Customer Reviews

Days of Bitter Strength (Chung Kuo)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Wingrove brings us one step closer to the final chapter of Chung Kuo with Book 7. The pace quickens dramatically with this volume, and the true nature of the opposing forces in the universe becomes clearer. I was impressed by the significant development we see in central characters, and the final collapse of the civilization we met in Book 1. At the center of it all, Kim Ward and Ben Shepard continue to be fascinating and clearly opposing characters. Their development over the past six books -- never having met -- and the positions they represent come to an interesting point in this novel.
Days of Bitter Strength delivers the promise of this series at its best.

I have also just finished Book 8 in the series (in an imported hardcover edition) and believe fans will not be disappointed with the climax of this brilliant series.

I liked the way this book was done. Once again the Chung Kuo series manages to capture my attention. However, i feel that David Wingrove lost something in writting this, and the end of the last book. Some aspect of realism or such was lost.

Wingrove brings us one step closer to the final chapter of Chung Kuo with Book 7. The pace quickens dramatically with this volume, and the true nature of the opposing forces in the universe becomes clearer. I was impressed by the significant development we see in central characters, and the final collapse of the civilization we met in Book 1. At the center of it all, Kim Ward and Ben Shepard continue to be fascinating and clearly opposing characters. Their development over the past six books -- never having met -- and the positions they represent come to an interesting point in this novel. Days of Bitter Strength delivers the promise of this series at its best. I have also just finished Book 8 in the series (in an imported hardcover edition) and believe fans will not be disappointed with the climax of this brilliant series.

I loved the whole series and unfortunatly David Wingrove can't write them as quickly as I can read them. I read the whole series and got to the last book. No. 7 and just couldn't beleive the ending. I was told that was the absolute ending and couldn't believe it. I will be getting the next book as soon as it hits the shelf.

I found the hexalogy from 'Middle Kingdom' to 'White Moon, Red Dragon' very well constructed and full of solid, believable plot. Occasional tangents from the apparent storyline were seen, but I was always pleased when they returned to the straight and narrow. Indeed it did give me 'a sense of destiny being fulfilled' (Tom Hutchinson). I especially enjoyed the continuity from the first book to the sixth of the Shepherd family, the raising of Stefan Lehmann, and the sudden return(s) of DeVore. Even little, almost cliched details delighted me ("flames, dancing in a glass" are the first words of Book 1, the last of Book 3, and recur throughout).

All this was spoiled by Days of Bitter Strength. It seemed to me that all of David Wingrove's previous careful planning had not prepared him for this, and this novel makes many, many assumptions which we are not told about before. Basically put, the change from 6 to 7 is too great! Various characters die in the background (Nan Ho), many more are almost unrecognizable from 6 (Pei Kung), and most irritatingly of all, the 'China of the Rhine' seems little different from the 'City of Levels' before. Whilst I accept that there is very good ground for making a point of humanity's evil core, I still felt extremely misled by the end of 6: the arch-villian DeVore was defeated by a technology present from Book 1 (very good), the anti-hero Lehmann was thwarted in his misguided crusade (tragic, lots of pathos and a catharsis), and the Emperor swore in his darkest hour to give up his power and rule justly (also very good--except that it's a barefaced lie).

Perhaps I am being impatient in passing judgment before reading 8 as there are many unresolved story leads, but I cannot help feeling that this seventh book is the average child in what is otherwise a family of geniuses.

David writes another fabulous tale, but seems to have quickened the pace to bring the second-age of Chung Kuo to the forefront. The Tang's great cities have crumbled, Ben Shepherd's China on the Rhine experiment is doomed, DeVore returns again with yet another way of destroying the world. Kim makes rockets out of planets. I almost want to say "STOP! TOO MUCH!" This book could have been two. Contrary to popular belief(and as is written at the end of 'Days'), David's 8th book 'The Marriage of the Living Dark' is available in Great Britain.

Don't bother with this book or its sequels. David Wingrove started out great with this series, but he got lost somewhere. By the end of this opus the author blatantly uses a "deus ex machina" . I felt betrayed because of all the time I spent reading the last 3 books.

While Wingrove has always been kinda mediocre in his writing, his imaginations and characters made the first 6 books good.

And I felt he should have STOPPED. There was a fairly satisfying ending at that point. Stop. Stop

Book VII is so irritating that I've tried to read it 3 times, and failed. Consider that I commonly read 1000s of pages of fantasy/sci-fi a year, and the number of unfinished series [because of apathy] over the last 30 years is countable on one hand.

Stop with Boook VI. You do NOT need any thing else

Don't bother reading this book. Just end Chung Kuo with book 6 and be done with it. This book was done so poorly that I can't believe that Wingrove actually wrote it. It is weak, wishy washy and slow, as opposed to his gutsy, intelligent efforts in the first six Chung Kuo books. Don't bother with it.

Just like its predecessor, Days of Bitter Strength throws away an interesting first three quarters with the most preposterous, ill thought out and badly executed ending. One gets the feeling that Wingrove was working to a deadline leaving him with thirty minutes to write a hundred pages. Characters behave in a way that is totally alien to the way that they had been presented thus far (Li Yuan, in particular, whose fall into dotage is ridiculous)

And anyway, has anybody counted the number of times characters 'shudder' in Wingrove's series? The whole thing seems to be written by someone with real talent who simply cannot be bothered to write more than one draft. Which is a real shame, because if ever a series had real potential it is this one (and I thought the first three were really good...)