To Hold Infinity [Paperback]

But (and it's a big but), the book is absolutely awful on three counts:

1. Characters. The characters are paper think cardboard cut-out Japanese types, with all the standard names (Akira? Ken? Ryu? - Streetfighter 2 was a major inspiration source?) and the standard trappings of Western ideas of what the future Japanese would be like. The main protagonist is a samurai warrior woman, for example, lonely but noble on a quest. Nothing new there then. And the main antagonist is evil evil evil, right down to his cold black heart. There's no real insight into the characters' minds, just the things that they say to themselves. They also have very little by way of interesting dialogue. In what could have been a promising setup for the cyberpunk-style debate on the future, what we have instead is a poorly scripted action adventure. If this story had been in the hands of Iain Banks, for example, then you would have seen much more character depth.

2. Plot. The story is really really jaded. There's this bad guy character (Raphael), who has "vampire code" that basically lets him eat other people's brains. He's sort of a cartoonish American Psycho of the future, self indulgent, but one of those characters that thinks through his evils on the page so the reader can see them. In otherwords, he's irritating as hell to read.

Then there is the story of the samurai woman on the hunt for her missing son, Testuo (Kaneda. Akira!) and the two become entangled as the bad guy goes on the hunt for the good guy's brains. That's really all there is to it. It's the stuff of cheap comic books.

3. The writing. The thing that really annoyed me the most about this book is the writing. Where Meaney is at his strongest is when describing technology, but where he's at his weakest is more or less everywhere else. His dialogue is weak and uninteresting. He uses the word "rictus" far too much. His style is straight third person with character thoughts appearing in the "he thought, she thought" manner, and with everything being very obvious, very irritating as a result. There's no style to the text at all, which makes it very dull to read.

Frankly, I'm stunned that this book was shortlisted for a prize, because if it is the sort of book that receives high praise these days, then the world of sci-fi is in serious trouble - doomed to remain in the doldrums of funky technology and not really growing as a writing field. I can only hope that things get better.

One of the nicest realizations of the cyberpunk/post cyberpunk genre I've come across, basically the story of an evil genius who goes around killing off the elite and doing very nasty things with their minds.

The balance was just right, with no theme overpowering any other. The tech was interesting, without getting annoying, as often happens in this kind of novel.

There are some extremely evocative pieces of haiku on the chapter headings that give the book a really interesting flavour.

The prose style was completely transparent, with no irritating writer-tricks to bring you back to reality. The dialogue was excellent, too. People spoke realistically, with contractions and the occasional "Err..."

The exposition was also nicely handled, simple direct explanations, with no irritating maid-to-butler sessions a la Stephen Baxter.

Reasons it lost the fifth crown:

A lot of this has already been done in 'Aristoi', by Walter Jon Williams

The plot was a little busy for my taste, two shades more contemplation and a few hard decision would mave made it almost perfect.

Also, the plot could have been a little more interwoven, I found the whole series of events just a little too simple. Of course, a sequel could build on this very nicely indeed...

All in all, I heartily recommend it.