- Hardcover: 320 pages
- Publisher: Gollancz; First edition (16 Nov 1998)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 185798532X
- ISBN-13: 978-1857985320
- Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 14.2 x 3.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 4,441,836 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Alison Sinclair's previous sf novels were the well-reviewed Legacies and Blueheart; this is her third. It opens in a bizarre setting of huge, cathedral-like caverns within an alien spacecraft--an environment designed for humans. This ship's broadcasts to Earth invited potential hitch-hikers to indicate their wish by waiting at the sea's edge on one particular night. No other promises are made, but more than 100,000 people accept the invitation...to find themselves suddenly aboard, with gaps in their memories. Alien biotechnology gobbles all their electronic gear (bad luck for the guy with the pacemaker) and poses subtle, continuing challenges. What follows is a slow learning process, sometimes painful, sometimes rewarding, as the passengers struggle to master their surroundings, and vice-versa. Both must adapt. Meanwhile, where are the aliens themselves? There are hints and glimpses, but also an artful reference to Waiting for Godot... Sinclair tells her tale in jigsaw sections, from a number of very human, believable and likeable character viewpoints. The traditional four horsemen--death, famine, plague, and even war--all harass our spacefarers before the final revelations and an exhilarating vision of the philosophy behind this immense journey. Cavalcade is written with charm and professional skill. --David Langford
Book Description
The aliens have landed and sent out an invitation to the people of the world - a one-way ticket to a better life - first rate sf from a young British author
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A bit of a let-down...,
By A Customer
This review is from: Cavalcade (Hardcover)
It is always tough for a writer to keep writing brilliant novels, and Alison Sinclair's previous two, 'Legacies' and 'Blueheart' were both superb books: well-constructed, with believable characters and convincing denouement.However, 'Cavalcade' is a bit of a let-down. I am actually surprised it was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke award; perhaps this was an attempt to make up for her other two books being so unfairly ignored. It might be because I had just read Ian Macdonald's 'Chaga' and 'Kirinya', which deal with alien contact, and particularly the political, cultural and scientific conflicts within the spectrum of human responses, in a more convincing manner. It might be because it seems such a tired subject (humans wait for alien spaceship to carry them away...). However, the real reason I think is that, while Sinclair is adept at portraying non-human and future human emotions and politics, she seems less certain on more contemporary ground. The characters in this book do not resonate, and do not seem real. Sinclair is also unable to convey the vast numbers and range of humans on board the alien ship. Her political insight does not convince (the 'anarchist' grouping was especially sterotypical and poorly drawn). And where are the nutters, the cultists and the conspiracy theorists, who would be the first ones to be attracted to an alien ship? All those taken aboard are so rational, so boring and so reasonable, even the criminals and the soldiers! This is a fault she shares with Kim Stanley Robinson (Mars Trilogy) incidentally, though he has a better reason for all his characters being intelligent, as they has been specifically chosen for this resaon. Unfortunately the characters in Cavalcade seem at times like a debating society transported into space. I know the novel creates a deliberately artificial setting in which to explore certain emotions and political dilemmas, it is just that this technique has to be performed with immense care and precision to make it work. Any lapses and it can seem false and pretentious. Maureen F. McHugh ('China Mountain Zhang') does it brilliantly, and so did Sinclair in her previous novels - this one however, has two many faults to make the performance convincing, which is a great shame.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Less than inspiring,
By A Customer
This review is from: Cavalcade (Paperback)
It seems entirely fitting that this book was listed for the Arthur C. Clarke award: it's style is very similar to his, indeed the plot of Cavalcade owes a huge debt to Clarke's Rama series. Also reminiscent of Clarke is Sinclair's tendency to focus on the character interaction a little too much, and to ignore the science fiction. It is, after all, a science fiction novel, and will be read almost exclusively by SF fans. I would also criticise the fact that the characters all seem to be very similar: surgeons, anthropoligists, drifters, scientists and military men all speak in cultured tones with large vocabularies, making it less easy to distinguish between who's talking at any given time, and making them all seem one-dimensional. Only one of them talks & thinks in a less educated manner, but Sinclair fails to convey this convincingly, occasionally lapsing into verbose loquacity like all the other characters. The plot is slow, which wouldn't be a problem if the characterisation was better, and Sinclair has an irritiating habit of breaking up lines of dialogue in the most illogical places. Example: "I see you," said Morgan darkly, "haven't been listening." A small niggle, perhaps, but after three hundred pages of this you'll be ready to throw the book out the window in irritation! The geography of the space ship's interior is also of significant importance to the plot, but I found the book frequently referred to the details of features not previously discussed, forcing me to continually revise my mental picture of the environment. Thankfully the last quarter of the book sees the pace of events quicken, and the conclusion is a satisfactory one, leaving this reader feeling that Cavalcade is a worthwhile read, but only just.
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