Kim Miller
My first foray into the mind of Ted Chiang. What a fascinating time. A mix of stories that stepped back and forth over the border into science fiction.
A group of miners are recruited to dig into the vault over the Earth and into heaven at the top of the tower of Babel.
A man recovers from a catastrophic event and finds he has enhanced powers of intellect, sufficient for him to become a fascination to scientists and a threat to the govt.
A linguist is asked to help negotiate conversations with aliens, only to discover that she is having memories of things that have not yet happened. The movie Arrival is based on this story.
In an alternate, almost seampunk, history a team of developers make golems, clay automatons that are powered by cabbalistic names impressed upon them.
Imagine a world where angels make regular appearances in frightening events of power that leave some people dead or injured and others miraculously healed. Would you go chasing them?
And what if you could turn off the feature in your brain that makes some people look attractive so that you could then treat all people equally?
My first foray into the mind of Ted Chiang. What a fascinating time. A mix of stories that stepped back and forth over the border into science fiction.
A group of miners are recruited to dig into the vault over the Earth and into heaven at the top of the tower of Babel.
A man recovers from a catastrophic event and finds he has enhanced powers of intellect, sufficient for him to become a fascination to scientists and a threat to the govt.
A linguist is asked to help negotiate conversations with aliens, only to discover that she is having memories of things that have not yet happened. The movie Arrival is based on this story.
In an alternate, almost seampunk, history a team of developers make golems, clay automatons that are powered by cabbalistic names impressed upon them.
Imagine a world where angels make regular appearances in frightening events of power that leave some people dead or injured and others miraculously healed. Would you go chasing them?
And what if you could turn off the feature in your brain that makes some people look attractive so that you could then treat all people equally?
Pulling a city along rail tracks for some strange but urgent reason, a community of people struggle to keep ahead of some un-named horror that those at the top wanted kept secret. The story started out innocently enough, then became strange and then weird before turning dangerous. At the end everything came unstuck with a final resolution that was very cleverly understated.
Pulling a city along rail tracks for some strange but urgent reason, a community of people struggle to keep ahead of some un-named horror that those at the top wanted kept secret. The story started out innocently enough, then became strange and then weird before turning dangerous. At the end everything came unstuck with a final resolution that was very cleverly understated.
Based in form on Canterbury Tales, a group of pilgrims travel to the planet Hyperion, the Time Tombs and the Shrike and tell their personal stories on the way. I thought the setup was clumsily written and needed a re-write to make those initial conversations more organic.
The pilgrims and their stories cover a wide range of experiences and are told in varying voices. There is existential horror, space opera, self indulgent extravagance, noir detective, love story, and political intrigue.
By the time of story three or four we realise that there are interlinking threads between them. The last story reveals the undercurrents of manipulation and betrayal that have brought these people together.
The Time Tombs are a continuing mystery, said to be moving backward through time. They are inhabited/guarded by a blade covered monster called the Shrike. Also called the Lord of Pain, it impales victims on the Tree of Pain. The origin of the Shrike is not revealed but it appears to have been recently released and causes mass death and people are fleeing the planet.
The book ends in absurdity with the pilgrims holding hands as they walk to the Time Tombs, singing We're Off to See the Wizard. Book #2 waits in the wings.
Based in form on Canterbury Tales, a group of pilgrims travel to the planet Hyperion, the Time Tombs and the Shrike and tell their personal stories on the way. I thought the setup was clumsily written and needed a re-write to make those initial conversations more organic.
The pilgrims and their stories cover a wide range of experiences and are told in varying voices. There is existential horror, space opera, self indulgent extravagance, noir detective, love story, and political intrigue.
By the time of story three or four we realise that there are interlinking threads between them. The last story reveals the undercurrents of manipulation and betrayal that have brought these people together.
The Time Tombs are a continuing mystery, said to be moving backward through time. They are inhabited/guarded by a blade covered monster called the Shrike. Also called the Lord of Pain, it impales victims on the Tree of Pain. The origin of the Shrike is not revealed but it appears to have been recently released and causes mass death and people are fleeing the planet.
The book ends in absurdity with the pilgrims holding hands as they walk to the Time Tombs, singing We're Off to See the Wizard. Book #2 waits in the wings.
Overall a fun read but set in a dark and dangerous world. A nerdy teenager is abducted to another planet and things go wrong. Pretty standard stuff there, but Witham throws in some mystery, 'What happens to that guy from the first chapter?', and 'Who does everybody think this teenager is anyway?'.
There is a fantasmagoria of creatures, a frilly polka dot dressed rhino, talking cat people, crocodile enforcers, and more spiders than necessary, the full catastrophe. It's a book of excess from start to finish and I get the impression that Witham is happily trolling the genre, all the way to the cliffhanger ending.
I'm looking forward to Book 2 in what I believe is a trilogy.
Overall a fun read but set in a dark and dangerous world. A nerdy teenager is abducted to another planet and things go wrong. Pretty standard stuff there, but Witham throws in some mystery, 'What happens to that guy from the first chapter?', and 'Who does everybody think this teenager is anyway?'.
There is a fantasmagoria of creatures, a frilly polka dot dressed rhino, talking cat people, crocodile enforcers, and more spiders than necessary, the full catastrophe. It's a book of excess from start to finish and I get the impression that Witham is happily trolling the genre, all the way to the cliffhanger ending.
I'm looking forward to Book 2 in what I believe is a trilogy.