(For Djinn's info - it's good
and the Shrike makes an appearance!)
Think of me as a lit.crit. Mt St. Helens......run screaming from my pyroclastic flow [img]graemlins/wow.gif[/img]
Bloom by
Wil McCarthy
HARD SF, BIG IDEAS, SPACE OPERA, ENORMOUS REVALATIONS. All these are strands and concepts familiar to readers of the genre and when they work they are good (sometimes exceptional) When they don’t, they generally suck
. It’s a common failing for the some of the less enjoyable exponents of “hard sf” to try to distract you from their inability to handle basic literary essentials such as character development, plot etc. by drowning you in a flood of pseudo-science. When I read the dustjacket precis of this book, I feared the worst. Boy was I wrong. I have never come across Wil McCarthy before, but on the evidence of this I will definitely keep an eye open for more of his output.
Without giving too much away, the book revolves around a near future attempt by a motley crew of a spacecraft from the human colony of Ganymede to revisit Earth and the inner solar system. The major problem is that all that area of space and the planets have been completely infested by a strange organic/nano-tech hybrid called the Mycosystem. That’s the BIG IDEA. What I will say is that the author handles the balance of plot, characterisation and pacing superbly and even the final denouememt is seemlessly integrated into the whole structure. Highly recommended !