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The Machinery of Light [Paperback]

David J. Williams
3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)

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Book Description

May 25, 2010
 
With The Machinery of Light, David J. Williams completes his furiously paced, stunningly imagined trilogy—a work of vision, beauty, and pulse-pounding futuristic action.
 
September 26, 2110. 10:22 GMT. Following the assassination of the American president, the generals who have seized power initiate World War Three, launching a surprise attack against the Eurasian Coalition’s forces throughout the Earth-Moon system. Across the orbits, tens of thousands of particle beams and lasers blast away at one another. The goal: crush the other side’s weaponry, paving the way for nuclear bombardment of the cities. 

As inferno becomes Armageddon, the rogue commando unit Autumn Rain embarks on one last run. Matthew Sinclair, an imprisoned spymaster, plots his escape. And his former protégé Claire Haskell, capable of hacking into both nets and minds, is realizing that all her powers may merely be playing into Sinclair’s plans. For even as Claire evades the soldiers of East and West amid carnage in the lunar tunnels, the surviving members of the Rain converge upon the Moon, one step ahead of the Eurasian fleets but one step behind the mastermind who created Autumn Rain—and his terrible final secret.
 

Frequently Bought Together

The Machinery of Light + The Burning Skies + The Mirrored Heavens
Price for all three: $34.81

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  • The Burning Skies $13.50
  • The Mirrored Heavens $7.19


Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The 22nd century's WWIII crashes to an unexpected end in this slam-bang conclusion to Williams's Autumn Rain trilogy (after 2008's The Mirrored Heavens and 2009's The Burning Skies). The Russia- and China-led Eurasian Alliance uses two heretofore secret megaspaceships to blast the U.S. and bring the American space fleet to its knees, while the spooky commando triads of Autumn Rain carry out desperate clandestine maneuvers. At the focus of the bloody action is Claire Haskell, the Manilishi, a posthuman supercomputer/cyborg able to implement the theories of her designer Matthew Sinclair, who intends to become God via experiments with teleportation, telepathy, and time travel. Williams's readers will eagerly devour this cyberpunk feeding frenzy, long on dizzying action and sinister tangled politics, but newcomers to the series will struggle with the shallow characterizations and overdoses of X-rated vocabulary. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

A former programmer for the Homeworld videogame series and a graduate of the Clarion workshop, David J. Williams lives in Washington, D.C. The Mirrored Heavens was his first novel.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 432 pages
  • Publisher: Spectra; Original edition (May 25, 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0553385437
  • ISBN-13: 978-0553385434
  • Product Dimensions: 5.4 x 0.9 x 8.2 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #350,978 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

David J. Williams is a science fiction writer who currently lives in Washington D.C. Previously he worked on the HOMEWORLD series of video games.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Wow! Really! May 27, 2010
By Brian
Format: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
Format: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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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Superb Trilogy ending September 3, 2010
Format: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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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars A complete triumph
first things first: i thought the first two books of the Autumn Rain trilogy were very impressive. i picked up this one, eagerly awaiting the conclusion to the saga. Read more
Published 22 months ago by that1guy
4.0 out of 5 stars A Blindingly Fast Ending to a GREAT Trilogy
Literally just finished reading the third book in David J. Williams' Autumn Rain trilogy, The Machinery of Light. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Joshua Palmatier
1.0 out of 5 stars Once again, ebook priced higher than pbook. Fail.
Publishers need to clue-up. Pricing the ebook above the discounted price of the pbook really annoys the customer (me, for example). Read more
Published on May 1, 2011 by Walter Tingle
3.0 out of 5 stars Despite kitchen-sink approach, was an entertaining end to the trilogy
First the not-so-good: Most of the book is written in choppy intercut scenes where each scene-let is as short as a paragraph. Read more
Published on November 16, 2010 by Isaac S. Kohane
1.0 out of 5 stars depressingly dystopian and distractingly disjointed
I am embarassed that I read all three of these books hoping that it would all come together at some point. I guess it kind of did, but not very well. Read more
Published on September 30, 2010 by Jim Molnar
2.0 out of 5 stars Ends with a whimper, not a bang
*MARGINAL SPOILERS FOLLOW*
I enjoyed the first book in this trilogy, The Mirrored Heavens-- the undeniable motive energy got me past the plot holes, annoying stylistic tics,... Read more
Published on September 15, 2010 by Listening Closely
5.0 out of 5 stars A mind blowing conclusion to a stellar trilogy
Lets start off first and note that this is the final book of the Autumn Rain Trilogy. Thus, if you have not read The Mirrored Heavens and The Burning Skies already, you should go... Read more
Published on August 3, 2010 by Erik Huntoon
4.0 out of 5 stars Great conclusion to an actione-packed series
I didn't think that it was humanly possible for David J. Williams to come up with something even more action-packed than both The Mirrored Heavens and The Burning Skies, but... Read more
Published on July 31, 2010 by Patrick St-Denis
2.0 out of 5 stars Needs to Enable Text to Speech
The reviews made this book look promising. But without text to speech, I am not willing to give it a try.
Published on July 27, 2010 by Thomas Evans
4.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable conclusion
The series concluded with just as much over the top action as before, but with an increased amount of metaphysical stuff that was kind of surprising.
Published on July 22, 2010 by David Alexander
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