- Hardcover: 304 pages
- Publisher: Tor Books (Jan 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 076530502X
- ISBN-13: 978-0765305022
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 2,918,044 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Amazon.co.uk Review
Engine City completes Ken MacLeod's "Engines of Light" trio of sophisticated, politically astute space operas. Previous volumes were Cosmonaut Keep and Dark Light.
MacLeod has lots of fun with UFO conspiracy theories, since here the saurian-descended "Alien Greys" with their antigravity saucers actually exist. So do hairy Bigfoot-like primates, sea-dwelling selkie folk, and other legends. Planetary fossil records are a misleading mess, thanks to tampering by the "gods".
These gods are hive-mind intellects, vast, cool and irritable, occupying comets and asteroids. They have long been transplanting intelligent species across space, and playing them off against one another, just to keep the noise down--the dreadful racket of radio broadcasts and space exploration. "Their first and last commandment is: do not disturb us."
The mixture of human and other races dumped in the Second Sphere, a far-off galactic region, is up to potentially disturbing activities: an accelerating growth of technology and interstellar trade. Are rumours of octopod alien "Multipliers" mere disinformation, or are these the Gods'-appointed nemesis for the human-led Bright Star Cultures and their commercial empire? Some long-lived cosmonauts, surviving from book one, hope for peaceful diplomatic relations. One, an unreconstructed Russian veteran, urges a massive arms programme on the world of Nova Terra. Everyone, but everyone, is in for surprises.
The twisty narrative has many cheery asides, such as the naming of a flotilla of human-built UFOs: "Matt's suggested names (Rectal Probe, Up Yours, Probably Venus, Strange Light, No Defence Significance) were all rejected..." Or a saurian's patient explanation that antigravity was useless for building their equivalent of the Pyramids, which required enormous ramps of close-packed earth, miles of rope, and tens of thousands of workers: "But when you tell people that, they don't believe you."
Towards the finale on Nova Terra, events are complicated by heavy weaponry, alien symbiosis, a programme of "guerrilla ontology" featuring literal "Men in Black" and devastating intervention by one of the gods. For excellent self-defensive reasons, the Bright Star Cultures class the killing of Gods (theicide) as a heinous crime. The provocation, however, is great...
A highly enjoyable conclusion to a fizzy, fast-moving but persistently intelligent trilogy. --David Langford --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
'Ken's books are always a delight to read .I heartily recommend the entire series to anyone who has not yet begun them. As anyone who has read Ken's earlier work, such as the STAR FRACTION or the CASSINI DIVISION will know he creates excellent novels full
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A satisfying conclusion to an interesting trilogy.,
By
This review is from: Engine City: Engines of Light Book 3 (Engines of Light S.) (Paperback)
Following the (mostly) planet bound political chicanery of Dark Light, Engine City returns the series to the stars.Without giving too much away, the story expands on the 'alien threat' and the rift between Matt Cairns and Volkovs political ambitions. There is action aplenty, political intrigue and a satisfying conclusion (although one which also leaves it open for further novels to explore). The main characters are by this time familiar and their motivations and actions are all consistent with the previous novels. One criticsm I have had of KM in previous works was that I didn't think his descriptive powers were quite up to the breadth of his imagination, however that was not the case in this novel. Overall a good book and a good point to end the series.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A fun and readable conclusion to the series,
By
This review is from: Engine City (Engines of Light) (Hardcover)
I enjoyed reading this final book in his Second Sphere series. You get a sense that the author enjoyed putting together the plot from all the SF cliches, whilst not creating a cliche SF novel. The tone has been lighter in this series than the first, and this is continued in this novel, but he avoids turning the various plots into comedy pieces. At times the world he describes seems shallower than in his earlier books, but that is probably because he is creating new societies here, and not just future versions of our own. It's another good novel from Ken Macleod, let's hope he'll quickly write another.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
MacLeod's weakest to date - which shows how good he is.,
By
This review is from: Engine City: Engines of Light Book 3 (Engines of Light S.) (Paperback)
Had this been a stand-alone book, i think i'd have loved it, but coming after the superb first two instalments it was a little disappointing. The action takes place some time after the end of Dark Light (in relative time anyway), but MacLeod lets the plot threads go a bit and toward the end it seems rather contrived and unsatisfactory. Surprising, as he manages timelines so well in the Fall Revolution novels, which are far more complex.Still, well worth reading.
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