Great Sky River [Mass Market Paperback]

This is the third in Benford's "Galactic Center" series, and the first of the novels to actually merit the name. The other books are "In the Ocean of Night" (1977) and "Across the Sea of Suns" (1984), set in the near future not far from Earth, and "Tides of Light" (1989), "Furious Gulf" (1994), and "Sailing Bright Eternity" (1995) set, as is this one, about 30,000 years later.

This is a time when humans have settled the central regions of the galaxy and have entered a period of decline forced on them by mechanical intelligences, robots who long preceded them. The middle two novels tell the story from the point of view of the

man Killeen Bishop, starting on the planet "Snowglade" where humans (heavily genetically adapted and plugged in to electronic devices) live as scavengers among mechanical constructions, a world near the galactic black hole's accretion disk. Benford's treatment of the human augmentations as something they take for granted and use with considerable skill is an interesting adaptation of "cyberpunk" ideas, though he does expend many words in the novel discussing the technical details.

Most of the machines ignore the humans or treat them as simple nuisances, but the terrifying, powerful and seemingly indestructible "Mantis" pursues and haunts the Bishop family from this novel to the end of the series, ostensibly trying to understand humans better, and in particular why they are so horrified by its sense of "art".

Another entity appears in this third novel and remains through the end - a "magnetic" life-form of vast extent, with roots in the black hole accretion disk and strands reaching to nearby stars. Benford's physics blends with poetry in describing this and many other wonders he imagines for the cosmos.

The character development here is reasonably well-done, though not as convincing as in the later "Furious Gulf". Killeen starts out as a sharp but unreliable member of the clan, growing and maturing as tragedy surrounds him. Benford seems to have a relatively limited range of primary characters: once again Killeen is the rebel, suspicious of authority and the good intentions of others, yet he ends up leading a band toward new horizons at the end.

It would have been more satisfying to have other books spanning the vast gap between the end of the second novel and the beginning of this one - rather that time period appears in flashbacks from the electronic "aspects" the humans carry, always showing nostalgia for times past. This leaves the novels rather open-ended (many threads not nicely cloesd) - but life is like that too. The breadth of Benford's scientifically plausible imagination in these novels is amazing in itself; read these novels to gain a perspective on life in the universe and what a sufficiently advanced civilization might do with a galaxy such as our own.

I reviewed in the Ocean of Night and Great Sky River in the series and felt that from these two reviews, the potential buyer can get most of what I think regarding the entire series. The whole series gets 5 stars but the flavor of the first book is very different from the other 5, with the last 4 having the most consistent story and the last book of the series bringing things full circle.

Great Sky River was the first book in the Galactic Center series I read back in 1987 when it was first released. I must say that Benford introduced me to the world of hard science fiction bringing to life and showing me landscapes of the center of the galaxy that before where flat and lifeless concepts buried in science books at the library.

Great Sky River is a tale of survival for a small group of humans who use tremendously advanced technology to survive in a location where humanity was perhaps not engineered to exist - the center of the galaxy. All throughout the series, there is this oppressing weight that the sky is falling (which it is) as a vast machine empire has crushed humanity everytime that humanity has started to stand up and become a threat/challenger to the machines but the machines are never able to eliminate humanity, some always remain - and this is the story of one group of people who literally fight for survival.

Albeit, Benford shows us a world where humanity as a race has peaked and which is is terminal decline at the relentless onslaught of an ancient and powerful machine civilization that controls most of the resource rich central part of the galaxy and its giant black hole.

*** Generic Review of Series ***
Collectively, this series of books written by Gregory Benford are known as the Galactic Center Saga. In order the books are:

1) In the Ocean of Night - Near Future
2) Across the Sea of Suns - Few hundred years from Now Future

--- Big Break in Time

3) Great Sky River - Distant Future
4) Tides of Light - Distant Future
5) Furious Gulf - Distant Future
6) Sailing Bright Eternity - Distant Future

The series is an early monument to epic science fiction on a grand scale across space and time. The prevailing concept of the books is that of how life in all its forms is resilient and how life adapts and evolves in response to different circumstances. The series also tells the story of how sometimes there is intense competition for resources and how sometimes groups seek to protect their resources. And finally, the series talks about how when things go out of balance - like human overexpansion - something happens in nature that brings back balance --- so in a large sense, the series is a cautionary tale although Benford skillfully makes out the Machine empire as the out of balance force that has to be brought back into normality but if you go back to the original book, it is humanity that is out of balance with earth.

Reading the entire series was a voyage of discovery for me. So, I first started reading the series with the third book titled, Great Sky River. The title, as best as I can remember, is a metaphorical label for the arms of the Milky Way galaxy which "flow" to the center of the galaxy. I found Great Sky River to be very entertaining fast paced, hard science fiction telling the story of survival by a few humans set against the backdrop of the wonders of the center of the galaxy in some far distant future. In this far future age, humanity civilization has already peaked and has begun a long decline and the heros struggle to survive in this far future world dominated by a vast machine civilization that dominates the central portion of the galaxy - a machine civilization that considers humans little more than a pest infestation (humans are cockroaches or rats, in this future world)....albeit the machines do consider humans interesting in some respects. So overall, a bit of a bleak world. Mind you, the machines consider interesting for a particular reason that I won't divulge for fear of being a spoiler but overall, the author plays with a whole plethora of concepts in a very intertaining fashion.

The last 3 books continue with the setting of Great Sky River (the center of the galaxy) and characters from Great Sky River. The books explore the human condition, the grandness of our universe, life, and a whole slew of other things. The last three books, particularly the last two, begin to tie in the first two books from the series and gives you the sense of the vastness of the galactic saga with the final book buttoning up everything in a rather interesting fashion.

After reading the last four series of the books and wanting more, I read that there were two precursor books. I read Across the Sea of Suns next which I found tremendously enjoyable. Across the Sea of Suns is the book which starts to set things in motion from a galactic center saga standpoint with an explanation of some core tenets for the following final four books in the series. Across the Sea of Suns is a mystery story first and foremost - which is kindof fun to read although a bit depressing because it is here that you first come to see the invisible machine empire and how powerless humanity is to do anything against them. Imagine, if some unseen alien force started sending meteors to pommel earth or send diseases our way etc - what could we do? Think of the movie Cloverfield, we would be virtually defenseless as a race against an attack like that.

Back to the first two books. In my mind, In the Ocean of Night, has a near future setting and gives me the impression of humanity being all alone in the Universe and entirely engrossed in our own petty little lives and there is talk of how we are ravaging our environment and how we are out of balance. The book plays out against the backdrop of the 1960s alternative lifestyles all embued with some of the behavior that has helped us survive as a species. I don't want to give away the story in the review so just bear in mind that this first installment of the series is very focused on the peoples, the cultures, and the society of the planet, including the interpersonal relationships of many characters. Intertwined into the book, you get the science fiction backdrop that we are not alone and you get some glimpses of a broader world.

So the prevaling theme is that of balance, the persistence of life, competition - all set against the backdrop of hard science fiction that becomes harder as you delve deeper into the series. Never as hard as Stephen Baxter who I think is phenomenal but hard science fiction nontheless.

If you don't like slow social science fiction, you might want to skip In the Ocean of Night and go straight to Across the Sea of Suns. If you want the precursor material to Great Sky River without the interhuman drama, you can read the short story on the 1972 issue of "IF" magazine - if you can find it. If you just want the fun and excitement of a fast paced hard sci fi series, start with Great Sky River and take it from there.

Overall, In the Ocean of Night is required reading but just bear in mind that its richer from a character development standpoint and not true hard sci fi like most of the rest of the series.

Hope this helps you navigate the Galactic Center Saga - I really enjoyed the entire series when I was growing up.

Over the last 20 years or so I've attempted to read all of the great Sci-Fi. The first time I read this book was about 15 years ago and at that time I felt that it was the best Sci-Fi novel that I have ever read. Clarke, Hebert, Asimov, Card, none of them have ever written as original and compelling a story as this one. I recently read it again and it was just as enthralling as the first time. Buy this book!

The jargon is a little challenging, but it adds to the authenticity of the novel. Once you get the feel for it, will seem natural.

The plot is flawless. Man has populated the stars and in doing so, crossed paths with a race that is so advanced, man hardly rates a second look. Unfortunately, this species requires a dry, almost waterless world, so as a result, humans find themselves on the brink of extermination at the... hands?, of a heartless, ruthless species.

Constantly on the run, reduced to a mere vestige of their great past, humanity is again a tribal unit of hunter/gatherers, scraping out an existence beneath the... radar?, forced to utilize the alien technology to their own ends, man searches for hope on the edge of extinction.