In the Mouth of the Whale
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Fomalhaut was first colonised by the posthuman Quick, who established an archipelago of thistledown cities and edenic worldlets within the star's vast dust belt. Their peaceful, decadent civilisation was swiftly conquered by a band of ruthless, aggressive, unreconstructed humans who call themselves the True, then, a century before, the True beat back an advance party of Ghosts, a posthuman cult which colonised the nearby system of Beta Hydri after being driven from the Solar System a thousand years ago. Now the Ghosts have returned to Fomalhaut, to begin their end game: the conquest of its single gas giant planet, a captured interstellar wanderer far older than the rest of Fomalhaut's system. At its core is a sphere of hot metallic hydrogen with strange and powerful properties based on exotic quantum physics. The Quick believe it is inhabited by an ancient alien Mind; the True believe it can be developed into a weapon, and the Ghosts believe it can be transformed into a computational system so powerful it can reach into their past, collapse timelines, and fulfil the ancient prophecies of their founder.
From the Inside Flap
In the system of Fomalhaut, a war is being fought. The Quicks came long ago, refugees from the Solar System, technologically advanced and, for the moment, safe. The True arrived later, to find a declining civilisation and a system ripe for the taking. Then the Ghosts appeared, no longer human, unknowable, powerful and determined to drive out the Quick and the True. The battle continues, but the outcome is uncertain...
In a damaged and perilous Brazil, The Child lives with her mother and nursemaid, kept safe from the risks of the rainforest. Precocious and dangerous, her childhood will define the future. But control of her story has been lost, and she will find her own path through the darkness around her.
Isak and the Horse, in endless Hells as punishment for a failure they will never live down, receive a summons. A mission has been found for them, one which will lead them into the dangerous politics of the Fomalhaut system, and into the most deadly Hell of all. The Library has been compromised, and that impossibility might mean the end of the world
On the skin of the Whale, suspended far above the planet Cthuga's surface, the Quick slaves remotely control drones and bots but have no freedom of their own. Ori dreams of flight, but there is no escape from her slavery - until the Ghosts attack the Whale. In the ensuing battle she sees a sprite in the corner of her mind, and comes to the attention of someone - or something - with a deadly plan.
These three lives will intersect, because there is something at the centre of Cthuga, something dangerous and growing and powerful. Something that is worth fighting for. And it will change everybody's life.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Having read and enjoyed The Quiet War and Gardens of the sun I was expecting a follow-on narrative which took the tensions between the different Outer factions to a different locale. What I found were three narrative streams which seemed to have little to do with the preceding novels.
One thread was related. It seemed to cover the early life of Maria-Hong Owen's daughter Sri, who became a gene wizard in the previous two books. The other two threads appear not to refer back to anything but cover the growing war for Cthuga (Fomalhaut's gas giant) and the adventures of a pair of 'cyberspace hackers' from the 'Library', who have been a chance to redeem themselves, after an earlier failure, by finding two individuals who have disappeared while on an important mission in the Library.
The 'Library' I found unconvincing. The sense of wonder at the the gene- and habitat-engineering carries over from the earlier books but the 'virtual reality' hijinks is hardly much in advance of Gibson, and feels out of place here. Who needs inner space when outer space is available as infinite, real, real estate?
All is not wonderful in this post-human world. Bottom of the heap are the Quicks,who have had humanity's worst traits gene-engineered out, but unluckily for them, this has enabled their enslavement by the True, exo-skeleton-wearing old-style humans, unfortunately still wreaking havoc with those bad old traits. The True want to confirm a hypothesis that a 'mind' inhabits Cthuga but have to defend it against a third post-human clade, the Ghosts, who have an even crazier reason for wanting it. The 'Whale' of the novel's title is a giant True construct which reaches down into Cthuga's gravity well.
All this the reader needs to piece together. What I find worrying is what someone totally new to this 'universe' is going to make of it, as I struggled. Where are the introductory 'info-dumps'? Ironically, they appear and interrupt things at the end, way too late to save newcomers to this universe who may have given up long before.
Finally, this work seems to use more cliched sf elements than the first two novels and the originality that fueled them seems not to be being extended into new areas. There is also a bleakness about it, in that freedoms won in the preceding novels seem to be on the wane again....
One thread was related. It seemed to cover the early life of Maria-Hong Owen's daughter Sri, who became a gene wizard in the previous two books. The other two threads appear not to refer back to anything but cover the growing war for Cthuga (Fomalhaut's gas giant) and the adventures of a pair of 'cyberspace hackers' from the 'Library', who have been a chance to redeem themselves, after an earlier failure, by finding two individuals who have disappeared while on an important mission in the Library.
The 'Library' I found unconvincing. The sense of wonder at the the gene- and habitat-engineering carries over from the earlier books but the 'virtual reality' hijinks is hardly much in advance of Gibson, and feels out of place here. Who needs inner space when outer space is available as infinite, real, real estate?
All is not wonderful in this post-human world. Bottom of the heap are the Quicks,who have had humanity's worst traits gene-engineered out, but unluckily for them, this has enabled their enslavement by the True, exo-skeleton-wearing old-style humans, unfortunately still wreaking havoc with those bad old traits. The True want to confirm a hypothesis that a 'mind' inhabits Cthuga but have to defend it against a third post-human clade, the Ghosts, who have an even crazier reason for wanting it. The 'Whale' of the novel's title is a giant True construct which reaches down into Cthuga's gravity well.
All this the reader needs to piece together. What I find worrying is what someone totally new to this 'universe' is going to make of it, as I struggled. Where are the introductory 'info-dumps'? Ironically, they appear and interrupt things at the end, way too late to save newcomers to this universe who may have given up long before.
Finally, this work seems to use more cliched sf elements than the first two novels and the originality that fueled them seems not to be being extended into new areas. There is also a bleakness about it, in that freedoms won in the preceding novels seem to be on the wane again....
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
Paul McAuley has an amazing imagination and this meaty tome has a great blend of exciting characters, old friends (lots of spoilers so make sure you read The Quiet War first) and fabulous concepts. It may go on too much but this is counterbalanced by its bulging story lines and sequential threads. I look forward to reading it again in short succession to The Quiet War as I think this would be a great pair of novels for a long journey.
3 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
If you love a story that is dependent upon characters with a wonderful spacey twist and a plotline that moves at a decent pace then this title by Paul McAuley is a tale that you really will have to spend your time with. Its got top notch prose, some decent dialogue and an overall arc, which when blended with the author's unique writing style makes this a story that kicks the Science Fiction genre off to a cracking beginning this year.
All in a wonderful read and one that I had a lot of fun with. Hopefully you will too.
All in a wonderful read and one that I had a lot of fun with. Hopefully you will too.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
in the mouth of a mouse
Paul McAuley is not a bad writer. Gardens of the Sun, Quite War, Eternal Light are enjoyable books. The ideas are top science fiction. Read more
Published 2 months ago by erik
Detail without Prose: In the Yawn of the Whale
I know of Paul McAuley through reputation alone; that reputation of bogging down a novel with somnolent details urging the reader to cerebrally drift-off due to a unnecessary... Read more
Published 3 months ago by M-I-K-E 2theD
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