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johnday's review against another edition
5.0
A wonderful sequel to "Something Coming Through" is one of the best SF books I've read in a long time.
jumbleread's review against another edition
5.0
Heard about this author snd book on the Coode Street Podcast, a podcast that talks about sci fi.
The story puts forward very interesting science and tech concepts. The human characters carry the story with humor and humanity, and the other non humsn characters grow into fantastical beings that kept me thinking after I put the book down.
Imaginative, clever, entertaining
The story puts forward very interesting science and tech concepts. The human characters carry the story with humor and humanity, and the other non humsn characters grow into fantastical beings that kept me thinking after I put the book down.
Imaginative, clever, entertaining
sbisson's review against another edition
5.0
Recent Reads: Into Everywhere. Paul McAuley's ambitious Jackaroo novels conclude, for now. Aliens helped us. But we remain a glorious mess.
gerhard's review
5.0
McAuley has officially out-2001ed Arthur C. Clarke with That Ending. I'm still scratching my head about it though. And sniffling about the dog. This is also officially McAuley's Stephen King SF magnum opus: it has everything in it. What a fun set of novels ... I get the feeling we haven't heard the last from Unlikely Worlds.
mikewhiteman's review
3.0
This is the sequel to Something Coming Through, which promised much with its inscrutable aliens gifting humanity high technology but not doing much to help them understand it, but boiled down into a woman on the run thriller with interesting background dressing.
Again, we have two strands, following Lisa - a coder and ex-prospector trying to find out why her separated husband died mysteriously - and Tony - a junior member of a disgraced noble family freebooting through space and searching for some treasure that can restore his and their reputation - as they deal with their personal issues which gradually entwine and become part of the larger situation.
McAuley's writing is lightheartedly ironic, full of pithy responses and SF/pop culture references as usual, and the space pirates and tomb raiders adventure setting makes the whole thing more fun and engaging than the previous volume.
It did take a while to get going, as the first third of the book seemed to be constant betrayals, kidnappings and catastrophes, but once Lisa and Tony began to become more positive actors things started to run along nicely.
There are no grand reveals given about what the Jackaroo and the !Cha wanted or their intentions towards humanity; instead the mirror is turned back towards us, as Tony and Lisa must account for their own decisions instead of the crutch of following the alien code eidolons in their heads.
That ultimate point, that we should not fixate on magical solutions but rather the effects of our own choices and actions, is very much a worthwhile one, even if it means missing out on some potential fun with vastly powerful aliens.
nigellicus's review
5.0
Having been gifted fifteen worlds and the limited means of getting there by the enigmatic alien Jackaroo, as of the end of the previous book, humanity had stumbled across a fleet of ships left behind by a long-vanished race. In fact, the remains of long-vanished races are everywhere, that's pretty much the main theme of the book. The ruins of ancient civilsations and their technologies are scattered across space and a network of wormholes that allow humans to travel and dig up trouble and make other trouble of their own. A lot of the technologies aren't dead, but they are alien and incomprehensible and unpredictable and can literally get into people's heads with all sorts of interesting consequences.
In the past Lisa and her husband were infected by an alien eidolon which has lain dormant ever since, until one day it returns, bringing unwelcome attention from the Geek Police, who control outbreaks of alien technology, and sending her off on a dangerous and life-altering journey in search for answers and her missing husband.
In the future, a young freebooter, son of a powerful and wealthy, but slightly disgraced family, is chased from a planet with potentially lucrative findings by claim-jumpers, only to find himself enmeshed in betrayals and intrigues from within his family and without.
The stories move along at a fast pace, between the dusty archaeological sites of a frontier world to the more baroque settings across multiple wormhole worlds as plans and vendettas and deeply ancient hidden secrets all come to fruition.
In the past Lisa and her husband were infected by an alien eidolon which has lain dormant ever since, until one day it returns, bringing unwelcome attention from the Geek Police, who control outbreaks of alien technology, and sending her off on a dangerous and life-altering journey in search for answers and her missing husband.
In the future, a young freebooter, son of a powerful and wealthy, but slightly disgraced family, is chased from a planet with potentially lucrative findings by claim-jumpers, only to find himself enmeshed in betrayals and intrigues from within his family and without.
The stories move along at a fast pace, between the dusty archaeological sites of a frontier world to the more baroque settings across multiple wormhole worlds as plans and vendettas and deeply ancient hidden secrets all come to fruition.
johnday's review
5.0
A wonderful sequel to "Something Coming Through" is one of the best SF books I've read in a long time.
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