive technology based on genetic manipulation. His fleshing out of Martian society and biology is systematic and imaginative. Plotting in this book is solid, and character development is significantly better than The Sky People.

For experienced SF readers, a particularly enjoyable dimension is Stirling's frequent references to quite a bit of prior SF work.

The book concludes with a parallel worlds theme that sets the stage for the sequel.

If you like Ray Bradbury, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Arthur C. Clarke, Larry Niven and or Jerry Pournelle then you want to own, In the Courts of the Crimson Kings. If I read more of the science fiction greats besides Burroughs I would list there names too.

This is the squeal to, The Sky People, but you do not need to have read that book first. As they take place on different worlds and years apart, there are some references to the earlier book but it's not critical.

The Lords of Creation series like most books has a central "what if" so to speak. What if magic was real, what if humanity had faster than light travel, etc. The what if of this series is what if an alien race had been manipulating our solar system and human destiny for 100's of millions of years? Venus is a hot steaming jungle world filled with fantastic creatures from Dinosaurs, Neanderthals, creatures of the Megafauna period, modern humans and many other terrain native creatures all seeded from earth by the aliens. Mars while a dry, harsh and unforgiving world supports life, but strange and alien life. Between the pressures of trying to survive a slowly drying and freezing world and massive genetic manipulation by the human derived Martians Mars is populated by strange and alien creatures.

The technology of Mars is almost totally based on organics. The Martian Humans have guns, vehicles and binoculars but they are all living organisms. This is the result of culture that is 10's of thousands of years old. And while the Martians ability to manipulate the building blocks of life is almost without limitless they have nothing like our electronics or metallurgy. So you have a strange combination of bows, swords and deadly beyond belief creatures.

While old and in many ways powerful Mars is a dyeing world. Once Mars had a world wide empire, the Crimson Dynasty, but that has long ago fallen into feuding city states. If anything is a high art form of Mars it is intrigue.

Into this strange mixes are added explores from earth in search of the secrets of Mars. Read the book and find out what the hidden secretes of the red planet are.

[...]

The Sky People

This is more than a sequel to The Sky People. It is a completion of the story that manages to be even more original than the first volume.

Stirling manages to tip his hat to the grand masters of romantic science fiction who wrote in the early decades of the 20th Century, and at the same time bring some of the best elements of alternate history and science fiction to the fore.

What if our neighboring worlds had turned out to be what Edgar Rice Burroughs, Otis Adelbert Kline, Leigh Brackett, C.L. Moore and Robert A. Heinlein wrote about from about 1912 until the mid 1950's?

What if the reason for it was terra-forming by unknown aliens beginning at least 200 million years ago? Terra forming that included transporting humans or pre-humans to Mars and Venus beginning about 200 thousand years ago and extending up to much more recently in the case of Venus?

How would that have affected national and international politics from, say, 1950 to the present? How would it have affected science, religion, and philosophy?

These manage to be serious questions, and Stirling tackles them seriously, just as he tackles equally challenging questions in the "Dies the Fire" series and in stand-alone volumes like "Conquistador".

But Stirling is not a dry lecturer. There is always plenty of action, and a good if unusual love story, in his yarns. Those who have fond memories of their first tastes of Burroughs, Kline, Brackett, and Moore will delight in the subtle cribs Stirling fondly takes from each of them.

I wonder what Stirling will try next. Perhaps something Lovecraftian, but with a Robert E. Howard-esque hero or heroine?

He would do it well.

As others have noted, this novel is a takeoff (with a twist) of "The Princess of Mars", by Edgar Rice Burroughs. The updated Dejah Thoris doesn't stand and watch John Carter defend her, no she certainly doesn't. This Dejah Thoris is not only beautiful, she is bright, quick on her feet and doesn't need any help to defend herself!

Why did I give this book five stars? Simple it is a good read, some fascinating ideas, some cliff hangers and the development of the civilizations are very interesting.

It starts off a Science Fiction writers convention in many which many of the real luminaries of SciFi are present, watching the landing of an exploratory ship to Mars. A rousing good start and it lets Mr Stirling pay homage to the greats.

This is tied to his earlier work, the Sky People which means we may see yet another book or two to complement them, The stage is set for some good fun

I've seriously haven't had as much fun with a book for a long while. Thank you S.M. Stirling for providing a great experience, with both books. Actually, In the Courts of the Crimson Kings was much better, for a sequel, though Sky People is a fun tale as well. There is quite a bit of potential for a sequel, which I hope Stirling will pursue

I grew up with stories like "A Princess of Mars" and "The Secret of Sinhallat"! Burroughs, Bradbury, and Brackett portrayed a dying Mars with ancient races, alien technologies, and doughty Earthmen buckling their swashes on the crimson sward.

And those traitors to great fantastic fiction; Astronomy, Physics, and real rockets to Mars... Well, we sighed in sadness and called it Science Fantasy, Alternate History, and another case where Fact killed Fiction.

Steve Stirling was not content to let that remain, however. His LORDS OF CREATION series posits a solar system where ancient astronauts terraformed Mars and Venus, with the latter being that steaming prehistoric dinosaurian world, with of course the obligatory beautiful cave princess, and Mars -- a world of a dying race with a history going back tens of thousands of years.

I haven't read "The Sky People", as the book jacket made it sound like warmed over Otis Adelbert Kline. "The Courts of The Crimson Kings" is the real deal, however, the pure quill. If you are of the "Boomer" generation, with a memory of "The Good Old Stuff", you will devour, and enjoy this adventure on a Mars I thought never to see again.

And unlike something like "The Space Vulture", espousing the worst faults of SF of the 30s and 40s, this novel is written with love and a 21st century sensibility.

The best SF adventure novel I've seen in some time! In PESHAWAR LANCERS, Stirling created an alternate history in which Talbot Mundy adventures could be set. Here he's done the same thing for the classic SF Solar System. Aliens have terraformed Mars and Venus long ago, so post-WWII telescopes and space probes reveal the steamy primitive Venus and the ancient dying Mars of the classic SF writers. This is a two-volume set, with THE SKY PEOPLE (Venus) nominally the first novel. But the true Barsoomian can read CRIMSON KINGS first, or as a stand-alone without critical loss. And read it you must: here is travel across ancient, dying Mars, swordplay and a princess to be rescued. This sort of SF has seldom been done better in the past 100 years. The science is well thought out, and there's more: as a bonus for the fan of classic SF, Stirling includes TWO prizes in this box of crackerjacks. There's an opening chapter in which the classic SF writers get to watch on television the landing of the first Mars probe. This chapter alone is worth the hardcover price for those who know who "Leigh" "Beam" and "Robert" are in this context. But wait, there's more! The main story is studded with classic SF references as in-jokes. Among others, remember atmosphere plants? Rodents of Unusual Size? They're here, and they're not what you think. Just buy the book. You won't regret it. But buy the hardcover, because you'll want to read it a lot.

Sky People was a successful attempt to evoke the feel of the pulp era sci-fi of writers like Edgar Rice Burroughs and Stirling follows up with a great sequel.

Granted, the novelty had worn off a bit, but Crimson Courts still manages to be a fun read. As in Sky People, the characters are still rather cliche, but again it's acceptable due to the nature of the book. Again as in Sky People, the characters are ultimately vehicles to explore the book's world.

Stirling makes Mars much more alien and bizarre than Venus and makes the narrative more complex this time around, though admittedly it was difficult at times for me to keep track of the plot.

If you enjoyed Sky People, you'll very likely enjoy Crimson Courts.

This is the second book in a series updating the old tradition of adventure stories set on inhabitable Mars and Venus. Stirling sidesteps the fact that we know those worlds don't exist by putting the series in an alternate universe where Mars and Venus were terraformed long ago and seeded with earth-based life. I wasn't too impressed with Sky People, the first book in the series--wonderful playground with a story too small for it. In the Courts of the Crimson Kings is much better. Stirling brings his version of Mars to life vividly. The details of Martian ecology and society have a solid feel to them. And this time the story is big enough for the playground--lots of intrigue and characters I cared about.

The only negative thing I have to say about this one is that I think it should have ended a little sooner than it did. The last little bit felt like it belonged to the next book in the series. Other than that, great job. I highly recommend it.