When We Were Real [Mass Market Paperback]

William Barton (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 1999

Acclaimed for combining grand galactic concepts with realistic characters and penetrating insights, William Barton's award-nominated novels include When Heaven Fell, Acts of Conscience, and The Transmigration of Souls. Now William Barton creates an astonishing empire of mutant humans, forlorn cyborgs, and genetic hybrids struggling for freedom in an unforgiving, endless future.

ORPHANS OF UNCREATED TIME

Violet is an optimod space-pilot -- a beautiful, purple-furred human-fox hybrid. Darius Murphy has escaped an oppressive religious matriarchy for a new life in the stars. Mercenaries crewing ships for the corporation that rules the galaxy from the Glow-Ice Worlds to Centauri Jet, Darius and Violet share a love that transcends wars, centuries...even death.

But in the face of a ruthless power that annihilates inhabited worlds for profit, is love enough? And can even immortals dare to seek happiness in a galaxy without peace, a universe with no freedom?

Editorial Reviews

Review

"INTENSE AND INTENSELY PLEASURABLE".

-- Publishers Weekly (starred review) on Acts of Conscience

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Aspect (June 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446607061
• ISBN-13: 978-0446607063
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,971,369 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More about loss than about space opera, May 2, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: When We Were Real (Mass Market Paperback)

I finished "When We Were Real" (WWWR) a few hours ago after several hours of non-stop reading. I am still thinking about it. Another reviewer compared WWWR to the classic "Forever War", which is indeed a book which came to mind as I read. Against a background of war and wanderings, both novels consider what happens to sentient people when they are separated by vast distances and spans of time. In WWWR, the technology and the settings are well-plotted and believable, but the book seems to me to be primarily an exploration of the implications of semi-immortality more than anything else. What happens to relationships, fights, and the development of sequential families when such events are teased out over centuries rather than months and years? And how much loss can we bear as our hurts accumulate while our blessings seemingly remain in short supply? The author thankfully does not try to rationalise his decision: it's a dirty world but love, somehow, will save us - shades of Auden's "We must love another or die". Other themes that the author brings up indirectly are what it means to (non)human and the place of corporate organisations in society. I found this to be a convincing, often moving, very human SF novel centered around a believably flawed and troubled man moving through a pan-galactic society irrevocably fragmented by time. Well worth the read.

34 of 41 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars It simply didn't work for me., December 9, 1999

By 

Joseph McCauley (Normal, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: When We Were Real (Mass Market Paperback)

Seeing the other favorable reviews already posted here, this book obviously works for some people. I guess it all depends on what you look for in a science fiction book. It left me cold. Barton's writing style was too terse and austere for me - often starting a paragraph with a sentence fragment, and blowing through scenes with too little detail (unless there is anything sexual in it, which he never fails to mention). There was too much of the weird and surreal for my tastes, and I felt too emotionally distanced from the characters, especially the protagonist, to care much what happens to them. There were a lot of good ideas in here, but not all of them work well together and the presentation left a lot to be desired.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A little more plot please..., September 19, 2000

By 

C. King (Seal Beach, Ca USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: When We Were Real (Mass Market Paperback)

This was an interesting read, the first of this author's works I've picked up. There were a number of great scenes in this book but they seemed disjointed, with the characters floating between them in a happenstance way. I wish the author had put more effort into the plot and less into describing the genitalia of the female characters.