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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A man of peace in a world of conflict, January 27, 2004
"The Ends of the Circle" is book two (of seven) in "The Pelbar Cycle." In it, we are introduced to Stel Dahmen (later changed to "Stel Westrun"), who will be one of the main characters in most of the rest of the books. Newly married to a woman he loves, but who comes from a rigidly autocratic family that cannot abide what they see as his lack of proper respect, he ends up fleeing the walled city of his birth. Travelling across an America drastically changed in the thousand years since "The Time of Fire," Stel's resourcefulness and humble peacefulness are tested again and again, until eventually he is reunited with his wife Ahroe, and the son he didn't know he had, in the midst of a battle. Stel Westrun/Dahmen is one of the most truly gentle characters you are ever likely to encounter in any post-apocalyptic fiction; he seems to spend his entire life trying to defuse the violence and intolerance of those around him; an engineer, poet, and flute-player, he is considered frivolous by most, but ends up sowing the seeds of vast change in the reunification of the tribes of what was once America. "The Ends of the Circle" just misses getting a five star rating because it is short and a little shallow; later volumes in the series get better, and I would give five stars to "The Pelbar Cycle" as a whole, as I have re-read and enjoyed them all many times. From the back cover:
"Some among the Pelbar meant to kill Stel, so the master-craftsman was forced to abandon his love, his family, and the security of Pelbarigan in order to survive. Because his curiosity about the world outside Pelbarigan's walls had been aroused by the tales of earlier travelers, Stel set out in search of the fabled Shining Sea -- but between him and his goal lay the poisonous cities of the ancients, barbarians who practiced ritual murder, the treacherous
Children of Ozar, a mad exile -- and a host of other perils. Stel's beautiful and devoted wife followed, determined to return with the man she loved. __________ A dazzling vision of two quests, two journeys through
a strange and danger-filled world."
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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A hauntingly real world, April 24, 2006
The four stars here are an average of 5, for worldbuilding, and 3, for awkward writing style. I read Williams' Pelbar cycle when the books first came out in the 70s or 80s. I've re-read them a few times in the intervening years, and every time I experience the same curious mix of enthusiasm and irritation. The most compelling SF/F books are those in which the world itself is a character, in which the author's created universe has the same power as one of the actors. In my heart, for instance, I believe that McCaffery's Pern truly exists *somewhere*; as a reader, you want to climb over the next hill to see what's there. Williams envisioned what the U.S. would be like a thousand years after a nuclear war, as civilization returns, technology is re-discovered, and the various lone communities begin to reconnect. The central figures are from Pelbarigan, a walled city on the Missisippi, somewhere south of where St. Louis is today. In addition to flipping back to the map to place the characters as they travel around the country, you -- or at least I -- spend some energy trying to figure out how each language or society evolved. That's the fun part. Good worldbuilding can overcome a lot of weakness in storytelling, and in the Pelbar series it achieves it. Unfortunately, it needs to. What isn't accomplished nearly as well is the wordsmithing. Williams throws sentences at the page as though they're shovelfuls of words. The writing is stilted, annoyingly so, though I've never figured out exactly what he did wrong. Because the characters do come to life, and you do care what happens to them. There are few real surprises in the saga of Stel and his wife Ahroe, and in some ways they are verbal stick figures, but Stel, in particular, manages to be a real person with honor and wit. If this were a movie, I'd say that a re-make with a good director could make it top-notch. The earlier books work well as standalone stories; in fact, I read The Ends of the Circle and a few following novels before I got to the Breaking of Northwall, and it never bothered me that I didn't know the details of Jestak's journey. (He'd gone east to explore; Stel and Ahroe head west, so they never cross paths.) The Ends of the Circle is probably the best of the lot, though A Dome in the Forest is a close follow-up. If you have a weakness for alternate history SF/F stories or post-apocalyptic tales, it's worth the time to read this one. It isn't perfect, but the worldbuilding excellence balances out a lot of other weaknesses.
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0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
First in the series, and a good story, May 22, 2009
I remembered the Pelbar Cycle from a long-ago enconter with some of the books in the series. When I stumbled across a two of the later books while clearing out old books, I decided to read the whole series starting with book 1. It was well worth the effort - these stories of a post-apocalyptic U.S. that has slipped back into a relatively primitive state are still very enjoyable.
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