Icarus Descending [Mass Market Paperback]

Elizabeth Hand (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 1993

The energumens, creatures who are the result of centuries of genetic engineering, threaten to come to earth to lead the other bioengineered slave races in a war against humanity.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Though billed as a novel about the Earth imperiled by a colliding asteroid, and though such an asteroid, called Icarus, does indeed threaten the planet in Hand's third novel, readers should not expect a familiar near-future disaster thriller. Instead, Hand combines a variety of science fiction elements into an original and colorful weave. Hundreds of years in the future, various factions war over Earth's fading resources, and "geneslaves"--the products of genetic engineering--serve their human Masters. But that's changing. An ancient military android, dubbed Metatron, has fomented a rebellion of the geneslaves. The Aviator 'Imperator' Margalis Tast'annin, who died at the end of Hand's Winterlong but is now resurrected in a cyborg body, pursues Metatron. Meanwhile, other characters from Winterlong end up among the rebels. In all the confusion, warnings about the asteroid have gone unnoticed save by Metatron, who sees the coming cataclysm as the final blow against the Masters. Hand keeps the story moving briskly, and her future world is filled with vivid images made more striking by her evocative prose. The only drawback is the inconclusive ending--the story will obviously be resolved in a later book.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 10 pages
• Publisher: Spectra (July 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553562886
• ISBN-13: 978-0553562880
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,060,613 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

A couple of years after seeing Patti Smith perform, Elizabeth Hand flunked out of college and became involved in the nascent punk scenes in DC and NYC. From 1979 to 1986 she worked at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air & Space Museum; she was eventually readmitted to university to study cultural anthropology, and received her B.A. She is the author of many novels, including Winterlong, Waking the Moon (Tiptree and Mythopoeic Award-Winner), Glimmering, and Mortal Love, and three collections of stories, including the recent Saffron and Brimstone. Her fiction has received the Nebula, World Fantasy, Mythopeoic, Tiptree, and International Horror Guild Awards, and her novels have been chose as New York Times and Washington Post Notable Books. She has also been awarded a Maine Arts Commission Fellowship. A regular contributor to the Washington Post Book World and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Hand lives with her family on the Maine Coast.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A truly peculiar end to a very peculiar series., July 30, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Icarus Descending (Mass Market Paperback)

Icarus Descending is a very interesting tale, mostly looking at one particular question: if your total lifespan is only three years how do you view God or Salvation? What is important when you are literally born to work as a slave for 1000 days and then be discarded?

This book has a wildly black look at a possible future, brain eating in various guises and a really peculiar look at deepspace geneslave paganism. Lovely.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Touching, bittersweet end to series. Worth reading. Grade: A, January 17, 2005

By 

Robert A Felthousen - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Icarus Descending (Mass Market Paperback)

As with "Winterlong" and "Aestival Tide" (books 1 and 2 of this excellent series), the real story of "Icarus Descending" is more about the unresolved emotional wounds between family members than about the science fiction plot. The overt plot -- the geneslave rebellion, the impending collision of Icarus, the cat-and-mouse games of Tast'annin and Metatron -- is neatly summarized elsewhere on this page. The "real" stories here are about Aidan and Emma Harrow (we finally get an outside perspective on them), Jane Alopex and Miss Scarlet Pan (who represent the tyrant/geneslave macrocosm), and most touching of all, a man named Luther Burdock and his daughter Cybele.

Aidan, Emma, Jane, and Miss Scarlet are all characters from "Winterlong," and it is nice to see them again. (Wendy Wanders is back, and she serves as a major narrator -- but I cannot say that much of the plot revolves around her... at least, not until the end.) The nuances in their various sub-plots provide depth to the overt plot -- we see first-hand how the exterior world operates via the medium of these characters. It is nicely done.

The plot revolving around Luther Burdock and his daughter can be summarized thusly: Four hundred years before the novel begins, geneticist Luther Burdock successfully cloned a human being: his fifteen-year old daughter, Cybele. The religious fanatics of the Second Ascention could not tolerate this act, and murdered both of the Burdocks. Unfortunately, the tyrannical Ascendants found a use for Cybele's clone, Kalamat (meaning "miracle"), and used Dr. Burdock's discoveries to engineer a race of cloned slaves -- the energumens. Energumens are giant, beautiful (as Cybele was beautiful), and live for only 1000 days. They also retain all of Cybele's memories up until the experiment that created the first clone. In a sense, the energumens are all the same fifteen-year old girl, who longs for nothing more than to be reunited with Father. The novel begins and ends with one energumen's quest to find her long-dead Father, and Hand does not disappoint. The closest thing I can compare it to is Spielberg's "A.I."

This sense of separation and reunion is the dominant theme in the novel, as various characters say farewell forever (not a spoiler, but Hobi, Reive, and Rudyard Planck do not appear in this book, and we only hear of their fates in passing), while others are shockingly brought together (again, not a spoiler, but Wendy Wanders has not seen the last of Tast'annin). But then, that is probably to be expected in a book named for the Greek son who disregarded his father's advice, with fatal consequences.

This book is truly excellent. Despite the sci-fi trappings, it is literature, and well worth the read. An attentive reader will pick up on embedded details, such as the identity of the ethereal Gaping One, and the real significance of the fall of NASNA Prime in "Winterlong." In addition, Margalis Tast'annin presents his version of what actually happened between Aidan and Emma Harrow... and why.

This is a fantastic book, and a marvelous conclusion to the series. I can understand why some readers are disappointed -- there is no solid conclusion, just a transition of sorts. That shouldn't really be a problem, though -- neither of the earlier books ended concretely, either. And really, you don't need Hand to spell out the ending for you. That's just being lazy! After such a lush, dense read, use your imagination and make the ending yourself.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars sad, sad, April 21, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Icarus Descending (Mass Market Paperback)

it's not as bad as one of these reviews might lead you to believe. . .

Some truely interesting concepts are presented, but as a sequel, and I guess as a book in general, it really does fall short. Too many loose ends and meandering sub-plots. A STRONG dissapointment, but if you've enjoyed Hand's other books, this probably IS worth a look (if you have nothing better to do.)