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thearbiter89's review against another edition
3.0
What it's about: In a far-future Solar System recently ravaged by the actions of unknowable alien intelligences, a resourceful young scavenger seeks revenge against the agents that killed his family.
Verdict: Again, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, the worldbuilding in Evening's Empires is excellent, positing a Solar System in decline after a cataclysmic affair and rocked by religious awakening after a bizarre cosmic event called the Bright Moment. But its plot is a meandering, directionless mess with meh-at-best characters, odd plot trajectories, and a conclusion that falls flat after the expectations that have been built up around it in the form of the esoteric mysteries that McAuley has posited as part of his future history. As a work of fiction, it serves as the barest of threads to string together McAuley's otherwise intriguingly imaginative world together.
I give this book: 3 out of 5 Dr Gagarian heads
Verdict: Again, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, the worldbuilding in Evening's Empires is excellent, positing a Solar System in decline after a cataclysmic affair and rocked by religious awakening after a bizarre cosmic event called the Bright Moment. But its plot is a meandering, directionless mess with meh-at-best characters, odd plot trajectories, and a conclusion that falls flat after the expectations that have been built up around it in the form of the esoteric mysteries that McAuley has posited as part of his future history. As a work of fiction, it serves as the barest of threads to string together McAuley's otherwise intriguingly imaginative world together.
I give this book: 3 out of 5 Dr Gagarian heads
gerhard's review
5.0
Wow, what a joy this was to read. Each of The Quiet War books have been quite different, and Evening's Empires is no exception. This is a baroque space opera adventure full of intrigue, wondrous tech and the mysteries of the inner and outer solar system. Plus there is such an element of whimsy: "This is an age of superstition and wishful thinking. The sky is full of evening's empires, and every one of them is founded on sand". A beautiful and intoxicating cornocupia of SF richness and wonder. One of the best genre novels I have read so far this year.
porsane's review
3.0
This is a sad little tale of petty misunderstanding, religious hysteria and vendetta. At what feels like a slow unravelling of the promise of an unlimited future, a young man is family is slaughtered, their cargo ship stolen and he barely escapes to a tiny bubble habitat on an abandoned her it's asteroid.
Everything is breaking down, scholarship, competence, rationality, economics. The main trade seems to be cannibalising left over machinery from the golden age, cults abound, research is now conducted by a handful of eccentric recluses desperate for patrons.
There's a very clever meta plot about what sort of story the characters find themselves in - is it heroic or banal?
Everything is breaking down, scholarship, competence, rationality, economics. The main trade seems to be cannibalising left over machinery from the golden age, cults abound, research is now conducted by a handful of eccentric recluses desperate for patrons.
There's a very clever meta plot about what sort of story the characters find themselves in - is it heroic or banal?
mikewhiteman's review
3.0
This is the fourth entry in the Quiet War series and it jumps even further forward from the time of the original story than the last book, In The Mouth Of The Whale, did.
The focus is on Gajananvihari Pilot, and his quest for revenge after his family's ship is hijacked and the rest of his family killed. Hari escaped with the head of Dr Gagarian, which contains the information the doctor and Hari's father were researching and which the hijackers were trying to steal.
The quest itself is a planet-hopping series of kidnappings and escapes (I lost count of how many times Hari leaves an area via being drugged and taken prisoner) across a galaxy much-faded since the earlier books. Religions flourish and people in general are content to use technology they do not understand and develop it no further.
This all plays into the main themes of the book, which appear to be both an homage to "classic" science fiction stories and styles and also a critique of artists retreading well-worn ground instead of trying to produce something new. Both are blurred somewhat and it is unclear whether McAuley is really attacking the old stories or just people re-using the same ideas - the fact that the plot here is very old-fashioned itself just confuses things further. Perhaps he is venerating the old classics and just gently mocking himself for following their blueprint.
McAuley's writing is as dense as in the rest of the series, making it a bit of a slog sometimes, and the plot and action aren't as engaging as in The Mouth Of The Whale for example, but there is still plenty of interest. Particularly towards the end, when the commentary on SF stories as an art becomes more highlighted, I became more interested in the characters' choices as they related to older stories and tropes, rather than an adventure story of their own.
It is an odd way to close a four-book series, with a reflection on the state of the art only loosely connected to the preceding volumes, but ultimately I think it works, without significantly transcending the form.
The focus is on Gajananvihari Pilot, and his quest for revenge after his family's ship is hijacked and the rest of his family killed. Hari escaped with the head of Dr Gagarian, which contains the information the doctor and Hari's father were researching and which the hijackers were trying to steal.
The quest itself is a planet-hopping series of kidnappings and escapes (I lost count of how many times Hari leaves an area via being drugged and taken prisoner) across a galaxy much-faded since the earlier books. Religions flourish and people in general are content to use technology they do not understand and develop it no further.
This all plays into the main themes of the book, which appear to be both an homage to "classic" science fiction stories and styles and also a critique of artists retreading well-worn ground instead of trying to produce something new. Both are blurred somewhat and it is unclear whether McAuley is really attacking the old stories or just people re-using the same ideas - the fact that the plot here is very old-fashioned itself just confuses things further. Perhaps he is venerating the old classics and just gently mocking himself for following their blueprint.
McAuley's writing is as dense as in the rest of the series, making it a bit of a slog sometimes, and the plot and action aren't as engaging as in The Mouth Of The Whale for example, but there is still plenty of interest. Particularly towards the end, when the commentary on SF stories as an art becomes more highlighted, I became more interested in the characters' choices as they related to older stories and tropes, rather than an adventure story of their own.
It is an odd way to close a four-book series, with a reflection on the state of the art only loosely connected to the preceding volumes, but ultimately I think it works, without significantly transcending the form.
nigellicus's review
5.0
Oh I do enjoy taking a trip around Paul McAuley's future solar system, chasing secrets and technological maguffins and odd sub-cultures in odder places, pursued by assassins and cultists and the past in a quest for the future. Our hero is Hari, marooned after his ship is boarded and his family is killed or captured. He escapes with the head of a scientist locked full of knowledge, and lots of people are after it while Hari himself wants to find what, if anything is left of his family and gain some measure of revenge.
McAuley's writing is crisp and cool and his portrait of the solar system, inhabited but moribund after the fall of an Empire and the rise of millennial cults, with is asteroid garden full of vacuum flowers and moons and habitats and a thawing Earth is fascinating, while Hari's questturns out to be less about revenge and more about getting free of the past.
McAuley's writing is crisp and cool and his portrait of the solar system, inhabited but moribund after the fall of an Empire and the rise of millennial cults, with is asteroid garden full of vacuum flowers and moons and habitats and a thawing Earth is fascinating, while Hari's questturns out to be less about revenge and more about getting free of the past.
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