Sister Alice [Paperback]

Space opera often relies on the use of vast stretches of distance or time to imbue a sense of vastness into a story.

In fact, a lot of the time "space opera" is just sci-fi jargon for "epic".

But that depends somewhat on how epic you like your epics.

Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" series encompassed large chunks of the entire galaxy, with events stretching out for centuries.

Frank Herbert's "Dune" masterwork took place over tens of thousands of years.

But John C. Wright's "The Golden Age" unfolded "only" in our solar system, with one other star system getting involved, over the course of several weeks.

Then there is Robert Reed's "Sister Alice", which manages to cram in half the galaxy and *hundreds of thousands* of years in 358 pages, without lapsing into the cheesiness that afflicts this sub-genre.

In this compact epic, millennia pass with the flip of a page, whole worlds are shattered in a few short paragraphs, and years of near-light-speed space travel are conveyed as a meandering stroll down an icy beach.

Beginning his tale about 10 million years in the future, Reed takes wholeheartedly to Arthur C. Clarke's famous observation that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".

The main characters are members of an elite group of one thousand Familes that alone are allowed to possess mankind's most advanced -- and dangerous -- technologies. They command awesome powers capable of transforming cold, dead worlds into ones rich with life. They can create artificial structures the size of many solar systems.

These abilities are referred to as "talents" and are usually some complicated piece of machinery crafted out of dark matter, the theoretical stuff that some scientists think accounts for the 90 percent of the universe we can't see but should be there. Talents are not only for mega-scale engineering projects. There are ones that target psychology and neuroscience, or use advanced logic bombs called "eschers" to assault computer systems.

The story focuses on Ord, who at about 140 years old (if I remember correctly) is the baby of the Chamberlains, who terraforming skills have made them the most beloved and respected of the thousand Families. Alice, one of Ord's most ancient and talented sisters, has committed an error that threatens the entire galaxy. It falls to Ord to try to put things right while avoiding two childhood friends from rival Families who have been outfitted with the most advanced psychological and military talents to try to stop him.

The writing is nothing short of excellent. Reed's terse, stark prose is well-suited to the light-years of hard vaccuum and cold mental isolation of the characters. In terms of writing and sheer inventiveness, I would put Reed up there on my shelves with Richard Paul Russo's amazing "Carlucci" series and John C. Wright's "The Golden Age" trilogy.

After having read Marrow I was ready for the next big Robert Reed novel. However, I got extremely disappointed. I wouldn't say that Robert did any great character development in Marrow but he completely forgot about it in this novel!

Secondly, I clearly remember some Marrow reviewers who didn't like the arguably exaggerated dimensions (e.g. 15000 years later...). I can only recommend for those readers to stay away from Sister Alice as far as possible - we are now talking about 'millions of years'. I found the constant exaggeration of space and time dimensions useless and not adding anything to the story.

The antagonists and protagonists in Sister Alice have god-like powers and are capable of performing everything you would imagine from a god. However, they still haven't mastered to fly faster than light which kind of doesn't fit if you read about all their talents and deeds!

The story was incredible and full of potential, however, the delivery was rushed and also lacking the science part.

I am wondering what Peter F. Hamilton or Alastair Reynolds would have done with such a great plot...

Reed has created a fantastic but logically self-consistent galaxy of immortals descended from the original 1000 families chosen for immortality. The immortals know their roles in life. They are there to serve the all too mortal citizens of the galaxy. Their families once helped to avert a galactic war and, naturally, they profited from their endeavours but that is fair, isn't it?

But what is a god to do when everything else has been done before, and so often? How can a god prove that he, or she, is truly godlike. How conceited can a god become? How far from hummanity, and all its foibles, is a god-like immortal? And why does this god choose to spend her time with the youngest, the baby?

This is a wonderful book. It takes you on a fantastic journey from the edge of the galaxy to the wonder at its core.

Reed's beautiful descriptive prose affords the reader a wonderous view of the galaxy of the immortals. He is clearly one of the top high concept SF writers of the modern age.