Skip to main content

Into Everywhere (SF) - Paul McAuley ***

This sequel to Paul McAuley's excellent Something Coming Through holds a lot of promise. Like its predecessor it is set in a near future where we are travelling to multiple worlds through gateways after first contact with two alien species. On these frontier planets, humans uncover alien artefacts from now disappeared races - some result in great medical and scientific breakthroughs... others modify the brains of those who activate them, mostly in a negative fashion.

Another similarity with the first book is the alternation of two initially very different timelines which come together as you get through the story, in this case linked particularly by an individual who appears initially in very different ways. One thread, which I enjoyed more, features Lisa, a former tomb raider seeking alien artefacts who has become a loner living with her enhanced dog before her ex-husband drags her into a complex situation. The other features a rather Dune-like noble house, where a young man's attempts to rebel against family strictures becomes a fight for survival as dark forces attack.

So far, so good - and I very much enjoyed it to begin with. But by the time I got half way through I was beginning to feel that I had been reading it for months. The action is drawn out and seems to take ages to get anywhere. It simply lacked the narrative drive of the first book. The ideas are still great though.

Things do pick up past the mid-way point and I enjoyed it again at the end, where I found the first book hard to put down, this one I had to force myself to come back to. If you read and enjoy Something Coming Through, it's well worth getting Into Everywhere as well - but it didn't live up to my (very high) expectations.

Paperback:   
Kindle:  
Using these links earns us commission at no cost to you
These articles will always be free - but if you'd like to support my online work, consider buying a virtual coffee:
Review by Brian Clegg - See all Brian's online articles or subscribe to a weekly email free here
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ignorance: How it drives science – Stuart Firestein *****

This is a delightful little book that really gets you thinking. I stress the ‘little’ part not as a negative, but as a good thing. There is nothing worse than fat, bloated popular science books where the author feels they have to get 120,000 words to be taken seriously. This is the sort of book that can be read in a couple of hours – but you will get so much more out of it than one of those tedious doorstops. The premise underlying the book is in once sense extremely simple, yet is fundamental to an understanding of what science is and what scientists do. And it is an understanding that is totally at odds with the typical way science is portrayed both in university lectures and popular science books. As Stuart Firestein points out, what is important is not the facts, but rather the area of ignorance. The interesting part and the fundamental heart of science is not about what we know, but about what we don’t know and where we want to look next. Take this lovely quote: ‘Working ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Who Invented the Computer? – Ian Watson

Ian Watson is the author of  The Universal Machine  and featured in a recent  Four Way Interview . Saturday June 23 2012 was the centenary of the birth of Alan Turing, the troubled genius who invented the modern computer. Why though do so few people recognize his name and his great achievements? In 1936 English mathematician Alan Turing, published a paper,  On Computable Numbers, with an application to the Entscheidungsproblem . This became the foundation of computing. In it Turing presented a theoretical machine that could solve any problem that could be described by instructions encoded on a paper tape. A Turing Machine could calculate square roots, whilst another might solve Sudoku puzzles. Turing demonstrated you could construct a single  Universal Machine  that could simulate any Turing Machine. One machine solving any problem for which a program could be written – sound familiar? He’d invented the computer. Then,  computers  were peop...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Star Book – Peter Grego ****

This attractive landscape format book combines an excellent introduction to the stars and basic astronomy with a set of star maps, plus in depth looks at some of the stars featured, with a  bonus section on the solar system. Amazon says it’s a hardback, but in fact it’s a paperback with a rather ingenious cover – you can’t tell from the photo, but the words ‘The Star Book’ are punched through as a series of holes that show the white paper of the next page beneath. Like many astronomy/space books, the cover lacks shelf appeal because it is mostly black, but at least there is some original thought here. Unlike many books in this format which tend to concentrate on the pictures, there is a good deal of excellent text by Peter Grego, so there was no feeling that you were only getting the star maps and star ‘biographies’, something these days much more suited to an iPad or smartphone app. Instead, the opening 30 or so pages give a very good introduction that would be valuable to ...
Post a Comment
Read more