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Ventus Hardcover – December 8, 2000

by Karl Schroeder (Author)

27 customer reviews

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Ventus is a large-scale Hard SF adventure novel in the tradition of Larry Niven, Vernor Vinge, and Arthur C. Clarke. Karl Schroeder, a physicist and writer, is a winner of Canada's Aurora Award. His first novel was called the best first fantasy of the year by Science Fiction Chronicle, and now his first SF novel launches a major career in SF.

Young Jordan Mason, on the terraformed planet Ventus, has visions. Kidnapped by Calandria May--a human from offworld sent to investigate the AIs (the Winds) of Ventus--Jordan is desperate to find the meaning of his visions, desperate enough to risk calling down the Winds that destroy technology to protect the created environment, who descend and wreak havoc. As a result Jordan escapes from Calandria and sets out to discover his destiny on his own. Calandria and others, both human and AI, search for Jordan, who holds the key to catastrophe or salvation.

Ventus is an epic journey across a fascinating planet with a big mystery--why have the Winds fallen silent? It is one of the major, ambitious SF novels of the year and the international launch of an important new hard SF writer.

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Product Details

Hardcover: 512 pages
Publisher: Tor Books; 1st edition (December 8, 2000)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 031287197X
ISBN-13: 978-0312871970
Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 1.6 x 9.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds
Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,035,883 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #69559 in Books > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Science Fiction

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A marvellous new voice in science fiction

ByCory Doctorowon January 14, 2001

Format: Hardcover

The planet Ventus is a marvel of the terraformer's art. Rather than shoving around great loads of soil, gasses and liquids to make the world hospitable, Ventus' designers deployed a mere 70 kilos of intelligent nanotechnology. When the nanos landed, they used the world's fabric to copy themselves, absorbing the world's foundations as a sponge absorbs a bucketful of water, until the very planet was intelligent -- or rather, intelligences, a collection of autonomous gods and demigods and sprites and spirits, collectively called the Winds.
Ventus sings. The ocean sings, "I am an ocean," and the waves sing, "I am a wave." The Winds sing their songs as they negotiate among themselves for the preparation of the world for the human masters to come. The clouds negotiate with the crops to provide water, the earthmovers negotiate with the sod over mineral allocation. Ventus is a Garden, a jewel of a world in a universe populated with innumerable humans and post-humans, and machine-human intelligences that embody as entire planets.
Ventus is a garden, fallen. A thousand years after the terraforming project, the Winds have forgotten their human masters. Now the Winds barely tolerate the fallen inhabitants of the garden world, capriciously manifesting as avenging angels that smash overly technological artifacts and their makers; manifesting as sinister morphs that maintain ecological balance by tearing bears apart to make gophers; manifesting as the attenuated, magnetic celestials whose Heaven hooks crush masonry and rend bone as they seek to expunge infectious humanity.
Jordan Mason, the boy-hero of the story, has been unwittingly implanted with off-world technology that turns him into a spy for Armiger, the avatar of the fallen God/world 3340. It's this very technology that makes him a target of the ruling machines, who come to perceive him a foreign technology that must be eliminated by the world's all-powerful immune system. Aided by the bounty-hunters Caladria May and Axel Chan, Jordan learns to control his technology and finds that the world itself is alive, shouting and singing in a billion variegated voices. Gradually, the boy comes to communicate with the planet itself, and to discover the internecine battles that have turned Ventus from Heaven to Hell.
Schroeder's a voracious autodidact, and he weaves his multifarious backgrounds into the storyline, burying clues to Ventus's mysteries in avant-garde linguistics, in pervasive computing theory, in cryptography, and in the theology of his apostate Mennonite forefathers. The book is as epic in scope as The Lord of the Rings, but more nuanced; it's as technologically daring as Snow Crash, but better controlled, with a narrative that makes its many pages fly past. Schroeder's created a startling, thought-provoking marvel of a book, a voice to equal any of the new guard that the Commonwealth has materialized of late: Scotsmen Ken MacLeod and Iain Banks and Aussie Greg Egan have a new contemporary.

0Comment 37 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Well plotted and rich in ideas

ByCynthia S. Froningon November 4, 2003

Format: Mass Market Paperback

I almost didn't read Ventus because I was disappointed in my first Schroeder novel, Permanence. I'm glad I gave it a try. Ventus suffers from some of the same problems present in Permanence: Schroeder's writing style is undeveloped, as are his characters. Indeed, he suffers from the classic characterization flaw of telling rather than showing (we basically have to take the narrator's word for it that Calandria May is unhappy with life, for example). Nevertheless, Ventus is overall a success. Schroeder keeps the plot moving and deftly handles the large cast of characters. The real centerpiece here is the planet, Ventus, and as we slowly learn more about its history and purpose, it becomes the most interesting character in the book. Although Schroeder doesn't develop them as far as he might, his ideas concerning the uses of nanotechnology, the nature of humanity and sentience, and far-future lifestyles and ethics are original and thought-provoking. Ventus is good SF.

0Comment 18 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Possibly the SF book of the year

BybooksforabuckVINE VOICEon December 26, 2000

Format: Hardcover

Ventus could be heaven--every drop of water, grain of sand, flake of snow is created and shaped by the nanotechnology that has teraformed the planet and made it earthlike. Yet the self-replicating and fractally self-aware nanos that make up this world view humans with suspicion and bare tolerance. They may have been created to serve humans, but they have left this behind them.
Into this world comes Armiger, once a part of a God (a self-programmed artificial intelligence with superhuman powers and knowledge). If he can subvert the nanotechnology to his own ends, Ventus can become a power base stronger than anything known in the Universe.
Against Armiger stand a pair of off-planet near-humans who defeated the God he served before, and Jordon Mason, a local implanted with a portion of Armiger now turned to be a tool against him. All of their off-world powers offer little help, though, in a world where anything external is treated as a disease and eliminated.
Karl Schroeder makes this intriguing concept a powerful reality. Both characters and philosophical arguments are fully developed and convincing. The growth of Jordon, as he discovers that easy answers don't answer, the humanization of Armiger against his will, and the parallel changes in Calandria May (the off-worlder who seeks Armiger's destruction) are all sympathetic and believable.
Ventus is the best SF novel I've read this year.

0Comment 31 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

I wish I had written it...

ByNicq MacDonaldon August 15, 2003

Format: Mass Market Paperback

A few years ago, back around 1999, I was throwing together ideas for a novel. It was going to be a fantasy that wasn't a fantasy, a hard sci-fi novel about agents of a transhuman "god" trying to bring down another such entity on a backwards planet impregnated with nanotechnology that seemed like magic to it's primitive inhabitants.
Karl Schroeder beat me to it.
This book is, to say the least, fantastic. Schroeder blends Vinge-esque transhuman themes and nanotechological "fantasy realism" with a coming-of-age quest reminiscient of Robert Jordan's "Eye of the World". (I have a suspicion that it's more than just coincidence that the main character's name is Jordan) Thrown into the plot are interesting characters- transhuman assassins, a cyborg demigod, noblemen and royalty who can communicate telepathically with nanotech devices, a sentient starship, a cosmopolitan anthropologist, and more, thrown together in a mission that could decide the fate of the galaxy. Schroeder's intense, fast pace writing style echoes the best cyberpunk, while never succumbing to that genre's attitude. Best of all, the last section of the book explores an interesting philosophical discussion of the relationship between man, science, and nature, one that will hopefully provoke dialogue between environmentalists and transhumanists alike.
All in all, a fantastic book, and a worthwhile read for science fiction and fantasy fans alike.

0Comment 16 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Most Recent Customer Reviews

Highly recommended

Wonderful book. Discovered it quite by accident, but very glad I did. The author has an excellent grasp of how AI, nanotechnology, and unintended consequences can impact...Read more

Published 7 months ago by BobIV

Three Stars

OK read and story but the book didn't need to be as long as it is.

Published 1 year ago by R. Corkran

Excellent book

Ultimate internet of things

Published on July 18, 2014 by Taliaferro Smith

imaginative and well paced

An entertaining read. Phenomenal plot and just the right pace. The kindle format is a bit buggy though with many duplicated pages.

Published on July 14, 2014 by Sheheryar Channah

How did I not know about this book sooner?

Absolutely amazing. Some of the best storytelling I've come across in a long LONG time. Unlike anything I've ever read, in the best possible way!

Published on February 7, 2013 by Alex Whalen

Positive SF in a Medieval Setting

I had seen some of Karl Schroeder's books in the library before, but I never picked one up until now. I'm glad I finally did. This isn't a great book. There are weak spots.Read more

Published on January 28, 2012 by Nash Android

What an adventure!

Complicated and, at times, confusing, but well worth the effort and it does take some effort. Nevertheless, an exciting adventure in a unique world with more to say about humanity...Read more

Published on January 6, 2012 by DickStanley.

A Solid First SF Novel

A myriad of characters and plots on the planet Ventus in the distant future, AIs, nano technology, implants of the post-human variety, an extrapolation of the Web, and more...Read more

Published on December 19, 2009 by Gary Shea

Full of ideas I wish I had though of ...

This book combines the best elements of sci-fi, fantasy, and historical fiction into one. It's set in the far future where most of human civilization wants for nothing, but sent...Read more

Published on March 6, 2008 by I C booklover

Free SF Reader

Ventus is the story of a conflict between artificial intelligences with different aims. Some want to do what they like with planets. Others work with human agents to stop them.Read more

Published on September 3, 2007 by average

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Ventus Hardcover – December 8, 2000

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