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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating world and easy-to-read language!, 5 July 2009
This review is from: SUN OF SUNS (Virga) (Mass Market Paperback)
I am not a native English-speaker, thus I value a less complicated language, on one hand, but I do not want to read children stories with over simplistic vocabulary, on the other. This book worked great for me. I did have to look up some of the words but when I did not have a dictionary with me, I could still understand what was going on. Comparing to those worlds I have read about, seen in movies or computer games, Virga is absolutely fascinating! It is not too unusual and complicated to understand. The combination of old and new is balanced. The `old' gives a sense of romance and adventure: it is not about pressing the right buttons at the right time rather it is about reacting fast enough and being creative in one's solutions. The `new' does not put a sharp contrast between our world and the world of Virga, because it is not aliens and super technologies that make the difference, but it is a fusion of circumstances that made human development follow a peculiar path.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Cinematic swash-buckling. Yarr!, 28 Jun 2008
A story of pirates and a desperate search for treasure, with a sub-plot of resistance by a conquered people (this isn't explored in much depth and only eally serves to make one of the main characters' backgrounds a bit more interesting). The setting is a world of a several thousand mile bubble of air floating in space, which contains several miniature suns, the control of which defines nations. There is negligible gravity and for reasons that are never made clear, electronics don't work. This leads to dramatic if somewhat silly action, with jet-powered wooden airships, sword-fights in 3D, and so on. If cut judiciously it would make a great feature-length film - probably best done as a cartoon though, as shooting a whole feature to appear to be in zero G would be very hard. There are some minor inconsistencies in the environment (another reason to film it as a cartoon - cartoon physics are somewhat more forgiving!), and minor plot threads left dangling, but over all it's great fun.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
A breath of fresh air in swashbuckling adventures, 16 Jun 2009
This review is from: SUN OF SUNS (Virga) (Mass Market Paperback)
The best feature in Sun of Suns is really the setting. The author has created a believable universe set inside a world-sized baloon, with fusion-operated suns, floating cities made of wood and metal, forests, asteroids, cloud banks, even animals... the descriptions are detailed, well thought-out, and grab the reader, not wanting to put this book down until the very end. The characters are manageable, with enough depth so as not to become too stereotypical. All in all, a very good read, a nice adition to any sci-fi library, and a great introduction to an interesting universe.
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