- Paperback: 292 pages
- Publisher: Wildside Press (1 Dec 1985)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1880448874
- ISBN-13: 978-1880448878
- Product Dimensions: 21.7 x 15.5 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 932,678 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Keith Roberts' genius is mostly remembered for the much earlier Pavane, but I got to Kiteworld first and I prefer it. Despite the direct borrowings from Wyndham's Chrysalids it's a classic of British SF, describing the last days of a grim world, painfully built up and barely held together against horror.
The storytelling is like Pavane: a group of vignettes and episodes with overlapping characters. The Kiteworld is a desperate, isolated society at the limit of its resources, teetering on the edge of civil war. The unbending cruelty of the Church Variant anchors the race to the litany of the true human form, while the duty and sacrifice of the Kites defends the Realm against remembered demons of the air. As the oil wells run dry, outsiders and fundamentalists are waiting.
The scenario matters, but a work like this depends on detail and texture. The Cody kites run all the way through, and Roberts uses their intimate chandlery of cables, cones and dope, their winches and ships, their ledger-led bureaucracy and mad or broken military servants to paint the entire world. The damaged, very human, very ordinary inhabitants of that world demand our sympathy despite the flaws that Roberts relishes into them.
Roberts is set aside from the more acknowledged greats of his generation by superior writing. It's the reason to keep coming back when others can be left as safely read and done. Sometimes it seems as though it would be easy by mistake to incorporate his vivid scenes into one's own memories: the smell and sensation of a risky launch at a remote station, or the stone streets of a decaying port town.
This is a book of the Eighties. Its concerns are mostly Eighties concerns -- nuclear apocalypse and radiation, UFOs and resource depletion. But it's classic SF and as good now as it ever was.
The storytelling is like Pavane: a group of vignettes and episodes with overlapping characters. The Kiteworld is a desperate, isolated society at the limit of its resources, teetering on the edge of civil war. The unbending cruelty of the Church Variant anchors the race to the litany of the true human form, while the duty and sacrifice of the Kites defends the Realm against remembered demons of the air. As the oil wells run dry, outsiders and fundamentalists are waiting.
The scenario matters, but a work like this depends on detail and texture. The Cody kites run all the way through, and Roberts uses their intimate chandlery of cables, cones and dope, their winches and ships, their ledger-led bureaucracy and mad or broken military servants to paint the entire world. The damaged, very human, very ordinary inhabitants of that world demand our sympathy despite the flaws that Roberts relishes into them.
Roberts is set aside from the more acknowledged greats of his generation by superior writing. It's the reason to keep coming back when others can be left as safely read and done. Sometimes it seems as though it would be easy by mistake to incorporate his vivid scenes into one's own memories: the smell and sensation of a risky launch at a remote station, or the stone streets of a decaying port town.
This is a book of the Eighties. Its concerns are mostly Eighties concerns -- nuclear apocalypse and radiation, UFOs and resource depletion. But it's classic SF and as good now as it ever was.
Format:Paperback
Keith Roberts preferred style seems to be linked short stories (see also his book Pavane). The chapters in Kiteworld are effectively self contained, though characters reappear, and the book does build to its conclusion. Structure isn't the only original thing about Roberts' writing; the world he creates is truly unique, one where badlands have been created and in which kites have taken on a mythic power as the defence against the forces from these badlands; the Kite fliers are somewhere between jet pilots and priests in status. In this setting he deals with strong human relationships and emotions. Be warned: this is not your typical fantasy or science fiction light read; some point of comparison might be Stephen Donaldson. Personally I find it all the more worth reading because of its strong themes, but it's not to everyone's taste. I have to say, the ending is very disappointing (or I might well have given it five stars). But two of the middle stories are some of the most emotionally gripping stories I've ever read. Buy it if you want to read something truly unique in science fiction.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
A true original, great to see it in print
22 Dec 2000
Format:Paperback
Keith Roberts preferred style seems to be linked short stories (see also his book Pavane). The chapters in Kiteworld are effectively self contained, though characters reappear, and the book does build to its conclusion. Structure isn't the only original thing about Roberts' writing; the world he creates is truly unique, one where badlands have been created and in which kites have taken on a mythic power as the defence against the forces from these badlands; the Kite fliers are somewhere between jet pilots and priests in status. In this setting he deals with strong human relationships and emotions. Be warned: this is not your typical fantasy or science fiction light read; some point of comparison might be Stephen Donaldson. Personally I find it all the more worth reading because of its strong themes, but it's not to everyone's taste. I have to say, the ending is very disappointing (or I might well have given it five stars). But two of the middle stories are some of the most emotionally gripping stories I've ever read. Buy it if you want to read something truly unique in science fiction.
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