- Hardcover: 416 pages
- Publisher: Bantam Press; hardcover edition (1 Jun 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0593045734
- ISBN-13: 978-0593045732
- Product Dimensions: 23.2 x 16.4 x 4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 928,615 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
John Meaney received much praise and a British SF Association Award shortlisting for his first novel To Hold Infinity (1998), full of clever new SF ideas and ingenious twists on old ones. Paradox is his second.
The setting is Nulapeiron, a many levelled world of exotic underground cities where the lower classes are literally kept below by a meritocracy of intellectual Lords. Change is forbidden, perhaps impossible: the barely human "Oracles", disconnected from time, provide snapshots from an unalterable, deterministic future. Chaos and uncertainty are dirty words and "I'll be heisenberged" a foul oath.
Young hero Tom--brought up in a deep-down bazaar--loses his mother to an Oracle's whim, his father to a cruelly self-fulfilling prediction, and his arm to the Lords' cruel justice. He's primed with hatred and inspired by a biographical data-crystal given him by an outlawed Pilot who's navigated the now forbidden fractal complexities of mu-space. Tom has enough mathematical genius to storm the pyramid of Nulapeiron's high society and perhaps gain power to take revenge--if he can also solve the paradox of how to kill an Oracle whose death date is fixed, known, and far off in time. Change would become possible...
Meaney's sustained inventiveness continues to dazzle. Paradox may be a little heavy on martial-arts action for some tastes, but the roller-coaster plot is full of unexpected twists, revelations, biotechnological oddities, changes of course and unlikely alliances. Crackling tension continues to the very end. Nice one. --David Langford --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Amazon.co.uk Review
John Meaney received much praise and a British SF Association Award shortlisting for his first novel To Hold Infinity (1998), full of clever new SF ideas and ingenious twists on old ones.Paradox is his second.
The setting is Nulapeiron, a many levelled world of exotic underground cities where the lower classes are literally kept below by a meritocracy of intellectual Lords. Change is forbidden, perhaps impossible: the barely human "Oracles", disconnected from time, provide snapshots from an unalterable, deterministic future. Chaos and uncertainty are dirty words and "I'll be heisenberged" a foul oath.
Young hero Tom--brought up in a deep-down bazaar--loses his mother to an Oracle's whim, his father to a cruelly self-fulfilling prediction, and his arm to the Lords' cruel justice. He's primed with hatred and inspired by a biographical data-crystal given him by an outlawed Pilot who's navigated the now forbidden fractal complexities of mu-space. Tom has enough mathematical genius to storm the pyramid of Nulapeiron's high society and perhaps gain power to take revenge--if he can also solve the paradox of how to kill an Oracle whose death date is fixed, known, and far off in time. Change would become possible...
Meaney's sustained inventiveness continues to dazzle. Paradox may be a little heavy on martial-arts action for some tastes, but the roller-coaster plot is full of unexpected twists, revelations, biotechnological oddities, changes of course and unlikely alliances. Crackling tension continues to the very end. Nice one. --David Langford
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Brilliant and Inventive Novel,
By A Customer
This review is from: Paradox (Nulapeiron 1) (Paperback)
John Meaney, who burst upon the British SF scene a few years back with "To Hold Infinity", is back with a book that shows he has lots of literary "legs". "Paradox" is simply dazzling, not only in the dizzying range of its ideas, which frankly put a lot of modern science fiction to shame, but in its characters, storyline, and not least of all his prose -- some of the best being turned out anywhere today. Of Mr. Meaney's first book Stephen Baxter said: "John Meaney has re-wired SF. Everything is different now." I had no idea how right he'd turn out to be. My brain, at least, was completely and utterly rewired by the time I read the last page of "Paradox". I await the next book with the eagerness of a dedicated John Meaney devotée, which is to say not at all patiently.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Biotech Noir - almost at it's best,
This review is from: Paradox (Nulapeiron 1) (Paperback)
This is biotech noir almost at it's best. The writing style is such that at least I just could follow the story, a little more obtuse and it would just have been a mishmash of words. As it is, Paradox keeps you guessing, but not too hard, a feeling of understanding what it's all about does appear even if it's not written outright. But it is a relatively difficult book, and probably incomprehensible to new SF readers. The story is partially the classic about a boy with extraordinary talents who climbs to the top. But it's then it starts to get interesting, the middle of the book is the best. I think Paradox is slightly uneven, but John Meaney is definintely an author to watch for the future, if the writing gets a little more polished great things will happen!
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disjointed, poorly executed, vague characterisation = Dull,
By weaponseed (UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Paradox (Hardcover)
What a letdown. Having read " ...infinity" several times and been taken with its plot, pace, protagonists, and detail i found nearly all of these missing from Paradox. The characters are vague and ultimately uninvolving, the plot is unnecessarily complicated and alternately trudges or zips by. The speedy bits are determined by a lack of detail (characters), the slow bits by a deep tech analysis of logical concepts which just don't ring true. This left me both bored and disapointed, as the author has previously excelled in this dept. On one level, the story is meant to deal with Tom's focused hatred fueling his desire for betterment in order to exact his revenge, or so the story briefly intimates; strange then that this interesting moral angle is otherwise ignored. Good ideas, bad execution.
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