Customer Reviews

Dust

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Elizabeth Bear has created a new spin on the multi-generational, planet-sized spaceship saga. Without spoiling the delicate suspense, the ship is crippled, in orbit around an unstable star system. The warring factions, who represent the officers vs engineering--must unite to save this world. The ship's Artificial Intelligences have splintered into competitive entities. The genetically altered inhabitants fight viciously over symbiont colonies of nanotech--and power tools have gained the ability speak and think for themselves. This disjointed elements must come together to ensure their survival.

Sounds like the coldest of high-tech science fiction, right? Well, it is, but Ms. Bear has managed to include angels, mythology, chivalry, knights, religion and imaginary creatures such as basilisks in a completely plausable way. She has combined a faux-medieval fantasy with hard science fiction--brilliantly.

Intricate, imaginative use of nanotechnology, wonderful "world-building"--I could smell and hear the sounds of the crippled ship, her descriptions were so vivid. Excitement, drama and emotional depth aplenty! I fell in love with the ship, and its inhabitants.

I cannot wait for the sequel.

"Dust" is a futuristic sci-fi set in a dying space ship, whose inhabitants have forgotten all but their current setting. The main characters are a fragment of a computer AI, a winged lady (upper class) with fantastic nano-tech, and a young woman (servant). The young woman rescues the winged lady and they escape together, hoping to avert war.

"Dust" presents a fascinating universe. The setting is very creative, with an innovative new idea every few pages. Unfortunately, the characters aren't very likeable and don't seem to have much personality. For example, the young woman discovers that she was abandoned by her father, and doesn't seem to care. I just didn't connect to them, emotionally. About half way through the book, I set it down and didn't feel any urge to find out how it ended.

Elizabeth Bear, in "Dust," has taken the ubiquitous 'Disabled Generation Ship' in an entirely new direction.
The first installment of the Jacob's Ladder sequence reads like a mixture of fantasy, religion, and classical science fiction. The Jacob's Ladder is a disabled generation ship parked in orbit around two unstable stars. However, Jacob's Ladder isn't just a ship, its a laboratory and the whole of the world to the inhabitants. A program was initiated to force evolution of human beings, individuals who then took control of their respective sections of the world-- the bridge and engineering-- and fought.
Main characters Rien and Perceval originally intend to stop a war started by Ariane Conn. However, deeper, more subtle plots come to light when Rien and Perceval realize they are being manipulated. Not only that, the stars are going supernova and in order to save the world, they may have to abandon their original quest.
In this excellent offering, Bear creates angels who lie in wait to devour their brothers, strong women, a bluring between the lines of human and god raising fundamental questions such as what exactly it means to be human. The characters are fully fleshed and relatable, the story and conclusion engrossing and interesting. The writing is occasionally a little muddy, but you are not overloaded by the technicalities of Bear's world, rather, they're introduced slowly.
An excellent and enjoyable read.

Baroque Space, with wings.


A few people I have seen say this reminds them of Zelazny. Not getting that at all, and I have read a whole bunch of the aforementioned, possibly I missed something.

Robert A. Heinlein's generational Universe Ship structure and competing ship factions, yes. Old Dr Who episodes, absolutely (minus the sex and swords - adding sex and swords to stuff is usually a good thing, and certainly is here). Adding Reynoldsesque strange tech is also cool.

There is however something missing in Dust, the majority of the first part of the book seems to stutter in and out of Bear's writing style, perhaps that is deliberate, but it is certainly no way as polished a novel as Undertow, or even Carnival.

I think it improves somewhat when a little more of the actual technological elements of the situation appear, which gets it back into rhythm.

An interesting book, but nothing special - I am guessing this might be one of those cases of the rare trilogy where the second is better.

The people in the book so far, to me, weren't as interesting as the behind the scenes powers could be part of the reason.

I'd call this a little under 3.5.


3.5 out of 5

Many authors--and Elizabeth Bear may be the finest of them--confuse action with agency. Action is easy: things just have to happen. Agency is hard--it requires characters with personalities strong and subtle enough to impress their will upon larger events. Bear's protagonists Percival and Rien may have been subtle in their emotions, but they do blessed little about it. The characters realize they are embroiled in a conspiracy to create war, but never lose their tempers. Even greater events distract them from catastrophic war, but there are so many characters popping in and out to guide or beguile them that "deus ex machina" looses whatever drama was not lost already to cliche. Meanwhile, the "angels" who understand more about the greater task are not--enough. Not wicked, not conflicted, not dangerous--enough. They may be (and have) fantastic ideas, but they lack the drama that should be inherent in beings who are both angels (one is audaciously named Samael, another name in Christian stories for Lucifer) and the wild shards of some ruined ur-personality that once ran an entire world contained in a interstellar ship. (A note for the defensive: Drama does not have to be Machiavellian speeches or ruthless violence. It just has to amp up the emotional impact.)

Where the book really shines is the environment in which the characters exist. A brilliantly concept that fuses interstellar travel with genetic engineering and environmentalist peril, this ship is a menagerie of genius. This is made possible, in part, because Bear is an expert of the adjective. None of her descriptions are stale, and her turn of phrase is wonderfully suited to her quasi-archaic civilization. I especially enjoyed that the ultimate enemy, the deadly void of space, became the swear word--"space!" or, better, "space you!" She is also masterful in her construction of images: a river of radiation, a lightless corridor overrun with bats--hell, an angel with her wings cut off (page one!). At times, the narrative is more like a series of bizarre baroque paintings viewed in splendid succession. But all these little clevernesses felt constrained. Here we are, in the middle of a massive spaceship whose very mechanics have become jungles like the ones they were meant to contain, and we never get to linger on the wonder or horror of these places. Tensions build--and then are quickly deflated. Dramatic revelations crash into the characters--and they meander their way to the next event. This isn't to say that individual fight or flight scenes aren't rather thrilling, but they lack a larger urgency.

The conveyance of knowledge might be the real issue here: we just don't know enough to be really curious. Characters with great power pop in and out, but we never really understand what they can or should be able to do--and thus we neither fear nor hope for their action. The plot also takes place on two levels: the human conflict about the war between Engine and Rule, and the "angelic" conflict concerning the ship. The ship is about to fall apart, but aside from broken-down paths and a few comments, we don't really feel that. For heaven's sake, the giant ship is about to explode in a sun. I would like just a smidgen of panic. Meanwhile, the human threat of war results in very little peril or conflict for the characters themselves. After one slight altercation, the protagonists don't even bother to worry about encountering enemy forces. The main human villain, the excellently treacherous Ariane, doesn't even get lines after the first few chapters.

The knowledge of the characters isn't terribly helpful, either. Percival is a knight-errant of this world, a sort of enforcer of peace. She should be an expert in navigating the perils of this world, but more often, she's just along for the ride. Rien is "our" protagonist--she's raised in ignorance and should be the one asking questions to fill herself (and the audience!) in. But she's not very curious. She doesn't really try to get to know her new-found brother or father, or discover much else. The characters' lack of agency makes us passive readers, too, since we give up on things being explained.

Elizabeth Bear has it within her to become one of the greats of Sci-fi, without question. But while this book is a worthy and concrete step along the way (despite its flaws, I'll certainly pick up the rest of this trilogy), she's not there yet.

On a broken ship orbiting a dying sun, an angel is captured and her wings severed. But before her captor can devour her memory and mind, and so spark a war between their two houses, the angel Percival escapes with the servant charged with her care, her half sister Rein. Together, they journey through the distant bowels of the crumbling ship, trying to stop a war, their every step watched by the divine fragments that have the power to save the ship. Bear's novel is outside of the ordinary: transcending gender and sexual stereotypes, combining hard sci-fi with religious imagery, and above all building a delicately unfolding, layered plot. The novel is so unusual that it is almost difficult to categorize or, at least at the beginning, to enjoy, but all told it is a solidly written, brilliantly imagined book, and I recommend it.

It took me two thirds of this book to decide that I liked it. In part this is due to the fact that I had not read hard sci-fi in some time, but largely it is because Bear's book is unusual even for the genre. Bear combines religious titles and allegory with nanotechnology and similar-but-different scientific evolutions, like genderless individuals and specialized weapons called "unblades." At the onset, this combination is disorientating: it doesn't seem to fit the genre; it uses words that the reader recognizes in a way that the reader does not recognize; in short, it defies expectation. Furthermore, the plot unveils itself in arcs, and each arc reveals more about the story and puts previous revelations into more logical and rational language. As such, the beginning of the story is disorientating and a bit confusing, and while this great unknown does spark reader interest, it makes the book somewhat difficult to judge as good or bad, or even to enjoy.

However, as layers of the plot unfold and unexplained terms are defined, the book comes together and becomes easier to judge and enjoy. The complete story reads well and makes sense: the plot is solid, characters have adequate depth, the settings are intelligently constructed and portrayed, and the quests and final conflict create a satisfying story. Moreover, as everything comes together, the initial confusion and delicate layers of the plot actually improve the book. Working through confusion to understand the plot creates reader ownership, and as a result revelations and events in the novel are like personal accomplishments. Further complications outside the realm of plot, such as atypical gender constructs, the unique setting, and sci-fi technology, all create a distinctive atmosphere and broaden reader's expectations of what characters and story can be.

So while it took me some time to get a grasp on this novel and form any opinion about it, I did learn to enjoy it, and I came away satisfied. Nothing about the novel is exceptional--it did not strike me as a groundbreaking or an incredible book, and as such I don't believe it warrants a five star review. But even if its not exceptional, Dust is an above average novel, adeptly written, skillfully conceived, with something to offer outside of plot alone: a complexity, a transcendence beyond usual constructs. Bear's style is slightly unusual, and so in its way the novel does stand out, inspiring the reader to invest himself and to stretch his mind in the reading. I'm glad that I had a chance to read it, and I plan to pick up more of Bear's books; similarly, I recommend Dust, although it may appeal more to sci-fi fans than other readers.

I love Generational starship stories and that is the reason I bought this one. But I could not get past the first 100 pages and put it down. The characters were one dimensional, I could not get into caring about what happened to them. The story line seemed to drag on and the authors description of their enviorment was lacking. It may get better later in the book but I will never know, just not what I was expecting.

I really enjoyed this book. Elizabeth Bear is just getting better and better. Carnival was good, but this has moments of magic.

There were some sophisticated concepts here which I just loved and the computers/angels/demons was well thought out. The entire world and it's medieval theme and forced genetic mutation/evolution was just clever and interesting. You may like the world more than specfic characters, though the heroine was pretty interesting.

I'm definitely looking forward to the next one coming out and will continue to keep my eye out for Elizabeth Bear who is a fine find indeed. Keeper

Edited to add that I reread it in November 09, and it really has some wonderful ideas in it, just clever, graceful concepts. It's a bit complex, even on second reading it requires thought and memory, but I like books that stretch me a bit and the ideas and characters kept me intrigued. Excellent world building. I look forward to Chill (the next installment), and have pre-ordered it.

The colony ship was traveling through space for hundreds of years when explosions almost destroyed it. They traveled to the nearest planet in hopes of making repairs, but too much damage was sustained to too many systems. To make the situation even direr, the sun they orbit is starting to go supernova. Five centuries later, the artificial intelligence that enabled the captain to guide the people into safety splinters into fragments called angels, each with a different propose.

The crew from the ship has become the Exalts, near immortals with a symbiotic life form inside them that grants them superior powers. The Mean are normal people who have become a servant class. Rien, raised as a Mean, rescues the Exalt Sir Perceval only to learn she is her sister. Perceval transfers some of her symbiote into Rien. They trek to Engine hoping to prevent a war between Engine and the House of Rule as these sisters are the only hope left if this world is to survive.

The Exalts still live on the ship believing that it still can be fixed. The Angels have distinct personalities as each gained a segment of the AI. Rien and Perceval know they must stop a war that seems inevitable; to do so they must understand the various Angelic personalities, find a competent captain, and learn a way to survive the supernova. Elizabeth Bear creates a world filled with vast characters that in spite of the science fiction origins of its people seems believable. That is the essence of the Great bear universe.

Harriet Klausner

Dust is a difficult book to review. It is a work of glorious genre- and gender-bending. It had moments of hilarity and moments of heartbreak, and way more sensawonder than any book I've read this year (including Zelazny's Lord of Light and M. John Harrison's Light). But the characters were ciphers to me through the first two-thirds, and I'm positive that I didn't get any of the allusions fully. Still, I shall do my best, and talk about the elements that occur to me in order.

First, the science fiction. This is a broken-down generation ship novel, and the ship itself is a glorious bit of world-building. It is the world to its inhabitants, but they're under no pretenses that it is also a ship, and they curse accordingly -- Space! is the usual ejaculant, and the Enemy of vaccuum is present in several wonder-and-horror-tinged E.V.A.s. The ship is enormous, and much of it is dead, and what is left alive is incredibly strange, full of both nanotechnology and plain old terrestrial biology run amok. The people who set out in Jacob's Ladder (the ship's name) loved tinkering with genetics (for reasons explained about a third of the way in which I shan't spoil but which have bearing on the next section) so the humans now on board are split into the Exalt -- people whose blood literally runs blue due to their nanotech symbionts -- and the Mean, baseline humans who are forced to serve. The Exalt have clearly played with their genetics, many being winged, or furred, or otherwise altered, but even the Mean are not quite humans like us, as Bear makes it clear early on that there are at least three genders present -- men, women, and kant, the ungendered. (She invents new pronouns for the kant: "hir" and "sie" which function well enough but when first presented look unfortunately like typos.) And there are any number of artificial intelligences running around, greater and lesser ones, some diffuse throughout the ship, others contained in rather unlikely places (like a laser-torc that is also a basilisk, or a nuclear reactor leak).

And running through all this SF coolness are biblical and Arthurian and gothic allusions that make the novel look and feel quite a bit more like high fantasy. One of the two protagonists is called Sir Perceval, and she (I did mention the gender-bending, didn't I?) is also a celibate knight on a quest; the Exalt, as mentioned before, are literally blue-blooded and have split what remains of the ship into domaines which they rule through primogeniture; and the A.I.s are referred to as "angels" and all (except one) have taken (or were given? it's unclear) names straight out of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

But this is NOT fantasy dressed up as science fiction. It has all the trappings of a quest fantasy because it draws on those sources that quest fantasy evolved from, but these characters chose them consciously. The Exalt created their high-tech Medieval world, and their ancestors built the Biblical A.I.s, and the fact that there are two different sets of referents being used by two classes of individuals (the Exalt and the A.I.s) is totally consistent and meaningful. This is a consciously feudal future, one where terms like "Exalt" and "angel" are thrown around divorced from any sense of reverence or religious connotation (but again, not without a meaning that I don't want to spoil).

There are also all the social SF elements -- this is the future, and one of the understated ways Bear makes sure we don't forget that is the way their mores are not our mores. There are the three common genders, and there's a double-gendered individual (I couldn't tell for sure, but I don't *think* that was a common thing; there weren't special pronouns for the single double-gendered person so I'm assuming that that choice isn't common, though it didn't particularly surprise or apall the characters who met him/her/hir); there's sexuality of all stripes presented matter-of-factly, including incest (after all, if there's no worry about inbreeding leading to monsters. . .); there's also cannibalism as a matter of course, because an Exalt who consumes another Exalt gains access to their identity -- memories and personality included. And yet alongside that cannibalism everyone appears to be very casually vegetarian, because humans are wonderful at maintaining two mutually-exclusive world views, and I wouldn't expect that to be any different in the future.

Did you notice that this is only a 342-page novel? That's a lot to unpack, and that's one of the reasons I was engaged but not enthralled through the first 200 pages. Bear never hands the reader information -- all this world-building was accomplished without a single info-dump, and without any of the characters having those terribly awkward "As you know, Bob" conversations. But getting all that across and moving the quest along left less time than I would like to get to know the characters. Bear starts the novel at the last possible second (as you should, but as very few authors do, preferring to give their readers a few introductory chapters to make sure they're solidly grounded in the world and the people and the power structure) and that unfortunately means that I didn't have a clue why Rien and Perceval were acting the way they were at first. I had some guesses, and my guesses ended up being right, but it took 200 pages for me to be really comfortable in their skins, to feel like they were acting rather than reacting.

Once I was there I was with them body and soul, and the ending kind of floored me, but it took a while.