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ewanmitchell's review against another edition
2.0
Interesting scenario that is let down by the one-note characters, which are constantly increasing instead of developing the characters there are, and monotonous dialogue.
Fairly early on I could not stop noticing that everyone spoke the same, they may have varying opinions or backgrounds but they all used the same wordy vocabulary even the apparently less intelligent characters. I’ve never had this problem before when reading a book.
As interesting as the setting is and the potential for the exotics culture to be explored, I felt I was just reading through mundane chapters to get to something interesting. Even just a compelling conversation.
There are moments I enjoyed, Richard was a character I enjoyed as he was all about self interest, in the same vein as Han Solo. Some of the environment descriptions were beautiful or horrific, the mushroom forest being a standout. The initial reveal was quite exciting as I had gone into the book pretty much blind.
But unfortunately by the end of the day I was happy to have it finished, as by the last couple of chapters I just did not care.
I may pick up the second book to see if things improve but not for a long while as I am just not invested in the plot, characters or prose.
Fairly early on I could not stop noticing that everyone spoke the same, they may have varying opinions or backgrounds but they all used the same wordy vocabulary even the apparently less intelligent characters. I’ve never had this problem before when reading a book.
As interesting as the setting is and the potential for the exotics culture to be explored, I felt I was just reading through mundane chapters to get to something interesting. Even just a compelling conversation.
There are moments I enjoyed, Richard was a character I enjoyed as he was all about self interest, in the same vein as Han Solo. Some of the environment descriptions were beautiful or horrific, the mushroom forest being a standout. The initial reveal was quite exciting as I had gone into the book pretty much blind.
But unfortunately by the end of the day I was happy to have it finished, as by the last couple of chapters I just did not care.
I may pick up the second book to see if things improve but not for a long while as I am just not invested in the plot, characters or prose.
nh64's review against another edition
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
oleksandr's review against another edition
2.0
This is a SF novel that mixed a lot of themes. The book was nominated for Nebula, Hugo and Locus Awards after it was published in 1981. I read is as a part of monthly reading for March 2020 at SciFi and Fantasy Book Club group.
This review contains spoilers for setting up the story, but not of how the story went off. Because it is the first volume of the trilogy, the setting is quite long, roughly a third of the book.
Humans made contact with extraterrestrials in the early XIX century, allowing to solve Earth environmental problems, settle hundreds of colonies and allowing for very long and productive lives due to rejuvenation and regeneration. Moreover, latent psychic powers are liberated, so there are telepaths, kinetics, pyromancers among humans.
On the basis of new knowledge a human scientist created a time travel machine, which can go only in one direction – past, all 6 million years of it – to Pliocene. The scientist dies, but his widow started to use the machine to send to the past all misfits, who ask for it.
There are quite a few characters presented by the author: an anthropologist Bryan, who follows his love; a giant berserk of a man, Stein Oleson, who dreams of going a-Viking; a disgraced space captain Richard Voorhees; a female athlete and emphate Felice Landry from high-gravity world, striving to be accepted as she is; a telepath Elizabeth Orme, who after regeneration lost her talent; a sociopath Aiken Drum; Sister Annamaria Roccaro and Polish exopaleontologist Claude Majewski, who lost his wife and decided to leave the world.
The abovementioned people are grouped together and sent to the past only to find out that there are remnants of extraterrestrial civilization from another galaxy…
I’m sure that I’d have ranked this action-adventure book very high as a teen. It is not a YA novel, most characters are quite mature and there are some adult themes, but the wealth of world-building is great: time travel, psi-powers, aliens, pirates, knights, dwarfs you name it. However right now I see that it is not a serious SF, more an excuse for great adventure with extremely unlikely coincidences and attempts to wove aliens into European folklore (erm, the earliest human ancestor usually assigned to Australopithecus species, who lived 2 million years later than the time period of the book and in Africa, not Europe).
This review contains spoilers for setting up the story, but not of how the story went off. Because it is the first volume of the trilogy, the setting is quite long, roughly a third of the book.
Humans made contact with extraterrestrials in the early XIX century, allowing to solve Earth environmental problems, settle hundreds of colonies and allowing for very long and productive lives due to rejuvenation and regeneration. Moreover, latent psychic powers are liberated, so there are telepaths, kinetics, pyromancers among humans.
On the basis of new knowledge a human scientist created a time travel machine, which can go only in one direction – past, all 6 million years of it – to Pliocene. The scientist dies, but his widow started to use the machine to send to the past all misfits, who ask for it.
There are quite a few characters presented by the author: an anthropologist Bryan, who follows his love; a giant berserk of a man, Stein Oleson, who dreams of going a-Viking; a disgraced space captain Richard Voorhees; a female athlete and emphate Felice Landry from high-gravity world, striving to be accepted as she is; a telepath Elizabeth Orme, who after regeneration lost her talent; a sociopath Aiken Drum; Sister Annamaria Roccaro and Polish exopaleontologist Claude Majewski, who lost his wife and decided to leave the world.
The abovementioned people are grouped together and sent to the past only to find out that there are remnants of extraterrestrial civilization from another galaxy…
I’m sure that I’d have ranked this action-adventure book very high as a teen. It is not a YA novel, most characters are quite mature and there are some adult themes, but the wealth of world-building is great: time travel, psi-powers, aliens, pirates, knights, dwarfs you name it. However right now I see that it is not a serious SF, more an excuse for great adventure with extremely unlikely coincidences and attempts to wove aliens into European folklore (erm, the earliest human ancestor usually assigned to Australopithecus species, who lived 2 million years later than the time period of the book and in Africa, not Europe).
bethanharcourt's review against another edition
4.0
This is a really interesting concept of a world of misfits. I really liked going through everyone's individual stories to begin with. I hope to see more character development and back story of some of the main characters in the next few books.
ejimenez's review against another edition
2.0
This was recommended as a fun romp, and I kept expecting the fun to begin, but it never did. I gave up a little more than halfway through.
steventhesteve's review against another edition
4.0
Solid start to a series, the story ends just at the culmination of one set of events whilst leaving plenty to move onto. This is excellent science fantasy, I find myself comparing it at once to Zelazny's lord of light (as the divide between masters with both scientific and mental/magic abilities and the downtrodden who serve them is quite similar in both tales) and Peter F Hamilton's work (as it's a broad sweeping space opera backdrop with multiple story threads to follow through connected events).
It's even got time travel, sabre toothed tigers, and gladatorial combat. What's not to love?
It's even got time travel, sabre toothed tigers, and gladatorial combat. What's not to love?
vintonole's review against another edition
4.0
Possibly better the second time around. I first read this sometime in high school in the mid-80s and liked it enough to later buy the rest of the series. Which I still own but haven't yet read. I remember liking the idea of the book, but had completely forgotten the details. The second time reading it I think I enjoyed it more because the detailed descriptions of the Pliocene geology and ecosystems made more sense. Now I'm looking forward to learning how the plot turns out and may have to read this and the two other associated series.
fairymodmother's review against another edition
1.0
Do not read this if you are reading it with SFFBC and want to go in without any preconceived notions!
Wow, this is an EXPERIENCE. It is veeeery 80s and did not age well for me.
First I think the author was dared to write a story with: dinosaurs, space travel, pirates, vikings, Catholicism, telepathy, time travel, and sword & sorcery.
So, she did, and then her agent said "listen, only two markets are buying right now--horse girls and men who are reading pulp novels about harems in pleasure domes."
So she added that, too.
What we have is an overly descriptive, overly serious, over the top LSD mash up of cheesy tropes, terms that have become offensive over the years, and a nonsensical geiser of plot points.
Good things:
-If you like D&D, this is a great source of inspiration.
-If you're a horse girl into pleasure domes, boy howdy are you in for a treat.
-There is representation beyond normal racist and homophobic tropes. It still isn't perfect, but it is more than anticipated.
-If you fall asleep while reading it, you won't know what's dream and what's real and it won't matter anyways, because your imagination is just as probable a plot point!
CONTENT WARNINGS:
Wow, this is an EXPERIENCE. It is veeeery 80s and did not age well for me.
First I think the author was dared to write a story with: dinosaurs, space travel, pirates, vikings, Catholicism, telepathy, time travel, and sword & sorcery.
So, she did, and then her agent said "listen, only two markets are buying right now--horse girls and men who are reading pulp novels about harems in pleasure domes."
So she added that, too.
What we have is an overly descriptive, overly serious, over the top LSD mash up of cheesy tropes, terms that have become offensive over the years, and a nonsensical geiser of plot points.
Good things:
-If you like D&D, this is a great source of inspiration.
-If you're a horse girl into pleasure domes, boy howdy are you in for a treat.
-There is representation beyond normal racist and homophobic tropes. It still isn't perfect, but it is more than anticipated.
-If you fall asleep while reading it, you won't know what's dream and what's real and it won't matter anyways, because your imagination is just as probable a plot point!
CONTENT WARNINGS:
Spoiler
homophobia, misogyny, racism, slurs against the Roma, jingoism, slavery, coercion of will, rape, loss of a loved one.ryan_dm's review against another edition
2.0
***This review contains hyperbole.***
This book might be worse (but almost certainly not better) than my rating suggests.
I zoned out from it frequently. Going back and listening to parts again was no help. It's as if some paragraphs and entire chapters had a stealth spell caste upon them that made me forget them immediately.
What I do recall from this book (that I've just finished reading in a single day with no actual distractions) is that if you tore a page out of every fantasy and science fiction novel that you and your local library own, then collated those pages into a book, you'd still have less ideas than the Many-Coloured Land manages to squeeze in and be only slightly less coherent. I'm all for authors being ambitious with their works but I also want them to give ideas time and room to grow. This book throws (what should be) unrelated and unoriginal ideas at you every couple of pages with the end result being disinterest and apathy.
I read this so you don't have to.
This book might be worse (but almost certainly not better) than my rating suggests.
I zoned out from it frequently. Going back and listening to parts again was no help. It's as if some paragraphs and entire chapters had a stealth spell caste upon them that made me forget them immediately.
What I do recall from this book (that I've just finished reading in a single day with no actual distractions) is that if you tore a page out of every fantasy and science fiction novel that you and your local library own, then collated those pages into a book, you'd still have less ideas than the Many-Coloured Land manages to squeeze in and be only slightly less coherent. I'm all for authors being ambitious with their works but I also want them to give ideas time and room to grow. This book throws (what should be) unrelated and unoriginal ideas at you every couple of pages with the end result being disinterest and apathy.
I read this so you don't have to.
scribal's review against another edition
1.0
When I read this many years ago I would have given it 4 stars, but I have no memory of the characters, just the geography (which was compelling)