Customer Reviews

Paradox: Book I of the Nulapeiron Sequence (Bk. 1)

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Paradox is a great read. It's one of those books you pick up and can't put down - I read it in one day (finishing very late at night) and spent the next morning camped out in front of a bookstore in Galway so I could get To Hold Infinity. I'm ecstatic that it's finally been released in the US.

The book follows the stories of two wonderful characters- Tom Corcorigan, a boy growing up in the far-future underground world of Nulpeiron, and, entwined within Tom's story, Karyn McNamara, a young woman training to become a Pilot in a near future Earth. In many ways, this is the usual story of a boy with extraordinary gifts and how he rises through a society with harshly defined social levels, but Tom's character and the world itself make the book much more. The Nulpeiron specific language used is generally straightforward, and the detail apparent in the world gives it a wonderful depth and realism.

Some of the ideas brought up about time, space, and fate do require a little thinking from the reader, but Meaney manages to keep things understandable enough that you don't get lost. Personally, I rather liked puzzling through some of the ideas he presented. It's nice to find a book that both makes you think and is fun to read.

I wouldn't recommend this book to someone new to science fiction, but if you've read a bit (and especially if you're a fan of authors like Greg Bear), definately read this one. It's worth it.

In the world of Nulaperion society is quite literally stratified by how far underground you live. The top layers are the home of a varied and wealthy aristocracy - all their whims either catered to by their advanced technology or the classes of the lower strata's in their domains.

Tom Corcorigan is the 14 year old son of a lower level market trader. A person of no significance in their world till a fleeing, almost mythical, pilot gifts him with a data crystal that will quite literally change his life and fortune when he one days goes up-strata.

This novel presents a complex world where the ability to understand complex mathematical formula is highly prized and in conjunction with leaps in biological engineering is the basis of much of their advanced technology. Tom's journey takes you through a world of striking poverty and wealthy extravagance and a world on the edge of revolution though many do not realise it.

I have to say I enjoyed this novel, even though I don't really understand all the concepts and jargon the author uses. By the end of the book I really felt for Tom and felt attached to him and I'm looking forward to book 2 in this trilogy very much. This novel is a bit more hard SF than I normally read but I'm glad I picked it up to read.

This is my first review! I am a relatively new reader of science fiction. The last book (and one of the first science fiction books) I finished was "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card. That said, "Paradox" is a terrific story, and highly recommended.

I won't go into details of the story itself, as previous reviewers have done a good job describing it. The characters were strong and believable. I found that in many ways, I could identify with the lead character Tom Corcorigan. I also enjoyed the story within the story of Karyn McNamara, and how it was an effective part of the overall story. By the end of the book, I felt like I had an attachment to Tom, hoping he would succeed in his efforts. I also felt the story provided the needed closure at the end, and it was not done in an excessive manner.

Meaney writes in a way that is accessible to newer readers like myself. I enjoyed the short chapters and what I call "readable English" - Meaney does not ramble on, and he's not too heavy on the techno babble or needlessly long and obscure words ones finds in a dictionary or thesaurus. I thoroughly enjoyed the science and physics here; it was a relevant part of the story and just enough to get you thinking, but not so much as to overburden the reader.

I look forward to the next book in the series!

Someone should really mention the highly fragmented nature of this book--the elephant in the middle of the room nobody's talking about. It's more like a collection of excerpts than a novel--which I'd be first to praise if it worked, but it doesn't. The excerpts constantly shift characters, settings, and timeframes. It's as if the author loved writing the beginnings of chapters so much that he simply started a new one every couple of paragraphs. Frustrating? Oh yeah. I got the odd impression Mr. Meaney considers maintaining a certain level of reader confusion as a top literary goal.

I've got a ton of hard SF under my belt and if an author can write above my comprehension conceptually then I'll bow to his superior brain and read his book twice (Gibson's Neuromancer comes to mind, and some of Egan's stuff). But there has to be a critical mass of detail before I can even determine if this is the case, and Meaney constantly falls far below this threshold. Some tasty concepts and technology are mentioned, but left stranded--not only unexplored, but undefined to the point where I couldn't suspend my disbelief even though I wanted to. It's a shame because he really does have a fascinating world here. Now if he could just WRITE ABOUT IT instead of attempting to impart it through some kind of weird mental inductance where explaining anything EVER is some kind of literary sin, well, then I'd be impressed.

I first picked this up while browsing around for something to read. However, after reading the first three pages I was deeply involved. Since then I've read this and the second in the series, Context, twice. John Meaney develops a fantastic world taking a deep look at subjects other science fiction authors don't even broach. The entire story is set undergound where billions of people live and have lived for centuries. Everything from the food they eat to the mode of travel, to the layout of society is new and interesting. Add that to the fact that the author can develop the main character and he knows how to create an interesting story without leaving 5,000 open loopholes and you have the makings of a great book and series.

If you enjoy Frank Herbert's Dune series, you'll like John Meaney's Paradox. Meaney creates a world of high mathematics as a path to higher consciousness and amazing bio-technology all take place in a multi-leveled, underground society where the higher the social status, the closer to the surface one lives.

The Title: Paradox is a perfect name for this book. It is filled with paradoxical viewpoints of life. On the one hand the upper class lives in a paradise and uses its' high mathematical abilities to further mankind...but that very skill is also used to further the seperation between those on the bottom and those on the top...in Meaney's viewpoint, higher consciousness does not necessarily mean greater connection with fellow humans. High technology is vulnerable to the most basic of attacks: hand to hand combat. And some of the most brilliant minds are also some of the most developed bodies.

As some reviewers have noted, there is a lot of mathematical lingo and thought process involved in this book. However, I found it very readable and highly entertaining. Think of this book as a multi-genre book. Cross Frank Herbert's Dune with Simon Green's Deathstalker and add a smattering of Sylvester Stallone's Rocky and you will get a taste of John Meaney's multiple (and paradoxical interests) filling this novel.

I highly recommend Paradox. I have just begun Context, the next book and the series and I'm looking for to more from John Meaney.

This is quite a mix of sci-fi style influences but the whole exceeds the sum of the parts.

The book reads as a satisfying new world blend and the plot comes to a satisfying resolution. I gave four instead of five stars because it could have been held together a little more firmly. The book states it is the first of a new series, so the jumpiness between some sequences may be due to the author's establishing ground for further events and characters.

Here is a list of sci-fi influences I saw:
* Study of advanced logic - A.E. Van Vogt's World of Null A
* Exaggerated court manners - Walter Jon Williams' Majistral series
* Living in a giant multi-layered subterranean environment - Isaac Asimov's Caves of Steel.
* Young hero surviving childhood to become great - Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game.
* Young here mastering physical fitness and martial arts - Gordon Dickson's Tactics of Mistake (Dorsai series)
* Prediction of future events - Frank Herbert's Dune. And more...

Looking forward to the next book in the series.

I'd love to be able to recommend this book. John Meaney's prose is very energetic, though sparse, with sentence fragments serving to describe scenes for which other authors would require entire paragraphs. His world-building is fascinating; the multi-layered world of Nulapeiron reminds me of Martha Wells' City of Bones, though in her novel, I understood more than one word in five.

Reading Meaney's novel is no task for the faint-hearted. Brush up on your logic and math terms, so when the main character comments that he is studying "self-organized criticality" you'll know what he's talking about. Thank God for Google and A9.

One mark of a good science fiction writer lies in the gradual revealing of the imagined world, without explanatory chapters or stilted dialogue in which characters explain to the reader what's going on in the fictional universe. (Gosh, Bill, the emperor, who has been ruling for 36 years after the suspicious death of his brother in that starship parking accident, looked great in his new black robe!) Meaney, however, rarely condescends to explain his terminology, leaving the logic-challenged reader wondering for some time at the apparent hilarity of an "antinomy cast in antimony." Ho, ho, ho, what a kneeslapper. And what exactly is a tricon? If only I'd passed my chronodynamics exam!

I will not be returning to Nulapeiron. Anybody want my return ticket?

Paradox is the first novel in a trilogy by British author John Meany. This story follows Tom Corcorigan, born in poverty on the world of Nulapeiron. What is very likable about the book is how completely strange this world is. Class is literally determined by how far up from the surface you live, and the Author gives a wonderful picture of this planet. The technology used is very different, I liked how he took it in new and strange directions.
The way the author plays with the fundamental ideas of how time works, and how these mysterious oracles view the future, and control the population is very interesting, and central to the plot. The whole trilogy was a great read, with an epic story arc. I highly recommend it.

Paradox is an excellent 2nd novel by John Meaney. It is the first I had heard of him, but this is not surprising, considering he is a UK author who is barely published in the US. I found a copy of his first in the Nulapeiron series at my local library, and managed to convince them to purchase the rest of the series.

Yes, the book is a bit disjointed and often isn't easy to read, but the author's choice of writing style is new and interesting, and I found it quite refreshing. And though the characters sometimes have questionable motives (what was the real reason Tom joined the resistance?), they are carried by the current of their times, and the story progresses quite quickly and passionately, directing the characters with the flow that seems natural.

I was enheartened by Meaney's writing style, and I quite appreciated that he could write a clear, extremely concise (though long) book without having to spell out everything in overly verbose detail. His spare language spawns visuals of the mind which carried me through this book very quickly and kept me interested in the facinating world of Nulapeiron.

Meaney has brought new life into an often otherwise homogenous world of hard science fiction, and for that I am thankful. I will *definitely* read the next in the series...maybe I'll actually purchase it from the UK. I'm not sure I can wait until it is published in October!