5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wow! Really!, May 27, 2010
This review is from: The Machinery of Light (Paperback)
Williams' first two books The Mirrored Heavens and The Burning Skies were incredible works. I wondered whether Williams was setting himself up for an impossible act to follow and fizzle on the final installment--like so many trilogies seem to eventually do. But the finale of Williams' Autumn Rain trilogy delivers, with one of the most mindblowing endings I've ever read in science fiction. Questions are answered. And the future seems far more likely as told by Williams in The Machinery of Light than I'd like to believe. (I'm looking for bunkers in Montana this weekend!) Better yet, and particularly refreshing as I think about the Lost finale, he ties up all loose ends and answers all our questions. Just be prepared for the answers to the questions you ask. Set against the backdrop of an all-out war between Earth's two superpowers, this book moves fast and reads like a movie. My only regret is that now it's all over and there's no faux-encore coming folks. It's done and it's all here.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
hyperspeed dystopian military science fiction thriller, May 29, 2010
This review is from: The Machinery of Light (Paperback)
In 2110, the assassination of the American President Harrison leads to a military takeover of the United States. Ignoring the Treaty of Zurich of 2105, the American Generals seize an opportunity and quickly launch an attack against the Eurasian Alliance led by the Russians and Chinese in an attempt to destroy their space-aerial defenses. WW III has been lunched (See The Mirrored Heavens and The Burning Skies).
The Eurasian Alliance launches the top secret mega-spaceships to destroy the enemy and its fleet. Meanwhile the Autumn Rain commando unit begins a seemingly suicidal desperate maneuver on Luna just ahead of the Eurasian joint fleet but behind the squad's creator. At the same time super cyborg Claire Haskell the Manilishi post-human implements the programming of her designer-creator Matthew Sinclair. He is several steps closer to achieving his goal as he has deployed project Armageddon.
Fasten your seat belts as the latest dystopian military science fiction thriller starts at hyperspeed and accelerates from there. The action overwhelms the key characters, but no one (except bewildered stunned first time riders) will care as The Machinery of Light is an exhilarating action-packed futuristic twister in which reality is blurred at best. Readers will appreciate David J. Williams' fast-paced but extremely grim twenty-second century earth-moon sphere of operations.
Harriet Klausner
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Superb Trilogy ending, September 3, 2010
This review is from: The Machinery of Light (Paperback)
David Williams is somewhat of a genius when it comes to concocting plots. This has been evident from the first 2 volumes of the Autumn Rain trilogy Mirrored Heavens and Burning Skies. When both of them ended with cliffhanger-ish situations it made the wait for the last book The Machinery of Light a bit hard.
The Machinery of Light begins with Claire or Manilishi (as she's known now by everyone). It outlines the main conspirators behind the assassination of the US president Andrew Harrison, namely his Infocomm and Spacecomm heads Stephanie Montrose and Jharek Szilard who now have plans for each other but must wittingly galvanize their forces and fight off the Eurasian contingent.
Amidst all of this an Autum Rain devotee returns and is revealed to readers. This might be someone whom you had your doubts about since the latter 1/3rd of "Burning Skies". Seb Linehan manages to survive the end of the burning Skies and finds himself in some hot water (for lack of a better term). Leo Sarmax and Lyle Spencer seek to terminate a fugitive and find that their task might me harder than they expect.
All the main characters from the previous 2 books return for this trilogy ender. Many secrets are also revealed and the action just never seems to end following a trend from the previous books. David Williams has always said that the last book would be the actual end and would resolve all questions about the saga and he definitely stays true to his word. Not to give away details about the ending of this novel, but it was something totally unexpected. Sure there were clues interspersed but the climax is something which couldn't have been easily predicted. The end was what gave this book and the trilogy something of a spectacular read for myself.
David J. Williams continues his hyper-manic, action heavy prose and if you are reading this book then I'm going to assume that you like this style to finish the earlier two books. There's no let up as the all the characters are either chasing or avoiding each other as they go through multiple variations of their original mission.
What is eventually revealed about the Autumn Rain group will definitely blow the reader's minds. Based on this reveal, a lot of things from the previous 2 books make a lot of sense as to how and why Autumn Rain always had the upper hand in the most troublesome situations. The POV is constantly switched in between the chapters early on and by the time the end is approached POV changes are occurring every couple of paragraphs.
The end sequence is what makes this book standout amongst the entire trilogy and as I was reading it, it reminded me a lot of the climax of the Godfather wherein orchestrated by Michael Corleone, a lot of killings and events occur simultaneously thereby heralding his ascension to the head of the Corleone as well the Mafia families of the East Coast. A similar play-by-play occurs in these last few pages except that David Williams has jacked up the action to almost unseen levels and by bringing it to a spectacular end, makes him known as an author to watch out for in whatever he chooses to write about next.
The Machinery of Light was a fascinating climax to the tale begun years ago and by closing on such a high, it is my hope that David will be hitting a lot of "Best-of" lists by the year end!
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