Customer Reviews

The Gardens of Delight

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

 

 

One of those books a little on the surreal side. Ian Watson is certainly not averse to a little (or a lot) of that. A world modeled after a famous Bosch painting, apparently. Lots of dying, and worthiness, and devils, and traipsing through hell. And nekkidness and talking animals, and categorisation by pigmentation. All this by astronaut/scientist types, too, of course. You get the idea. A little rushed, I think. A previous traveller is of course set up as one of the powers on the planet, as well.

The other review is right, and wrong. The medieval painting is Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights" and yes, there is some Christian mythos in this, but it is basically a way to explain traditional alchemy in a science fiction context, and for this, Watson has done a brilliant job. This is an excellent book if you have any interest at all in alchemy. Well worth the price Amazon is asking, and really a very good read.

The srory is about a future space expedtion sent to a planet lightyears away to investigate the loss of contact with the earlier colony ship. the crew find the earlier colonists living in a world based around a medieval painting depicting heaven and hell.
the plot is not convincing, it is obvious the author is trying to deal with the inconsistencies in the christian doctrine by supeimposing it on a science fiction background, alas he is not successful. besides, There are no new ideas here at all.
If you are looking for science fiction, dont read this one.