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A review by jimsgravitas
Poseidon's Wake by Alastair Reynolds
1.0
The cover of this book has this review in bold: "Convincingly optimistic, life-affirming SF" - SFX
Umm no... It is neither of these things. The nihilism in this book is so overwhelmingly in your face that it is really quite sickening. From the book:
"...that every thought, every deed, every hope you've ever had is futile. That the universe will end, and forget itself. That there is no such thing as meaning. That you might as well kill yourself now because, in the end, your existence won't count for anything. That there is no posterity. There is no Remembering. That nothing passes into anything..."
This theme has been consistent across the entire series but one wonders why make such a broken and obviously deficient philosophy the core message of your book? I mean I understand it is the natural conclusion of materialism and scientism, and in particular, philosophy masquerading as 'science' but really if this your view then why bother publishing? It is all meaningless right...
This leads to the characters which are all hopelessly shallow, devoid of character and content, prone to making weird, baseless moral decisions that everyone just accepts. The entire cast could have committed suicide and the story would have remained just as devoid of meaning and content as the philosophy it espouses.
Came looking for mind-altering scifi, was left with pointless futile repugnant nihilism.
Umm no... It is neither of these things. The nihilism in this book is so overwhelmingly in your face that it is really quite sickening. From the book:
"...that every thought, every deed, every hope you've ever had is futile. That the universe will end, and forget itself. That there is no such thing as meaning. That you might as well kill yourself now because, in the end, your existence won't count for anything. That there is no posterity. There is no Remembering. That nothing passes into anything..."
This theme has been consistent across the entire series but one wonders why make such a broken and obviously deficient philosophy the core message of your book? I mean I understand it is the natural conclusion of materialism and scientism, and in particular, philosophy masquerading as 'science' but really if this your view then why bother publishing? It is all meaningless right...
This leads to the characters which are all hopelessly shallow, devoid of character and content, prone to making weird, baseless moral decisions that everyone just accepts. The entire cast could have committed suicide and the story would have remained just as devoid of meaning and content as the philosophy it espouses.
Came looking for mind-altering scifi, was left with pointless futile repugnant nihilism.