19 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Intriguing SF ideas, disjointed plot, December 22, 2000
I found Sean McMullen's Souls in the Great Machine a difficult book to evaluate. On the one hand it has some wonderful, sense of wonder-inducing ideas, and some exciting action and colourful characters. But the "colours" of the characters are a bit garish, certainly unrealistic, as they act out the author's whims. And the plot, action-filled as it is in places, also drags in other places, and is somewhat creakily structured. On the whole, though, I recommend this novel for the neat stuff, with a warning that it is far from perfect.
Many years after a disaster called Greatwinter destroyed human civilization, people in what was once Australia live in smallish city states. Technology includes fairly ingenious mechanical devices, and guns, but no electricity or electronics. A central feature of local civilization is the libraries, where intelligent men and women seem to maintain what records of the past they can. The most important library, called Libris, is in Rochester, and a new leader, Zarvora Cybeline, has just been appointed. She establishes a curious project: a huge calculating machine, the Calculor, in which the individual components are human slaves. Add to this intriguing setup a culture which places great emphasis on personal combat -- duels. And one more odd feature -- a mysterious Call, to which every animal larger than a cat, including humans, is subject.
Into this mix Sean McMullen throws Lemorel, a young provincial woman and a talented mathematician, whose ambition has led her into several duels. She ends up at Libris, with many other talented mathematicians, supporting the Calculor. There is also Zarvora, the odd genius who has invented the Calculor, and who has some mysterious use for it besides simply improving communications and tax collection. And Lemorel's talented but untrustworthy sometime lover, John Glasken. And Dorian, the mute linguist who befriends Lemorel. And Ilyire, a strange man from beyond the deserts at the edge of civilization, with an even stranger talent. And more, as the book continues.
The ideas behind this book are truly fascinating and original. I was kept reading simply by curiosity about things like the Call, and the real reason for the Calculor, and the cause of Greatwinter, and so on. And it must be said that McMullen mostly delivers in this area. The rationale for his future -- the source of the Call, the reason electronics cannot be used, the origin of Greatwinter -- all these are given explanations that work well within the context of the book (although some of the explanations are a bit far-fetched scientifically). But I still have considerable reservations.
My problems with the book were in two main areas: characters and plot. The characters are a strange set of, basically, obsessed madmen and madwomen. When the plot requires it, they are happy to fall instantly in love with a stranger, and commit murder, start wars, whatever, to resolve their relationship problems. Moreover they are all essentially immoral. For example, Zarvora, perhaps the closest thing to an overall heroine in the book, kidnaps and imprisons people for years to make the Calculor work. Lemorel has killed something like a dozen people before the book starts. Similar things can be said of many other characters. Indeed, heroes become villains and vice-versa with some regularity. This can be made to work, but not when it is done arbitrarily, as seemed the case here. As for the plot, it is discursive and disjointed. Long stretches dragged alarmingly towards the middle of the book. At times, the author resorts to summary, and authorial voice explanations of tricky bits, in order to advance us to where we need to be.
On balance, I do recommend reading Souls in the Great Machine. It has definite faults, but also definite good points. The ending is rousing and fairly satisfying. Even though the characters are not very believable, they are interesting. And the book is marked by a definite exuberance that makes it a fun read.
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
The Machine is great but ..., October 25, 2000
Souls in the Great Machine is an epic novel set in Australia of the distant future. An unspecified disaster and extended winter has erased most traces of world of the 21st century. Electricity is a memory, steam engines are forbidden, and a siren "Call" of unknown origin periodically lures untethered people and large animals to their death.
This is an ambitious book and the first half of the story is well told as we follow the ruthless librarian Zevora's struggle to build her beamflash network and Calculator. The Calculator is a primitive computer where the "circuits" are actually people who have been pressed into service. The development of the beamflash system and Calculator mirror the modern development of the personal computer and internet and you do get the feeling that such as system could be built without electricity and silicon.
After this promising start, the novel begins to unravel. Characters are constantly bumping into each other by chance as they travel around the interior of Australia. The coincidental meetings become more and more annoying as credibility is stretched. Eventually, one of Zevora's lieutenants, Lemorel, breaks away from her service and rallies what amounts to a barbarian horde which she uses to attack the cities under Zevora's control. This is a major plot point and the fighting occupies much of the novel. Unfortunately, Lemorel's motivation for starting her rebellion is not convincing and she plunges an entire continent into war for little apparent reason other than the author wanted to have the war occur.
The ending of the book feels rushed as too many characters and plots are wrapped up very quickly. Despite the multitude of characters populating this story the most interesting "character" is the Calculator itself. It seems more real that most of the people we meet because so many characters are introduced that we never really get to know any of them in any detail as one person blurs into another. Much of the great promise of the first half of the novel is dissipated in the hurried conclusion.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Train Wreck, January 12, 2002
Souls in the Great Machine is a big book filled with lots of great big Science Fiction ideas. Enough ideas to make the average sci-fi fan drool in anticipation.
Big Idea One: Humanity in post-apocalyptic Australia is regularly beset by The Call, a strange siren call that makes everything larger then a small dog drawn to the south like lemmings are drawn to the sea.
Big Idea Two: Something is going on in outer space. Some sort of intelligence is building a structure in Earth orbit designed to reflect light away bringing on the next Greatwinter.
Big Idea Three: Despite a complete lack of technology, a huge computer is being designed and built. Not with circuit boards and transistors, but with kidnapped human beings armed with abacuses.
And there is a whole lot more that goes on. Human powered galley trains, networks of light towers transmitting coded messages across the continent, and so on.
But the focus is in this book is on the technology. Granted, it's cool technology, but after a while it really gets tiresome. By the time I was finished, I knew more then I ever wanted to know about post-apocalyptic trains. In fact, this story could have been call Souls Riding the Great Trains. Ultimately, I cared more about the machines in this book then the people.
And here is the big problem. The characters act in an illogical and inconsistent manner. The author suffers from a God complex. Need a war in the West? So-and-so will start one. Why did so-and-so do that? Because the author made them do it. The characters are not evil, they are written that way.
Once the characters start to careen off track, the story follows. What begins as compelling story-telling, ends as a train wreck of inconsistencies. Even the Big Ideas get wasted (the source of The Call is just plain stupid and disappointing). For me, this is not Book One in the Greatwinter Series, it's Book Only.
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