Customer Reviews

West of January

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

 

 

In my opinion 'West of January' and 'Shadow' are Dave Duncan's two best books. Not only are these undoubtedly the best of his single book novels, in many ways they are better than his series. My other favourite works by Duncan are his earlier series -- in particular 'A Man of His Word', 'The Great Game' and 'The Seventh Swordman'. West of January and Shadow are a distillation of what is best about Duncan; a coherent and intriguing alternative universe, excellent characterization and plotting -- plus a keen moral edge that is sometimes submerged in the storyline of his series. It's as if you took one of best series and squeezed the essence into a single book. Shadow has been re-released, and I hope the same happens to West of Janurary.

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I've always liked Duncan's SF, and finally got around to this one, which was recently reissued. This is a classic hardscrabble-colony story, set on a resonance-tidelocked planet, where the habitable zone migrates around the world. In their struggle to survive, the colonists have lost most of their technology. The protag is a neolithic-level herdsman, just coming-of-age. He has an untypically upwardly-mobile career.

There are no real surprises here, but good, clean, workmanlike writing that moves right along to an implausible (but fun) power-fantasy wrapup. Recommended for frivolous relaxation.

Here's an enthusiastic review by John Toon, at Infinity Plus {google}
"This is an astonishing exercise in world-building, rich and bold in design, and a complex and emotional biography of its protagonist..."

Happy reading--
Pete Tillman

Like "Shadow," another of Dave Duncan's early books, this is the story of an iconoclastic hero set in the far future, in a world that doesn't work exactly the way ours does. In this world, because of the way the earth revolves and rotates, the sun moves across the sky with agonizing slowness. It takes lifetimes for a region to experience dawn, midday and dusk. From generation to generation, the people of this world forget the catastrophes that occur when the sun moves -- except for the "angels," people who have preserved the ancient knowledge and work to try and save the other people from the destruction that threatens them when the sun moves. The hero of this book, Knobil, was born among the herdsmen, a savage race where the men kill each other and exile their sons so that every man can have as many women and children as possible. Knobil, however, is the son of an angel, and his destiny soon takes him among all the other people of his world -- the beautiful but mindless seafolk, the cruel slavers, the wily traders, the terrible spinsters whose secret he discovers nearly too late.

West of January is science fiction because it is a possible future, but the story is set on a distant world where descendants of the human race struggle to survive. Duncan has created a whole new world with an interesting mythos evolved out of what is remembered of our human race. As always, he tugs at the reader's imaginations with just enough familiarity to make his visions completely different and unique. The world stands up on its own, and again as always, his characters are engaging - perhaps not exactly heroic, perhaps not completely evil.

I enjoyed the book quite a bit and found it to be more fully fleshed than some of Duncan's earlier alternate worlds.

This was my first Dave Duncan book, and I find it hard to believe the others were written by the same guy.

An interesting Sci Fi concept, great profiles of cultures in a very different world, personal growth, voodoo, world conquest: this book's got it all!

Another great title from Dave Duncan. Regardless of genre, Duncan always delivers. If you haven't read all of his books go and do so immediately.