Customer Reviews

Great Wheel

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This novel is a triumph for first time novelist Ian R. Macleod. The plot development is top notch, matching the character progression. The best thing about this novel is also it's downfall, the detailed description. Although it is obvious Macleod has a talent for imagery, his used of adverbs can become trying on the reader, forcing him/her too slow down and find out what it is they just read at times. I recommend this this work to all, just watch out for long sentences with atom bombs of interesting words.

In a world where viruses are manipulated to protect the first worlders, and a leaf is chewed to control the third worlders, it is comforting to note that faith exists at all, and that the delving into questions of faith is still a worthy topic for discussion. The loss and recovery of faith is the most basic of human stories, which is why this book appealed to me so much. Could it be that the conflict of faith is exascerbated by the separation of the sacred and the profane? Are the concepts of sacredness and profanity useless societal constructs that when torn down lead to a much fuller realization of the potential of the human spirit? This book begins to examine these crucial questions.

Stories by macleod have been in various yr's best for years. Sadly people don't subscribe ,or even know about, magazines like Asimov's (www.asimovs.com) or interzone. This is considered to be one of the best 1st sf novels of its year. Very British ,with scot elements, but some say the african cultures more detailed. It describes a world ravaged by eco-collapse where 1st & 3rd worlders are almost untouchables to each other. Probably worth a try, but I think macleod's on the literary end of the sf spectrum so it's probably not easy reading.