Customer Reviews

Golden Sunlands

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

 

 

The golden sunlands is about an alien race that reached the height of their culture and created their own universe to live in. They kiddnapped two differnet planets for slaves and the story is of the people from the second planets rebellion. Also the humans have a chance because the aliens have been living in the trappings of their decaying culture for several thousand years. Good book, but it seems to end on a note of wait for the next book in the series which always annoys me.

I've been a big admirer of Rowley since I bought The War for Eternity. Original, believable, well-written. Rowley seems to specialise in very human humans and very alien aliens, exciting and fast moving plots. I've re-read both The War for Eternity and The Black Ship more than a couple of times. I bought Golden Sunlands some time ago (years) and kept hold of it meaning to re-read it when the sequel came out. I would reccomend it whole-heartedly to anyone who is a fan of this kind of thing except for one thing (See below). Similar to Larry Niven's Ringworld in concept. Basic plot is entire population of colony planet are enslaved by alien robots and taken to the Plowl, an artificial universe constructed around an expanded singularity (Don't ask me I'm not a physisist). Think of a huge inside-out Dyson's Sphere with thousands of equally spaced red dwarf suns surrounding the outside living surface and you'll be getting there. The creators are desparate for manpower, I won't go too much into why, you might want to read it. It's a great book as you'd expect from this author. Now to the reason for not bothering to read it. From the ending it's clear this book quite definately was intended as the first in a series. The story is left VERY unfinished. Having recently re-read it, I decided to find the sequel and was dissapointed to find there isn't one. It's frankly, rude of author and publisher never to bother to continue it. Kinda upsets the readers, no? I'd be very surprised if there isn't a half finished M/S somewhere, the first book is too well developed for there not to have been a lot more of the story already written. So what happened? It's good, original, enaging, well developed. I'd have re-read it more had it ever been finished and I'd have given it five stars.

This book is obviously the first in a 'new' series, although the rest of the series never materialised. I say 'new' in that its set in a different universe to the Vang and Fenrille and was, I think, his last SF book. The new is qualified in that the book must have been written around 1990, and so is not in fact new at all. CR seems to have moved away from SF after this book for some reason, perhaps known only to him. This is a shame as his SF books are excellent, just look at some of the reviews that go with them if you suspect bias. I guess Fantasy's gain is SF's loss. The series would no doubt have been excellent and the book really warrants 4 stars, alas the lack of a part 2 makes it a unfulfilling experience. Believe me, its all set up for a part 2 (and I suspect more). If you are not CR, then try one of his other books (StarHammer or Vang: The Military Form, as only two examples of his excellent SF books) as the ending in this book (or lack of one) will leave you disappointed. If you are CR, then please finish this series off - you MUST have some unfinished manuscript somewhere to this end - and then write us all some more of your excellent SF.

I agree with above posters. This should be a 4 star book, but I can only give it three stars because of the lack of a sequel. I came here to find said sequel, but without one I feel cheated. Nonetheless, it is an entertaining read, and if you don't mind the fact that you will likely never hear the ending, then you should certainly read the book. The characters, in what little time they have, are well developed, the mixture of races with very different attributes and functions provides some great storylines, and the study of a formerly highly avanced society that has broken down into tech-worshippers is an excellent read. This could have been a great series, with seemingly boundless possibilities. Ah well, still worth it in my opinion.