Customer Reviews

Voice of the Whirlwind

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

It's probably a good idea to take my review with a grain of salt. I like this book so much there's a passage from it tattooed on my thigh. Yes, you did read that correctly.

Walter Jon Williams is one of the heavyweights of science fiction. His characters are intellegent and engaging, and his books always have a message, but he doesn't go out of his way to beat you over the head with it.

Voice of the Whirlwind, however, is in a class by itself. It has martial arts, love, betrayal, creepy aliens, dry humor, corporate currencies, synthesized drugs, chess, self sacrifice, Uzbekistan...well, basically everything you could ask for in a relaxing, engaging read. Why this book never made the best sellers list is one of the bigger mysteries.

I could rant for hours, but the fact is, the crazier I sound, the less likely it is that you'll listen. So *please* give this one a try.

I picked this off my bookshelf after not having read it for a number of years. Wow, did this book manage to hold up over time! Walter Jon Williams has always been an underrated and underappreciated SF writer; all of his books that I have read have been at least good, with many being great. "Voice of the Whirlwind" falls in the great category. Williams crafted a tightly-written novel that eschews the bloat that often creeps into SF (any genre, for that matter). This book is laser-focused, with no surplusage. The characters are believable, and the story is interesting. It's a military-ish novel without the jingoism and space opera of military SF; a cyberpunk-ish novel that isn't a Gibson clone, and a first contact-ish novel that puts a fresh spin on alien-human interaction. If I have any quibble with the book, it's that part of the plot seems a little overcomplicated to me, but not enough so to be more than a minor distraction than a major problem.

If you like SF, you will almost certainly enjoy this book. I'd even recommend this as a blind purchase for yourself or as a gift. If you don't feel that adventurous, "Voice of the Whirlwind" is definitely worth seeking out at your library.

An intense story with three dimensional characters and realistic portrayals of action, this is a fast-paced, gritty ride into the future. This novel is based on plot and characters (not technology or glitz) and is a real literary contribution to the cyberpunk movement. An enduring classic the day it was published, it addresses issues that are common to veterans of any war--what is life like in peacetime (after the struggle) and what is the value of a so called "broken" veteran of a horrible conflict.

WJW is one of my favorite writers and "Voice.." is one of his best books IMHO, on par with "Hardwired" if not quite as good as "Aristoi". This book is a masterful work of Buddhist literature, made even more delightful by being written in the SF genre.

Bought this book for the cover and was pleasantly suprised by the contents. Very well written, with all the paranoia and action cyberpunk fans expect.I wish he would write more like this one.

For being such a quick read, it is commendable that the author was able to touch on so many different aspects of Sci-Fi. Without really fleshing out any one aspect, you will find many different types /styles of Sci-Fi being introduced: Military flashbacks, Augmentation, Cloning, Alien Mind Control, Genetic modification, CyberPunk, Space Cowboy, Manifest Destiny. All of this is delivered using a soft approach which doesn't take the reader out of this solar system and doesn't jam any hard sci-fi or new vocabulary onto the reader. In this aspect it is much more approachable to readers who are new to Sci-Fi. Moreover, the plot and sub plots will keep even the most seasoned Sci-Fi readers well entertained and suitably misdirected until the last page. (cover art was a missed opportunity)

This book is in what appears to be the same universe as "Hardwired" but at a later time. There are no common characters. This is a highly convoluted plot, but it all makes sense. Very original and imaginative. Wouldn't you want to work for a company called "Far Ranger"?. Highly recomended. Williams books are either excellent or not worth reading. This one is in the former category

Our story starts simply enough. A clone is revived, and is found to be missing some memory. Darwin days, a time of hyper-evolution, where the weak die, from plate glass windows dropped from skyscraper and worse, forms the backdrop of the urban chaos that is the heart of any good cyberpunk novel.

What do you get when you take a young gang member out of France, put him in rigorous training of both the body and the mind in Zen without the morality, and then drop him in the middle of a war that goes bad?

You get the Whirlwind. And the voice of the Whirlwind calls to our hero across death, across 15 years of lost memory, across cultures.

Because those who sow the Wind will reap the Whirlwind, our hero is caught up in the events of a past life (his), that tears apart the current life he is trying to build.

As the reader and our hero uncover the mystery of his past life, the story builds to an inevitable conclusion.

We learn philosophy, and the trap of only getting selected pieces of philosophy. We learn what one must do to survive.

And we enjoy the book immensely.

Three and a half stars rating. Mr. Williams is a good story teller and his futuristic ideas are believable. The plot, and characters are well developed, and the writing is good. There wasn't this uphill, linear progression of interesting to more interesting though. However, there was a level degree of interesting throughout with a strong ending that, although smart, just seemed to be plucked from nowhere.

Voice of the Whirlwind is a complex piece of work, and I'm not ashamed to say I didn't "get it" the first time through. For me it was the kind of novel that opens up like a lotus blossom on a second read, revealing the beauty within.

The contention over whether it's a sequel to Hardwired comes from it taking place in the same universe, but more than a century later. There's little to tie them together; the proper "sequel" to Hardwired is a short short called Solip:System, available in the Williams collection Frankensteins and Foreign Devils.