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Reviewed by Michael Woodard
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Two thousand years from now, mankind ekes out a haggard, almost feudal existence. The earth is recovering from a 'Greatwinter,' the result of a long forgotten war, while ever alert 'sentinels' in the sky call down instant destruction on mechanical devices. Old technology is not the only threat, however - from the sea, a strange and mysterious 'Call' lures both man and beast to their death. In Australian society, Librarians, keepers of ancient knowledge, have become an elite class and fight duels for honor and position. The leader of the librarians, Cybeline Zarvora, intends to defy all of these new rules of existence - but to do so, she must first secretly build her own machine… |
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Souls in the Great Machine is the first part of Sean McMullen's Greatwinter Trilogy. Is it possible to read something extremely well written, with great inventiveness and a brilliant concept and still be annoyed as hell when you put down the book? That's kind of how I felt when finishing Souls in the Great Machine. I loved so much about this book it should easily overshadow my little gripes. Well, apparently they aren't so little if it bugs me this much, right? Right. The problem is- I can't really say too much about what is buggin' me without giving away some big plot twists. The most I can say is that I don't approve of some of the character development in the book. It sounds petty, and maybe it is, but in order to create and maintain believable characters, they have to behave in something I consider a 'realistic' way. The truth is, I'm not even sure if most people would notice what I'm talking about without me giving specific examples. So maybe it's just me- maybe I just had the wrong impression of a few of the characters. It's hard to say. I'll have to see what happens in the next part of the trilogy, The Miocene Arrow. Outside of that personal gripe, the book was excellent. I would recommend it. It would be worth reading if only for it's impressively developed world - but it offers much more than that: it was fun, brutal, inventive and entertaining. His characters were enjoyable, even if I didn't personally like where he took some of them. It very much is a really good book, and I'm intensely curious to know if anyone else feels similar to how I do about not feeling some of his character development was 'quite right,' or if it's just me.
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