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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Definately a Mary Gentle Fan,
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This review is from: The Wild Machines:: The Book Of Ash, #3 (Mass Market Paperback)
This novel, the third in the Book of Ash, is really a terrific read. Mary Gentle's narrative is at once visceral and vivid. This series is refreshingly straight foward and yet filled with enough twists and climatic action that I found it an irresistable page turner.For those who have read the prior two novels, the answers to many burning cliff hangers lie within: What is the fate of the remaining Lion Azure? What are the sinister goals of the Ferae Natura Machinae? Why do they seek the destruction of Burgandy? How did Ash come to be among the Griffin-in-Gold? The mix of the emails of the future historians and archaeologists just adds enough of hint to not only what is to come, but how and why... I've already pre-ordered "Lost Burgandy" and can hardly wait...
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Back to Europe where the sun don't shine,
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This review is from: The Wild Machines:: The Book Of Ash, #3 (Mass Market Paperback)
This is the third Book of Ash (the first two are A Secret History and Carthage Ascendent). But this is not a series, the entire work was conceived as one novel and published as four books in the US. In The Wild Machines, Ash, mercenary company leader and incidentally slave-born genetic experiment (as she discovers in Book 2), is on her way back to the rest of her company and away from Carthage. Very bad things are happening. The sun is no longer shining in the parts of Europe that the Visigoth army has conquered, and it's getting cold, just like in Carthage. The voice in Ash's head isn't what she thought it was (a tactical computer) but a creation of the "Wild Machines," silicon lifeforms that are directing Carthage's political and military actions through an artifact. It is the Wild Machines who have encouraged the conquering of Europe, and they tell Ash that they have drawn down the power of the sun.Heady stuff, yet she still has to reunite her company, as only half of them came to rescue her in Book 2. She returns to Burgundy, which becomes central to the Wild Machines plans for world domination. Ash wants to know more about her twin, the general of the Visigoth army called "the Faris." And the Faris wants to know more about Ash. And everyone is panicking as the weather changes, the crops fail, and the sun don't shine. Meanwhile, Pierce Ratcliff, translator of Ash's manuscripts, is handling more bizarre happenings while trying to convince his editor not to yank his book project. The email messages between them continue to let us know that something very wrong has happened to our understanding of reality, taking this work once more from fiction to fantasy to science ficiton, and round about through alternative history a few times...
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Well written, but ploddingly slow,
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This review is from: The Wild Machines:: The Book Of Ash, #3 (Mass Market Paperback)
I was worried something like this might happen. Book 2 in the series (CARTHAGE ASCENDANT) seemed quite slow throughout its middle portions and I was worried that, with Dijon under siege, we would get bogged down in strategy meetings, political maneuvering, and, basically, waiting for something to happen. It turns out, I was unfortunately correct. My main problem here is that nothing really happens in the book until the last 50 pages or so. The amount of plot advancement that took place in this book could probably have been covered in 100 pages. The main characters simply sit in the city, trying to figure out how to get out of their predicament. They never actually DO anything. Endless meetings, discussions, and staring out at the enemy and their uncountable legions and siege engines. I was going stir crazy just reading about it.The one thing that rescued this book from being terribly boring was Gentle's writing. Vivid characters, brilliant dialogue and interaction, and description that makes everything seem real absorb the reader into the story. As in the first two books, Gentle's writing makes up for shortcomings in other areas. Unfortunately, there was just too great a lack of action to make up for here. Additionally, the reader gets answers to some of the questions created in the first two books in the series. How did Ash survive the culling as an infant in Carthage? What makes Burgundy so vital to the Wild Machines' plans? What's been happening in Dijon while Ash and half the troop were in Carthage? Plus, the ongoing mystery that's been unfolding in the wrapper story of the historian gets more compelling as well. Overall, I'd have to say I was disappointed with this book, but it did have some redeeming qualities. Plus, it was an important part in the overall story, despite the fact that it dragged on longer than it really should have.
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