original idea, engagingly told
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This is an original book, told in an engaging way that keeps you turning the pages from the moment you start reading. It's kinda post apocalyptic in as much as everyone has to fend for themselves and start from scratch in a new environment, and it also looks at ideas of the afterlife and different perceptions of heaven. It is fascinating to read about the different people and how they react to one another with different social conventions, and how they utilise the skills they used in their own periods of history. This is a great sci-fi novel, but once you start reading one, you're going to want to track down the complete series! Great Sci-fi!
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A wonderful idea, told with greater than adaquate skill
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This story is based on an idea so big it's not surprising it took four sequels and a further hundred or so characters to express it in its entirety. As a piece of science fiction, the science is believably presented (for the most part), cohesive, and intriguing, and the fiction is of a marvelously inventive calibre. In fact, it could be considered as bordering on science fantasy - the situations are certainly fantastic enough, and there's a lot of action. In fact, I found this to be the one real weak spot of the series as a whole - too much time has gone into describing various fight scenes (be it among makeshift aircraft, between proud boats, or simply good old fashioned fisticuffs) in blow-by-blow detail. Personally, I found this occasionally had the effect of making the story seem childish and the writing seem laboured.
The writing itself is not of an amazingly high quality, but it doesn't suffer at the expense of the ideas as much as in many other SF and F novels. It's not bad; it's just obviously not the focus of the story, that's all.
In any case, it would be worth putting up with far worse for the sheer pleasure of reading about Alice (In Wonderland)'s meeting with Mark Twain, or how King John might interact with Herman Goring.
All in all, a dazzeling and readable piece of inventive storytelling, well worth a littel time and money. But be warned: if you're gonna read one, you're pretty much commiting yourself to completing the entire series.
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A haunting tale, and the best book in the series
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All humans ever born awakened in the valley of a monstrous river winding its course around the planet, can a novelist be any more ambitious? The daring hero is a known icon of his time, Sir Francis Richard Burton, now in the explorer's ultimate quest, to find the origins of that river and the gods who created it. A provoking caleidoscope, stuffed with history banged together, not a single dull page.
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Canada